JCR Vol. 08 No. 02: Symposium On The Atonement

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A Chalcedon Publication [www.chalcedon.edu] 3/31/07
COPYRIGHT
The Journal of Christian Reconstruction

Volume 8 / Number 2
Winter 1982
Symposium on the Atonement
Douglas Kelly, Editor
ISSN 0360–1420.
A CHALCEDON MINISTRY
Electronic Version 1.0 / October 6, 2006.
Copyright © 1982 Chalcedon Foundation. All rights reserved.
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THE JOURNAL OF
CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION
This journal is dedicated to the fulfillment of the cultural mandate of Genesis
1:28 and 9:1—to subdue the earth to the glory of God. It is published by the
Chalcedon Foundation, an independent Christian educational organization (see
inside back cover). The perspective of the journal is that of orthodox Christian-
ity. It affirms the verbal, plenary inspiration of the original manuscripts (auto-
graphs) of the Bible and the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus Christ—two
natures in union (but without intermixture) in one person.
The editors are convinced that the Christian world is in need of a serious publi-
cation that bridges the gap between the newsletter-magazine and the scholarly
academic journal. The editors are committed to Christian scholarship, but the
journal is aimed at intelligent laymen, working pastors, and others who are
interested in the reconstruction of all spheres of human existence in terms of the
standards of the Old and New Testaments. It is not intended to be another outlet
for professors to professors, but rather a forum for serious discussion within
Christian circles.
The Marxists have been absolutely correct in their claim that theory must be
united with practice, and for this reason they have been successful in their
attempt to erode the foundations of the noncommunist world. The editors agree
with the Marxists on this point, but instead of seeing in revolution the means of
fusing theory and practice, we see the fusion in personal regeneration through
God’s grace in Jesus Christ and in the extension of God’s kingdom. Good princi-
ples should be followed by good practice; eliminate either, and the movement
falters. In the long run, it is the kingdom of God, not Marx’s “kingdom of free-
dom,” which shall reign triumphant. Christianity will emerge victorious, for only
in Christ and His revelation can men find both the principles of conduct and the
means of subduing the earth—the principles of biblical law.
The Journal of Christian Reconstruction is published twice a year, summer and
winter. Each issue costs $5.00, and a full year costs $9.00. Subscription office and
editorial office: P.O. Box 158, Vallecito, CA 95251. Copyright by Chalcedon, 1982.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright
Contributors
Editor’s Introduction
Douglas Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
1. SYMPOSIUM ON
THE ATONEMENT
The Atonement Analyzed and Applied
Rousas John Rushdoony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Propitiation
William Still . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
The Pastoral Usage of the Atonement
Bill Kellogg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
The Atonement in Irenaeus of Lyon
Douglas Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
2. CHRISTIAN
RECONSTRUCTION
Animism in Science
Magnus Verbrugge, M.D., F.R.C.S. (C.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106
What I Believe Today
Cornelius Van Til . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141
3. CONTEMPORARY
THEOLOGICAL TRENDS
Grease
John A. Nelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150
The Christian Case Against Abortion
Kenneth L. Gentry Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155
4. DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH

Lester Roloff:
An Extended Review of His Recent Biography
Caroline S. Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205

Table of Contents 5
5. BOOK REVIEWS
The Atoning Death of Christ, by Ronald S. Wallace
Reviewed by Douglas Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Reformatio Perennis: Essays on Calvin and The Reformation
in Honor of Ford Lewis Battles, edited by B. A. Gerrish
in collaboration with Robert Benedetto
The Bible For Every Day: Abraham, Genesis 12–23,
by Ronald S. Wallace
Medicine Out of Control: The Anatomy of a Malignant Technology,
by Richard Taylor
Reviewed by Ian Hodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
“Reaganomics”: $upply $ide Economics in Action, by Bruce Bartlett
Reviewed by Tommy W. Rogers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Social Security: The Inherent Contradiction, by Peter J. Ferrara
The Future Under President Reagan, Edited by Wayne Valis
The Government Against the Economy, by George Reisman,
Introduction by William E. Simon
Is Public Education Necessary? by Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Publication Schedule Volume 9
The Ministry of Chalcedon

CONTRIBUTORS
Kenneth L. Gentry Jr., B.A., B.D., is a minister of the Presbyterian Church of
America in Jonesboro, Tennesee.
Ian Hodge, is a former professional musician and music teacher, turned insur-
ance salesman and promoter of Christian Reconstruction in Australia (New
South Wales).
Bill Kellogg, B.A., M.Div., is a writer and is pastor of a church with a ministry to
students at the University of California at Berkeley.
Caroline Kelly, M.A., B.D., is married and the mother of four children. She lives
with her family in Murphys, California.
Douglas Kelly, Ph.D., a Research Associate of Chalcedon, serves as Editor of the
Journal of Christian Reconstruction, and is a Southern Presbyterian Minister.
John A. Nelson is a Christian thinker and writer. He resides in Bogwell, Texas.
Tommy W. Rogers, Ph.D., is a lawyer in Jackson, Mississippi. He is the author of
A Demographic Analysis of Poverty in Mississippi (1979), and has contributed
many articles and reviews to numerous magazines.
R. J. Rushdoony, Ph.D., is the author of over 30 books, and is Director of Chalce-
don.
William Still, M.A., B.D., has been minister of Gilcomston South Church of
Scotland, Aberdeen, Scotland, since 1945. His books and sermon tapes are dis-
tributed on a worldwide basis.
Cornelius Van Til is the leading Reformed philosopher of religion of this cen-
tury, the author of many books, a professor-emeritus of Westminster Seminary,
and a thinker of international influence.
Magnus Verbrugge, M.D., F.R.C.S. (C.), is a surgeon and writer, and the son-in-
law of the late Dr. H. Dooyeweerd.

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
Douglas Kelly
Isaiah 53:11 speaks prophetically of the glorious results of the finished

work of Christ on the cross: “He (i.e., the Suffering Servant—now the
victoriously risen Christ) shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be
satisfied....” James I. Packer, some twenty years ago in his introductory
essay to John Owen’s Death of Death in the Death of Christ, said this
about the irresistibly victorious results of the atonement of Christ:
[The Calvinist] insists that the Bible sees the Cross as revealing God’s
power to save, not His impotence. Christ did not win a hypothetical
salvation for hypothetical believers, a mere possibility of salvation for
any who might possibly believe, but a real salvation for His own cho-
sen people. His precious blood really does “save us all”; the intended
effects of His self-offering do in fact follow just because the Cross was
what it was. Its saving power is such that faith flows from it. The Cross
secured the full salvation of all for whom Christ died. “God forbid,”
therefore, “that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ.”1
This verse from Isaiah and paragraph from Packer’s introduction
strike the theme of this issue of the Journal on the Atonement: the infi-
nitely precious sacrifice of the Son of God is accomplishing all of the
purposes for which it was offered. In the words of Isaac Watts’s hymn:
His pow’rful blood did one atone
And now it pleads before the throne.
In other words, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ was not in vain. It
is, in conjunction with the resurrection, the most effectual thing that
ever happened in space-time history. The shed blood of Christ cleanses
all of the people of God; begets in them saving faith. This potent, sub-
stitutionary death is applied by the Holy Spirit, along with the benefits
of Christ’s bodily resurrection and heavenly intercession, to enable
1. The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, John Owen with an introductory essay
by J. I. Packer (London: Banner of Truth Trust, [1959] 1963), 10.
8 JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION
God’s redeemed people: “more and more to die unto sin, and live unto
righteousness” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 35). All those deaths
to self, whereby a formerly egocentric people “count others better than
themselves” (Phil. 2:3) in order that the whole body of Christ may be
built up and “evil overcome with good” (Rom. 12:21) flow from Him
who “bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”
(Isa. 53:12). Every beam of {2} holiness, love, and moral beauty in the
redeemed—and through them in the structures of our society—radi-
ates from the hill of Calvary.
Ultimately, “the gates of hell” are not withstanding the assaults of the
church (Matt. 16:18), because Christ on the cross “having spoiled prin-
cipalities and powers, made a shew of them openly, triumphing over
them in it” (Col. 2:15). In the midst of our situation today, and more
and more as THE Day approaches, “the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world” (John 1:29) is being satisfied with the fruit of “the
travail of his soul.”2 Notwithstanding the loud and impressive rattling
of Satan’s weaponry today, history is inevitably marching toward the
time when “every battle of the warrior with confused noise, and gar-
ments rolled in blood” (Isa. 9:3) will be ended and stilled, as one sound
rises, swells, and triumphantly rings throughout an entire universe.
Our voices shall join the strain raised by hosts of angels and elders of
the church: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing”
(Rev. 5:12).
Thine is the glory, risen, conquering Son,
Endless the victory Thou o’er death hast won.
Yet our hearts are sobered, indeed heavy at “the confused noise” of
the many battles raging at present. Freedom is tragically repressed in
Poland; the draft is reinstituted in the United States. Inflation continues
even as high interest rates choke off much of a once vibrant economy.
The incredible debt loads of Third World countries as well as of West-
ern and Communist governments increase in geometric proportions.
For many it is already impossible to service the debts, much less pay
2. Cf. John Calvin, Institutes, bk. 4, chap. 1, sec. 2: “... Let us know that Christ’s
death is fruitful, and that God miraculously keeps his church as in hiding places.”
Editor’s Introduction 9
them back. American agriculture, which has fed a vast proportion of

humanity, seems on the verge of critical dislocation. Intolerant human-
ists, seeing their former political hegemony threatened, daily mount
the podiums of the liberal media to continue launching their hysterical
attacks against infuriatingly effective, conservative Christians such as
Jerry Falwell. “The slaughter of the innocents” continues at an appall-
ing rate as “civilized” doctors and nurses hack to pieces millions of
unborn babies in the wake of the 1973 “Roe vs. Wade” decision of the
U.S. Supreme Court. A Federal Court rules against the Arkansas Legis-
lature’s plan to have Creationism taught in the public schools alongside
the untouchable dogma of modern humanism: evolution.
Still, at the same time (only a day or so after this negative court deci-
sion), the Mississippi Senate passes a similar plan in favor of teaching
Creationism in government schools. And so the struggle of light and
darkness continues: “For a great door and effectual is opened unto [us],
and there are many adversaries” (1 Cor. 16:9). The struggle, though, is
not an equal one, for {3} “the light shineth in darkness, and the dark-
ness has not overcome it” (John 1:5); for this is indeed “the light that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18), “the Day-
spring from on high” (Luke 1:78), “the Light of the World” (John 8:12),
whose beams are even now shining against and flushing out “principal-
ities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness
in high places” (Eph. 6:12).
In the face of entrenched Satanic opposition, there are vastly more
evangelical Christians in the Soviet Union today than ever existed
under the Czars. Solzhenitsyn says that practically no one in any Com-
munist country believes any longer in the dogmas of Marxism. There
are now more Anglicans in Africa than in any other part of the world.
If the growth rate of Christianity continues the same for the next fif-
teen or twenty years in Africa, that massive continent will be majority
Christian, and thus by the end of this century the major portion of all
Christians will be nonwhite.
The seamless garment of humanistic control over thought and cul-
ture in the United States is being quietly rent in pieces as fundamental
Christians are sallying forth into the political arena, finally aware that
disengagement from the issues of the day is to set their seal of approval
on what the pagan elite has done to us for the last one hundred years.

Christ’s soldiers are making plans to spread His light into the spheres of
the media and entertainment, now that cablevision and the microelec-
tronics revolution are effectively ending the dominance of the three lib-
eral networks.
The educational establishment of the government schools (which are
so essential to keep this nation plummeting to the depths of socialism)
is secretly quaking before what R. J. Rushdoony has called the major
revival that is going to determine the future of this country and of the
world: the Christian school movement. Probably over one fourth of
school age pupils in the U.S. are already in private (usually Christian)
schools, and two new Christian schools are opening every day. If this
trend should continue, by the end of the twentieth century most Amer-
icans will be in Christian schools. Awareness of this inevitability is
undoubtedly the factor motivating state and federal bureaucracies to
attempt to halt the movement by taking so many Christian schools
(and now day-care centers) to court.
Humanistic government monopoly over welfare is being effectively
challenged by saints of God such as Brother Lester Roloff, who says to
parents who plead for help for their seemingly hopeless, wayward
daughter (on whom other agencies have long given up): “Bring her to
us. Jesus finished all the work that ever needed to be done for boys and
girls” (Lester Roloff Living by Faith, M. B. Roloff, 127—see “Defenders
of the Faith” in this issue).
In sum, those who experience the power of the death of Jesus are
also brought into the liberty of the Spirit. As the old lines say: {4}
The Spirit answers to the blood,
And tells me I am born of God.
It is very difficult for corrupt intellectuals and politicians to manipu-
late men and women who have been liberated from their sin and guilt
through the atonement of Christ. These same people are rising up and
building alternative structures of life and service that will honor God
and set people free to serve Him.
In the words of an evangelical hymn we may sum up what is taking
place here and now (which directly flows from what took place then
and there at Calvary):

Leaving the mountain the streamlet grows,

Flooding the vale as a river;
So from the hill of the Cross there flows,
Life more abundant forever.
Life! Life! Eternal Life! Jesus alone is the giver.
Life! Life! Abundant Life! Glory to Jesus Forever!
Life is flowing into the dead places of our society. Light is spreading
into the dark places of this world with their “habitations of cruelty.” In
spite of every temporary setback, the light and life will continue to
increase even as darkness and death continue to recede. Indeed, dark-
ness and death now in the twentieth century are still harnessed to serve
the same ultimate function they had to serve in the first: their extreme
expression was the cross, and that brought glory to God and salvation
to the human race. All the forces of darkness and death are still unwit-
ting and unwilling instruments that are inevitably used to spread the
very life and light they wish to quench. This is because He who was
bruised for our iniquities “shall see his seed, shall prolong his days, and
the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand” (Isa. 53:10).
In this issue of the Journal, R. J. Rushdoony analyzes the real mean-
ing of the atonement in his usual crystal-clear way, and, with a keen eye
open to the true causes of the neuroses and disasters of contemporary
society, shows specifically how and why the substitutionary, atoning
death of the Son of God is the only door through which we may enter
into forgiveness, healing, and obedient victorious living. Nowhere else
that we know of will you find such fascinating insight into the real state
of contemporary culture in all its rawness and need, and nowhere else
will you find more definite, specific applications of the benefits of the
cross.
William Still’s sermon on “Propitiation” (which we have reprinted
by permission) is an unflinching exposition of the righteous anger of
God against sin, and at the same time a powerful and sweet wooing of
the soul to cast itself upon the mercy of God revealed in the cross of
Christ. If you have never experienced the saving power of the cross in
your own life, this sermon may be the very means God uses to show
you the way. {5}
Bill Kellogg opens up in a very practical way “The Pastoral Usage of
the Atonement.” One of the most useful aspects of his paper is the man-
ner in which he shows how the atonement is not to be used: to attempt

to manipulate people by piling false guilt upon them, rather than let-
ting the cross do what it was meant to do: liberate men and women into
“that service which is perfect freedom.” In this regard he fairly and
faithfully deals with the so-called radical Christianity of Ron Sider. The
pastoral counselor will be helped by this article, as will the Christian
school teacher, who will find the section on “atonement and false phi-
losophies of education and apologetics” of particular interest.
In addition to the biblical, theological, and pastoral approaches to
the atonement just mentioned, your editor makes a historical study of
how in the providence of God one of the early Church Fathers (Ire-
naeus of Lyon) waged victorious battle against powerful, heretical
forces (all too similar to the same ones we face at this juncture of the
twentieth century), and in so doing laid the theological foundations
and furnished many of the tools for the church to construct in council
and creed its fundamental, evangelical understanding of the saving
work of Christ.
In the section on “Christian Reconstruction,” Magnus Verbrugge,
through an erudite, yet lucid and intriguing study on “Animism in Sci-
ence,” demonstrates the utter subjectivism and backwardness of evolu-
tionary dogma that tragically reigns supreme in the government
schools.
Two writers contribute to “Contemporary Theological Trends”: John
A. Nelson with much insight discusses the strange propensity of many
modern evangelicals to oppose law and obedience on the supposed
basis of love; while Kenneth L. Gentry with biblical thoroughness,
theological depth, contemporary understanding, and logical precision
builds a forceful, compelling “Christian Case Against Abortion.” This is
a “Tract for the Times” that dispels many misconceptions about the
subject and should move believers to action.
Caroline Kelly writes about Lester Roloff as a current “Defender of
the Faith,” to which R. J. Rushdoony adds an appendix giving an expla-
nation of the “legal” bureaucratic persecution that this Pastor/Evange-
list/Rescue Mission Worker has undergone—and is still facing in the
appeals courts. This is an important section, not least because where
Brother Roloff is now, vast numbers of us who are more traditional,

mainstream-type Christians will soon be, unless something is done to

reverse the continuing governmental policy of stifling religious liberty.
A number of significant books are reviewed in the areas of medicine,
Bible studies, theology, economics, politics, and education.
Of great interest to all will be the remarks of the beloved theologian,
Cornelius Van Til, on “What I Believe Today.”

1.
SYMPOSIUM ON
THE ATONEMENT

THE ATONEMENT
ANALYZED AND APPLIED
Rousas John Rushdoony
1. Expiation and Atonement

The terms expiation and atonement are very similar. Atonement means
the reconciliation of two parties who have become estranged. Expia-
tion is the act of payment, restitution, and restoration whereby atone-
ment is made. When we speak of making atonement, we thus speak of
both expiation (the restitution) and atonement (reconciliation).
The most serious mistake we can make with reference to expiation
and atonement is to assume that these are ecclesiastical concerns
whose sole reference is to a particular institution, the church or Chris-
tian synagogue, and its doctrine of Christ. Because the triune God is
maker of heaven and earth and all things therein, all men inescapably
have to do with God at every point, act, word, and thought in their
lives. As such, they are either in obedience to God, or in disobedience.
Whether or not men believe in God, they are inescapably tied to Him
in all their being. Man’s sin and unbelief is a moral or ethical fact; man’s
being is metaphysically the creation of God. By his sin and unbelief,
man makes himself morally estranged from God, and at war with God.
Metaphysically, however, man still remains totally God’s creation and
creature, so that, in spite of himself, man cannot depart an iota from
the conditions of his life and being as they are ordained by God.
As a result, when man sins, he seeks ethical or moral separation from
God and indeed claims a metaphysical separation as his own god (Gen.
3:5). The fact remains, however, that man is still God’s creation, and
everything he does will manifest that fact in spite of himself. Thus,
because man was created in God’s image to serve Him as His subduer
over the earth, the condition of man’s life is the law-word of God.
Whenever and wherever man transgresses God’s law, his whole being
will demand and seek expiation. Having been created responsible to
God, man will seek to discharge that responsibility, even though the

form of it is now perverted and evil. Thus, first, man continues to seek
dominion and to subdue the earth (Gen. 1:26–28), although now his
quest is turned towards the Kingdom of Man rather than the Kingdom
of God. However, all that the ungodly accumulate will only serve God’s
Kingdom (Isa. 61:6), and the lot of the ungodly will be frustration and
failure. Second, in his sin, man will inescapably seek to {7} make atone-
ment, even though he may deny in the process that he is either guilty of
sin or is seeking to justify himself. Thus, man becomes his own judg-
ment, because his whole being, as the creation of God, will serve God:
to be God’s creation means to serve God, whether willingly or unwill-
ingly. Because we are totally God’s handiwork, in all our being we man-
ifest His purpose and judgment, so that, in our sin, we judge ourselves
by our waking and sleeping, our thoughts and our dreams, in our eat-
ing and drinking, in our work, rest, and play, in every way we manifest
His judgment on our sin.
Asaph tells us, in Psalm 76:10, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise
thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.” Alexander com-
mented:
The very passions which excite men to rebel against God shall be used
as instruments and means of coercion. See Ps. xxxii.9. And so com-
plete shall be this process, that even the remnant of such passionate
excitement, which might be expected to escape attention, will be nev-
ertheless an instrument or weapon in the hand of God. This last idea
is expressed by the figure of a girdle, here considered as a sword-belt.
So too in other cases the verb to gird is absolutely used in the sense of
girding on a sword. See ... Ps. xlv. 3, and compare Judges xviii. 11, 2
Kings iii. 2.3
The Prayer Book Version renders the first half of this verse, “The
fierceness of man shall turn to thy praise.” Kirk commented, “All
rebellion against God’s will must in the end redound to God’s glory: it
serves to set His sovereignty in a clearer light (Ex. 4:16).”4
Expiation and atonement are thus inescapable facts. A distinction
must be made, however, between that which meets God’s require-
3. Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms, Translated and Explained (Grand

Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1864; reprint, n.d.), 323.
4. A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Book of Psalms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1906), 455.
The Atonement Analyzed and Applied 17
ments, and that which man, in spite of himself, renders as a means of

escaping guilt, although without success. First, legitimate expiation and
atonement meet and fulfill God’s requirements. To make atonement
legally means thus to do so in the manner prescribed by God in His
word, and in no other way. Because it is God’s law which all sin violates,
it must be God’s law alone which sets the terms of reconciliation. No
thief, adulterer, or murderer has any legal or moral grounds to set the
terms of his forgiveness and reconciliation. He does not make the law,
and he has no legitimate bargaining power with respect to it. Second,
illegitimate expiation and atonement are man’s attempts to remove the
penalties for sins on his own terms, in his own way, and in his own
time and place. In all false expiation and atonement, there is no lack of
suffering and punishment, far greater indeed than in legitimate atone-
ment, but there is no release. {8}
Hell is the end result of all illegitimate expiation and atonement. The
reprobate, insistent on their own way and their own will, give them-
selves over to eternal self-justification. They are thus totally past-ori-
ented and past-bound, endlessly rehearsing their sins and endlessly
justifying themselves (Luke 16:19–31). There is neither community nor
work in hell, only endless memory and unending and determined self-
justification.
Heaven is the habitation of those whose sins are legitimately expiated
and for whom atonement is accomplished by Christ. The memory of
their sins is blotted out even by God (Isa. 43:25), so that they are freed
from the guilt of the past and are future-oriented in this world, and
eternity-oriented in the world to come. They now work, with no curse
to hinder or frustrate their activities (Rev. 22:3), because their reconcil-
iation is real and total (Rev. 22:4).
Legitimate and illegitimate expiation and atonement are in two
directions, God-ward, and man-ward. First, all sin is an offense against
God, and all sin requires restitution to God. This is the theological
aspect of making atonement. The terms are strictly specified by Scrip-
ture. Second, sin also is man-ward, in that people are robbed, killed,
raped, injured, slandered, despoiled by fornication and adultery,
defrauded, and so on. Restitution must be made also to man, and this is
the anthropological side of making atonement. Civil forgiveness fol-
lows such restitution, even as theological forgiveness follows restitution

to God. Here again the terms of restitution and restoration are speci-
fied by God’s law-word.
False religion offers illegitimate expiation and atonement, and false
civil orders offer illegitimate expiation and atonement. Examples of the
latter are the prison system, rehabilitation programs, psychiatric treat-
ments, and so on, all very much with us.
When false religion and false civil government offer men false expia-
tion and atonement, the social order begins to disintegrate. It may talk
about love, brotherhood, and community, but it will be marked by
hatred, enmity, and social warfare. Men will be at war with themselves
and with other men, torn apart by self-hatred and a hatred of the world
and life. Illegitimate expiation and false atonement in church and state
mean that the social order begins to exhibit the marks of hell, and there
is neither peace nor community.
Ancient Rome recognized the necessity of atonement for social sta-
bility and order, and hence it required that all citizens be present for the
annual lustrations. The only exemptions allowed were military, and the
soldiers gained atonement by proxy. Rome recognized the necessity for
expiation and atonement, but it sought these things on false grounds
and hence failed to gain them.
Today, the same things are sought by means of laws, political action,
and psychiatry. If anything, the results are becoming more disastrous
now than they were then. Thus, expiation and atonement are matters of
great {9} concern, of heaven and hell, of life or death, and any person or
society neglecting them will pay the price of self-destruction.
2. Our Atonement by Jesus Christ

At the heart of Christian faith is the fact that sinful man, incapable of
making atonement to God, is redeemed by the atoning work of Jesus
Christ. This great act is set forth typically in the Old Testament sacrifi-
cial system, and it is to the Old Testament we must look first for its
meaning. We are told of man’s fall, and the subsequent course of man-
kind (Gen. 3–5). Man as a sinner cannot render unto God that holiness
and righteousness which is God’s due. Lawless man is in all his being
anti-God and is no more capable of faith in God and obedience to
God’s law than is a dead man capable of dancing a jig. Paul in Romans

3:9–20 stresses the total inability of man justify himself by self-righ-

teousness. The sinner’s self-righteousness compounds his sin.
Salvation is entirely the work of the triune God through Jesus Christ.
Because it is entirely God’s work, it is academic to discuss whether or
not man can exercise his supposed free will. If God is man’s creator,
man’s will, and all his being, is the handiwork of God and a part of His
plan. For Arminians to assume some area of independence for man is
to assume that God is not wholly God, and that man constitutes an area
of independence from God in the universe.
Moreover, the atonement, as we meet it in Leviticus, is a covenant
fact. The sacrificial system did not render expiation and atonement for
all men but for covenant man, Israelite and non-Israelite. Those whom
God chose as His covenant people were at one and the same time those
who were redeemed and for whom intercession was made. There is no
hint of universalism in the Old Testament with respect to the efficacy
of sacrifice. In Psalm 87, we have the procession of foreigners into
Zion, and, of all of them it is said, “This and that man was born in her”
(Ps. 87:5), and this fact of being born into citizenship in the Jerusalem
of God is of God’s choosing: “The Lord shall count, when he writeth up
the people, that this man was born there” (Ps. 87:6). “The people” can
be translated “the nations.” God is portrayed as choosing the peoples,
individuals from all nations, and by His sovereign choice decreeing
their rebirth and their reconciliation. To be born there means to be
born into the covenant by God’s sovereign grace. Particular persons are
saved, but no man is saved in abstraction from either Christ or Adam.
We are redeemed out of and from the humanity of Adam into the new
humanity of Jesus Christ. Our salvation is thus both individual and
particular and at the same time an aspect of the universal fact of
Christ’s new humanity and new creation: the old man or old humanity
of Adam is sentenced to death and is abolished, and the old world is
sentenced to death also. Those who are chosen and elected to {10}
redemption are transferred from one world and humanity to another.
Those who are ordained for reprobation are elected to self-expiation
and self-justification, to a cycle of sadomasochistic activities. There are
two humanities, and two kinds of expiation and atonement.
We cannot separate the facts of atonement and regeneration except
for theological analysis: in life, they are inseparable. No man is regener-

ate without Christ’s atonement, and only the regenerate are atoned for
through Christ. To speak of Christ having died for all men as individu-
als (rather than all men, i.e., all peoples, races, tongues, and tribes) is in
essence the same as saying that Christ has regenerated all men, an
impossible statement.
Can we limit this by saying Christ opened up the possibility of atone-
ment and regeneration for all men? Emphatically not, because the cross
did not constitute a possibility but the fact of expiation and atonement.
Moreover, there can be no possibility outside of God without a denial of
God. All the possibilities of atonement in the cross were and are of God’s
sovereign choice and predestination. The idea of a universal atonement
dethrones God and enthrones man.
The worldwide nature of God’s Kingdom is set forth in Psalm 87. It
develops the thought of Psalm 86:9–10:
All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee,
O Lord: and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great, and doest won-
drous things: thou art God alone.
Thus, the very psalm which restricts the Kingdom of God to those
born by God’s choice into the covenant speaks of God’s sovereign grace
to the Gentiles. Leupold titles the psalm “The Glorification of Zion by
the Adoption of the Gentiles.”5 The universalism of the faith is
eschatological: it is not a universal atonement but a worldwide
dominion by God’s sovereign and efficacious grace.
Psalm 87 declares that the foundation of the true Zion is of God. A
catalogue of some of Israel’s enemies follows, but these enemies are
now by rebirth the people of God’s covenant. All God’s people, including
singers and the players on instruments, cry out to God with joy, “All my
springs are in thee” (Ps. 87:7). They do not rejoice because they chose
the Lord, but because He chose them (Ps. 87:6). It is not their free will
they celebrate but God’s sovereign grace: “All my springs are in thee.”
The atonement is universal in the sense that men of every race and
nation are among the redeemed. In this sense, “all men” are included in
God’s election. It is not universal if all men as individuals are meant.
Christ’s expiation and atonement have reference to His covenant peo-
5. H. C. Leupold, Exposition of the Psalms (Columbus, OH: Wartburg Press, 1959),

621.
ple. Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ suffered and died for His sheep
(John 10:11, 15), {11} His Church (Acts 20:28; Eph. 5:25, 27), His peo-
ple (Matt. 1:21), and the elect (Rom. 8:32–35), and this was in terms of
an eternal and efficacious purpose by the omnipotent God. “The
world” is to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:19) because it is to be re-
created, whereas the reprobate are cast out as false heirs (Matt. 21:33–
41). The remade and new world and the regenerated humanity in
Christ shall live forever in the joy of their Lord, and in the glory of the
resurrection. An atomistic view of man can lead to the Arminian view
of the atonement, but any view that takes seriously the sovereignty of
God, and the covenantal nature of man’s relationship to God, will reject
that view. Significantly, Arminians do reject both God’s sovereignty
and covenantalism.
Lawless man makes himself his own god and law and denies God
and His law. To be redeemed means to believe in and obey God, to be
subject to His absolute government. Expiation and atonement recon-
cile us to God’s sovereign rule and government, so that, as Berkhof
points out, atonement is closely tied to intercession:
The great and central part of the priestly work of Christ lies in the
atonement, but this, of course, is not complete without the interces-
sion. His sacrificial work on earth calls for His service in the heavenly
sanctuary. The two are complementary parts of the priestly task of the
Saviour.6
Both atonement and intercession, priestly tasks, are inseparably tied to
Christ’s royal task, government: the government is upon His shoulder
(Isa. 9:6). Only those who are subject to His government by His
sovereign grace are at the same time those for whom He makes
intercession with the Father. And those for whom He makes
intercession are those whom He has made atonement for in His mercy:
they are the covenant people. The reprobate are in covenant with death
and hell (Isa. 28:15).
There are thus two covenants, two humanities, and two kinds of
atonement. Those who are the reprobate find their atonement and self-
justification in sadomasochistic activities. Those who are the elect of
6. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans,

1946), 367.
God in Christ are called out of this fruitless and self-defeating atone-
ment to Christ’s efficacious work. They move from self-government to
God’s government, from self-made laws to God’s law, from talking to
themselves to praying to God through Christ, and from the covenant
with death and hell to the covenant of God in Christ.
3. Vicarious Sacrifice
An ancient Greek religious rite gives us an insight into the wide-
spread existence of vicarious sacrifices and penalties:
... the Thargelia, a festival of Apollo at Athens, included a {12} pecu-
liar rite in which one or two men (pharmakoi) were first fed at the
public expense, then beaten with branches and leeks, and finally put to
death. The connexion with Apollo was not very marked; it seems
rather to be an ancient rite which had to do with the safety of the rip-
ening crop. Nor does it presuppose the Divine anger, though doubtless
more stress was laid on such a ceremony in time of famine or pesti-
lence, when men felt that their gods were angry with them. It was pri-
marily a means of removing any taint of evil which might bring
danger to men or destruction to their ripening crops. Because rites of
this character were out of line with the development of Greek religion
from Homer onward, it is perhaps safe to regard them as survivals
from a very early period. In themselves they shed little light on the
present question, except as they indicate that men feared the possible
anger of their gods, and possessed means to allay the anger itself. Still
these rites of riddance must be taken into account as the source of
later purificatory rites, and perhaps as the starting-point of pro-
pitiatory sacrifice.7
Fairbanks gives us an evolutionary perspective, and hence what he
describes is a very primitive rite in his eyes which historical
development made obsolete.
Such vicarious sacrifices are readily found all over the world, among
Aztec and other Indians (human sacrifices), and evidence is not lack-
ing of the prevalence and persistence thereof.
These earlier forms of vicarious sacrifice have indeed often given way
as cultures have developed and grown sophisticated, but this by no
7. James Hastings, ed., Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 5 (Edinburgh: T. &
T. Clark, [1912] 1937), 651.
means gives us any ground for assuming that the fundamental motive
in these rites has disappeared or abated.
In dealing with the fact of motive, it is necessary to begin by calling
attention to the tainted motives of fallen man. Man, as sinner and cove-
nant-breaker, approaches all things from the standpoint of his rebel-
lion. This means that, even when he accepts his guilt, he in effect
denies it. He can ascribe guilt to the environment, other people, or to
God, and he can do so directly, or, by admitting guilt, he can still do so
indirectly by insisting that the conditions of his life made sin likely or
inevitable. Thus, Epicurus insisted that the world poses a moral
dilemma: if God wishes to prevent evil and cannot, then God is impo-
tent. If God could prevent evil and does not, then God is evil. Thus, as
Epicurus framed the problem, God was in either case indicted and man
absolved, and man had every “good” reason to reject God as evil or to
rule Him out of the universe as impotent or dead.
When man is guilty, or feels guilty, he suffers. When he suffers, he
resents the fact that he does, and he is determined that others should
suffer also. For him the world is out of joint because he himself is, and
someone must pay for this. Vicarious suffering and sacrifice is
demanded by {13} covenant-breaking man, ancient and modern, as a
means of satisfying his own outrage at being made to suffer. When
Cain was angry at God, he killed his brother Abel, and Lamech (Gen.
4:23–24) made it clear that “whoever wrongs me in the least forfeits his
life.”8 The “wrong” could be a fancied one: Lamech made himself the
judge, and others a vicarious sacrifice to his own assertion of auton-
omy. The motive in all nonbiblical vicarious suffering and sacrifice is
thus a tainted and evil one. Basic to man’s life, politics, and religion is
this effort to lay his own guilt upon others. Even in masochistic self-
punishment, there is a strong sense of the evil and oppressive world of
God and man which “requires” such suffering. The masochist is an
injustice collector, to use the apt phrase of Dr. Edmund Bergler. The
world and God are to him dispensers of injustice, and he is the perpet-
ual and long-suffering victim.
8. U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, pt. 1 (Jerusalem, Israel:

Magnes Press, Hebrew University, [1961] 1972), 243.
It is clear thus that vicarious suffering and sacrifice is a part of the

life of fallen man. The masochist suffers, he believes, because God and
man are evil, and he is their appointed and innocent victim. The sadist,
on the other hand, lays his guilt on others and requires them to accept
the role of a vicarious sacrifice.
But a still deeper motive is also always present. All men who are cov-
enant-breakers are not only tainted in their motives but guilty men as
well. Although they may consciously deny or excuse their guilt, in their
hearts they know that they are guilty. It is thus guilt, injustice or
unrighteousness, which leads them to suppress the knowledge of God
(Rom. 1:18–21). They are guilty in relationship to God and His law;
they seek to make themselves gods and their own source of the deter-
mination of good and evil, of morality and law (Gen. 3:5). Denying
God is basic to their denial of guilt. If there be no God, then man can-
not be an offender against a myth, a nonexistent thing. Basic to atheism
is the flight from guilt and responsibility.
However, man is God’s creation, and every atom of his being wit-
nesses to God, as does all creation. There is thus for him no escape
from the witness of God (Ps. 139). At every hand, he is confronted by
God, God’s claims on him, and his guilt before God. Man thus stands
guilty in all his being, and inescapably so, as long as he is a covenant-
breaker.
Sigmund Freud saw man as inescapably guilty, and he held that, until
the problem of guilt were solved, religion and priestcraft could never
be abolished. Guilty men would seek somehow to find relief through
religion, and some sort of religious atonement. The abolition of reli-
gion could only be properly effected by reducing guilt to a scientific
problem and explaining it away as a survival of man’s primitive past
and of ancient drives within his {14} unconscious being.9 The practical
effect of Freud’s solution was to create a new priestcraft to deal with the
problem of guilt, psychoanalysts, with psychologists and psychiatrists
also engaged in a like task.
Man seeks, in his sin, a sin-bearer to bear the burden of his guilt.
Hence, vicarious sacrifice is basic to his outlook. “Someone must pay,”
9. See R. J. Rushdoony, Freud (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing

Co., [1965] 1975).
he believes, and pay heavily for the suffering of others. The masochist
seeks himself as the vicarious victim. He makes atonement for his own
guilt by means of masochistic activities, but, even in so doing, he is elo-
quently protesting against God and life for requiring so great a price.
Bergler has spoken of the habit of masochists of pleading guilty to
the lesser offense. His meaning is Freudian, but his insights are often
telling. Even the guilty pleas of sinful man are an indictment of God
and life. The sadomasochists deny the sin, resent the guilt, and charge
the real offense to God, life, and man.
Thus, the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice is not evaded by denying
biblical faith. It remains, in a warped and evil form, because it is ines-
capable. Whenever and wherever man denies God and His word, he
replaces it with an imitation thereof. All the categories of life are God-
created and God-ordained. Man cannot escape them; in his sin, he per-
verts them.
God’s law has penalties for sin. These penalties are fixed and
unchanging. The sin of man requires eternal death. Man is incapable in
his sin of pleasing God, or of offering an acceptable sacrifice or atone-
ment. Man cannot make a personal atonement to God, or place God in
his debt by any works or acts. His creation was of grace, and his life is
incapable apart from God’s grace of ever pleasing God. Even in his
faithfulness, he is still an unprofitable servant (Luke 17:10). Only
through the vicarious sacrifice of God the Son, who takes upon Him-
self the death penalty for the sins of His elect, can there be a remission
of sin and guilt. All atonement in Scripture is by vicarious sacrifice,
first set forth typically in the appointed clean animals (Lev. 1:4; 16:20–
22, etc.), and then by Jesus Christ (Isa. 53:6, 12; John 1:29; 2 Cor. 5:21;
Gal. 3:13; Heb. 9:28; 1 Peter 2:24).
Vicarious sacrifice is inescapable. In covenant-breaking man, it
means sadomasochistic activities; it means punishing various classes,
races, or peoples as the guilt-bearers for the rest of society. It means a
politics of guilt and hatred, and a constant social revolution, as one
group after another seeks to absolve man and society of guilt by pun-
ishing a chosen “evil” class or group which is made responsible and
guilty for man’s sins and problems.10 The failure of churches to under-
10. See R. J. Rushdoony, The Politics of Guilt and Pity (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1970).

stand the meaning of vicarious sacrifice and the freedom it creates has
been disastrous to man and society. {15} The presence of covenant-
breaking forms of atonement is always a menace to man and society.
4. Imputation
Perversity has long been native to man’s disposition, in ways great
and small. Men seem to prefer unhappiness, because they go to such
great lengths to ensure its persistence and presence.
Literature in particular manifests extremes of perversity. Catullus, in
pre-Christian Rome, is a very obvious example. Modern man is also
marked by a penchant for unhappiness and perversity, by a desire to
create conditions whereby he can accuse God and man of treating him
unfairly. His greatest pleasure is often in this triumphant charge of
injustice. He collects injustices as though injustice were gold, and then
he finds even greater pleasure in charging God and man with unfairly
and unjustly visiting them upon him. In humorous fashion, the car-
toonist Charles M. Schulz has Lucy declare,
When you feel down and out
Lift up your head and shout,
Someone’s going to pay for this!
There are times when the hatred of happiness, prosperity, success,
light, and peace are openly expressed. Usually, however, man claims to
want all things good while willfully working to ensure the triumph of
evil. In effect, man says, because I am evil and dark, let there be only
darkness.
Is this an overstatement? Let us then glance at a student poem for
confirmation, H. E. Sheleny’s “Hate”:11
The dismal rain comes down
And taps against my window pane
Like so many little demons
Striving to steal in and possess
My soul. I love the Rain.
The Darkness cascades over me
As if to engulf me in a torrent
11. Crest, vol. 2, (Costa Mesa, CA: Orange Coast College, n.d.), 20.

Of fear. I love the Dark.

The Sun warms me. It brightens
The world. It SEEMS to offer hope.
I hate the Sun.
The point is ably and powerfully made. The Rain and the Dark are
dismal, like little demons, and they seek to steal and possess the soul.
They are compared to a torrent of fear. Yet “I love the Dark,” i.e., evil,
fear, the demonic, and so on. The Sun gives light and warmth and
offers hope; ergo, “I hate the Sun.”
Man not only chooses evil, but he also chooses suffering. He seeks to
justify his continued rebellion against God and his preference for evil
by {16} indicting God for injustice in making man suffer so greatly.
The greater man’s suffering for sin, the greater his self-justification and
his sense of self-righteousness before God and man.
Theologians have rightly distinguished between original sin and
actual sins. Original sin is the evilness or sinfulness of fallen man in all
his being. It is the common attribute of all who are in the humanity of
Adam. This sin or depravity is total in that it is the governing fact in his
nature which colors his mind, will, emotions, actions, and all his being.
Just as a tiger is always a tiger, so a member of the humanity of Adam is
inescapably a man whose being is not merely marked by but is in
essence governed by original sin, the desire for autonomy from God as
a self-ordained god. Actual sins are particular acts in violation of God’s
law. A newborn babe is without actual sins; it is marked by original sin.
In the atonement by Jesus Christ, this fallen man dies in Christ and
is made a new creation in Him. His actual sins are atoned for, and his
old life and nature are sentenced to death and then made a new cre-
ation.12 Regeneration and justification accompany the atonement.
Without them, actual sins would be dealt with only, but the sinning
man would remain unchanged.
Jesus Christ, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev.
13:8), is He in terms of whom God makes all things new (Rev. 21:5).
Not only does He remove sins from creation, but He removes the fact
of sinfulness or rebellion and regenerates all things in terms of Himself
12. See Robert L. Dabney, Christ our Penal Substitute (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle
Publications, reprint, 1978).
into the renewed image of God. This means a life of the knowledge of
and obedience to God, of righteousness or justice in all our ways, of
holiness or separation and dedication to Him in all our being, and it
means also a life of dominion, man under God bringing every area of
life and thought into captivity to Jesus Christ.
This freedom of the believer is accomplished by Christ’s atonement.
The sins of the redeemed man, or of the man who is by grace singled
out for redemption, are imputed to Jesus Christ; they are laid to His
charge, entered into His account, so that He assumes the penalty of
death for us. But this is not all: through Him and in Him we have the
remission (aphesis) of sins. Our sins are forgiven; restitution is made for
them by Jesus Christ, and there is a dismissal of sins and a release. The
remission of sins means that we stand before God as pardoned men.
The atonement effects a legal change in our status before God.
But a pardoned murderer or revolutionist is still a law-breaker at
heart. Not so the redeemed man. At the same time, he is regenerated,
made a new creation, by the Holy Spirit through Christ, so that the par-
don is received {17} by the renewed man; it gives new life to one who is
newly raised from the death of sin.
To remit the sins of the ungodly is to compound evil. Humanists,
denying God’s law, insist that love and forgiveness can win over a crim-
inal and change his life. The result has been the proliferation of crime
and a growing decay of society. The criminal remains a criminal still,
and all that the humanistic remission of sins accomplishes for him is a
greater freedom to commit crime, to sin.
All offenses against God’s law require death. If we do not have the
death of Christ as our vicarious substitute, we have the certainty of
death at the hands of Christ as King and Judge. Those who commit
capital offenses against God’s law with respect to human society should
face death at the hands of a godly government as well.
It is Christ’s atonement which saves the sinner. The atonement does
not simply make salvation possible: it makes it actual, because it
secures and seals an unchanging and irrevocable salvation. What
Christ does cannot be undone, and whatever work He begins in a man,
He carries through to its eternal fulfillment and glory.
The perversity of man in warring against God is replaced by a
delight in doing God’s will, and rebellion and unbelief are replaced by

faith and obedience. Without imputation, there is no redemption. The

denial of imputation implies a humanistic faith in the self-sufficiency
of man and his ability to save himself. In Romans 5:12 Paul tells us,
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
Here as elsewhere man’s inability to grasp the full meaning of God’s
truth no more nullifies that truth than a man’s blindness obliterates the
sun from the heavens. Paul makes it clear that our solidarity with
Adam is a very real fact. Adam’s sin and fall means “that all have
sinned.” Adam is our federal head or representative man. As all tigers
and hyenas are no less tigers and hyenas from Adam’s day to ours, so
we are no less begotten in Adam’s image, and in his own likeness (Gen.
5:3).
Adam’s sin is thus imputed to all men. This is the legal fact. All of
Adam’s race are a part of a war against God, and so death is “passed
upon all men,” i.e., the sentence of death, for all sinned in Adam. Just as
a man’s liability for damages becomes the liability of his family residing
with him, and of his property and income, so the liability of Adam
becomes the liability of his race and the earth they inhabit. This is the
legal fact.
The physical and moral fact is that all of Adam’s race are begotten in
his image. We are not told how this moral rebellion is transmitted, but
we are told that it is basic to our very conception (Ps. 51:5).
Imputation is basic to our condemnation, and to our pardon. Mur-
ray cited the parallels and the contrast ably:
We cannot grasp the truths of world-wide significance set forth in this
passage unless we recognize that two antithetical complexes are con-
trasted. The first is the complex of sin-condemnation-death and the
second is that of righteousness-justification-life. These are invariable
combinations. Sin sets in operation the inevitable consequents of con-
demnation and death, righteousness the consequents of justification
and life, and, as is obvious, these are antithetical at each point of the
parallel.13
13. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.
Eerdmans, 1959), 179.
The godly man thus moves in terms of Christ and His law-word,
Christ’s righteousness or justice. His sentence of death was just, and
His redemption an act of sovereign grace. Accordingly, the redeemed
man becomes an instrument of Christ’s redeeming power and of His
righteousness or justice.
Christ as the true and new man puts into force man’s calling (Heb.
10:5–19), which David of old set forth in Psalm 40:7–10:
Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me. I
delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. I
have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not
refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteous-
ness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salva-
tion: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the
great congregation.
Even as we once did the works of Adam, so now we do the works of
Christ; we are governed by His word and His Spirit. This means that we
who are now alive in Christ are also alive to His law-word and to His
Spirit. Christ’s work being perfect, and His power extending to every
realm, He does what no human judge can do: His legal pronouncement
of pardon and remission of sins is accompanied by His regenerating
power and a new life that delights in obeying the Lord. Alexander’s
comment on Psalm 40:7 is very good:
The reference is here to the Law of Moses. Written of me is by some
referred to prophecy, by others to the requisitions of the law. The lit-
eral meaning of the Hebrew words is written upon me, i.e., prescribed
to me, the upon suggesting the idea of an incumbent obligation.
“Enjoined upon me by a written precept.” This is clearly the meaning
of the same phrase in 2 Kings xxii.13. Thus understood, the clause
before us may be paraphrased as follows:—“Since the ceremonies of
the Law are worthless, when divorced from habitual obedience,
instead of offering mere sacrifice I offer myself, to do whatever is pre-
scribed to me in the written revelation of thy will.” This is the spirit of
every true believer, and is therefore perfectly appropriate to the whole
class to {19} whom this psalm relates, and for whom it was intended.
It is peculiarly significant, however, when applied to Christ: first,
because he alone possessed this spirit in perfection; secondly, because
he sustained a peculiar relation to the rites, and more especially the
sacrifices of the Law.14

The redeemed man thus has the Lord as his federal head, a program for
dominion through God’s law, and a freedom from perversity into joyful
and willing obedience through faith. He has undergone a legal change
by imputation and remission. He has a new life by Christ’s regenerating
grace and power.
Because Jesus Christ is very God of very God as well as very man of
very man, our salvation is the work of eternity, not of time, and of the
Creator, not of the creation. It stands thus impervious to the workings
of men and history, and it abides eternally. Without imputation, man is
trapped in history and its sin and death. In Jesus Christ we have our
glorious and eternal salvation, victory in time and eternity.
The unregenerate impute sins to man and to God. Sadomasochism
means that a man’s sins are imputed to other men, or to one’s self in a
charade of self-pity which accuses God, but, in either case, there is an
implicit and explicit imputation to God and to other men. Injustice-
collecting has basic to it imputation. The injustice collector collects
injustices as a means of increasing his misery and his tally of indict-
ments against God and man. If the masochist suffers, it is suffering as a
means of indicting others and of affirming a basic innocence behind
the confessions to lesser offenses.
Those who charge the doctrine of imputation as representing a lower
morality must face this “paradox”: humanistic, sadomasochistic
imputation is a flight from moral responsibility and accountability,
whereas the biblical doctrine goes hand in hand with a true confession
of sin and guilt, and a new life of moral responsibility. Humanistic
morality imputes sin to God, the environment, society, capitalism,
communism, and so on, rather than facing man’s responsibility hon-
estly. It brings in imputation, not to redeem man from his sins, but to
absolve him falsely. Biblical imputation goes hand in hand with the sin-
ner’s full awareness of his offense against God. In Scripture, those
whose sins are imputed to Christ do not impute the guilt of sins to
Him. They freely confess their sin and guilt. It is the offense and the
death penalty which is imputed to Christ, and by means thereof the
elect are redeemed and pardoned. Those whose sins are imputed to
Christ confess their sin and guilt: they do not impute them to their par-
14. Alexander, The Psalms, 180.

ents, the environment, capitalism, their teachers, or anything else.

Rather, they are delivered from such false imputation. {20}
False imputation began with the fall. Adam imputed his sin to Eve
and to God: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me
of the tree, and I did eat” (Gen. 3:12). Eve imputed her sin to the
tempter: “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat” (Gen. 3:13). Ever
since then, imputation of this false and evil variety has been basic to
the life of man. The Bible thus does not give us a strange or novel doc-
trine: it gives us the only valid and moral form of imputation, one basic
to moral responsibility and to legal accountability in a just moral order.
5. Sacrifice
False imputation has almost the status of a science today. The source
of evil is regularly traced to a group, class, or race. Capitalism, commu-
nism, the military-industrial complex, Puritanism, the blacks, whites,
and so on are seen as the root causes of evil in the world. More sophis-
ticated forms in psychoanalysis and psychiatry impute sin to our par-
ents, our environment, our “primitive” ancestors, and so on. The
psychiatrist, modern man’s new priest, does not ask for a confession of
sins which acknowledges sin in the way that the confession of the
Office of Compline does:
I confess to God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
and before all the company of heaven, that I have sinned, in thought,
word and deed, through my fault, my own fault, my own most griev-
ous fault: wherefore I pray Almighty God to have mercy on me, to for-
give me all my sins, and to make clean my heart within me.
The psychiatric confessor receives confession in order to impute guilt
to some other person, thing, event, or cause than the confessing
person. There is absolution by false imputation: the confessing person’s
guilt is transferred and imputed to another person or cause. Basic to
modern psychiatry and psychology, as well as to its politics and
sociology, is an essential environmentalism. Environmentalism is
simply a form of imputation, and the modern world is governed by this
false doctrine of imputation. Since all of us are both the victims of this
environment, and, at the same time, the environment for all other
people, we thus impute our small quota of sin and guilt to others and
also have imputed to us the sins of our entire age and world. In every
way, man is the loser! Moreover, he exchanges a true for a false sense of
responsibility: he imputes personal sins to others while assuming sins
that are not his own.
Eugenics and the emphasis on heredity do not solve the problem of
imputation: they transfer the problem to the past, which cannot be
changed, and offers hope only in distant generations yet to come.
But this is not all. False imputation requires a false sacrifice. Some-
one must pay the penalty for the sin and guilt, and the net result is that,
in humanistic societies, social energies are directed, not towards godly
reconstruction, but towards making the guilty class or group pay the
penalty. {21} Since the accused group has a different idea of who
should be sacrificed for the social good, the result is civil conflict and
sometimes blood-letting. False imputation requires a continual sacri-
fice of the offenders, and the more grievous the conflict, the more
bloody the sacrifice.
In biblical imputation, the sinner must fully recognize that the sins
imputed to the sacrificed are his own. The evangelical formula is,
“Christ died for my sins,” not for sin in general, nor for our sins, but
mine. Sin does not belong to the environment, to capitalism, commu-
nism, nor our parents. It is personal, and it is mine. In the words of the
Office of Compline, it is “my fault, my own fault, my own most griev-
ous fault.” Biblical imputation is also the birth of responsibility. The
truly redeemed, as against false professors, are responsible persons. Bib-
lical imputation transfers us from the irresponsibility of the fallen
Adam and from his false imputation (“The woman thou gavest to be
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” [Gen. 3:12]) to godly
responsibility. Instead of imputing guilt to others, we assume the
responsibility; we find in Christ our atonement by His vicarious sacri-
fice and our freedom from sin and guilt, from irresponsibility, and
from false imputation.
The sacrificial system of the Bible sets forth this principle of
responsibility and imputation. All sacrificial animals had to be clean
animals or birds, bullocks, goats, sheep, doves, or pigeons (Gen. 8:20;
Lev. 1, 11, etc.) Thus, the first aspect of sacrifice is that the offering had
to be clean, i.e., kosher as food and hence an animal of usefulness. Sec-
ond, the animal had to be without blemish (Lev. 1:3; 3:1; 2:17–25; Deut.
15:21; 17:1; Mal. 1:6ff.). If a herd animal, it was to be a male for certain

offerings, as the burnt sacrifice. It could not be a sick or old animal but
only one in every way unblemished and valuable. Third, it had to be a
domestic animal. Some wild animals are clean, but the wild animals are
not man’s property (2 Sam. 24:24), and the sacrifice begins with the
surrender by the sacrificer of what is his, and from the best of his pos-
sessions. The wild animals are already God’s (Ps. 50:10–11). Unlawfully
acquired property could not be offered to God (Deut. 23:18). The
unbloody offerings, cereals, flour, oil, wine, fruits, etc., were all prod-
ucts of man’s labor and hence again were man’s property and exacted a
price, a sacrifice from man. The sacrifice involved the best from man’s
possessions and the best to God.
Fourth, the thing sacrificed represented the sacrificer, and, on the
Day of Atonement, represented also his sin and guilt. Aaron confessed
all the transgressions of Israel and placed his hands on the sacrificial
animal, the scapegoat (Lev. 16:21–22). The laying on of hands repre-
sents a transfer, as of the Spirit (Num. 27:18; 2 Tim. 1:6, etc.), and it was
probably normal practice in all sacrifices.
Thus, the biblical sacrifices involved a transfer of sin and guilt to a
vicarious sin-bearer or substitute. The sacrifice had to be a part of the
life {22} and possessions of the sacrificer, of his best. There was thus an
identification with the death, a confession of sin and guilt, and thus a
strong and full sense of responsibility together with gratitude to God
that an unblemished substitute was ordained by God.
The sacrificial victim thus belonged to the condemned and was a
substitute. Paul tells us that Jesus Christ is our passover lamb, sacrificed
for us (1 Cor. 5:7). Christ appeared “to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself ” (Heb. 9:26). He, as the Adam of the new creation, dies for His
elect and effects their atonement, a change in their legal status from
men sentenced to death to pardoned and free men; He changes their
moral status by making them a new creation by regeneration; and He
changes their family status by making them sons of God by the adop-
tion of grace.
False imputation breeds not only irresponsibility, an inability to face
up to sin and guilt, but false sacrifice. All who are members of the
humanity of Adam are ever involved in looking for sacrificial victims.
Whatever the problem or offense, a sin-bearer is sought out as the
scapegoat. Whereas with the biblical scapegoat there was a personal

and total confession of sins, and all men as sinners were individually
and nationally to see themselves as guilty before God for their trans-
gressions, humanism sees things differently. The offense is in essence
against man, because its definition of law and of sin is man-centered.
Man then must make atonement to man, and be sacrificed to man. Sin
is not seen as the human condition of the entire humanity of Adam but
as an attribute of a class, group, or race. The sin-bearer and scapegoat is
then a guilty segment of humanity which must be made the victim, i.e.,
the capitalists, communists, blacks, whites, male chauvinists, and so on.
Then all men see the problem as the sin and guilt of the other group,
and all men try to effect atonement and salvation by sacrificing all
other men. History then becomes, as it has been, a bloody battle-
ground. Politics becomes in the hands of humanists the art of provid-
ing scapegoats and sacrificial victims.
The word sacrifice comes from the Latin sacrificium, sacer, holy, and
facere, to make, so that it means that something is forfeited or
destroyed in order to reestablish a communion and to make holy the
sacrificer.
This Christ does for us. As Chytraeus wrote,
The efficient principal cause of Christ’s sacrifice is the will of God’s
Son, who voluntarily turned upon Himself the wrath of God against
sin and underwent abuse and dreadful torments of soul and body, so
as to make satisfaction for the sins of the human race and, with the
placation of God’s wrath, restore righteousness and eternal life to men.
John 10:15: “I lay down My life for the sheep.” Isa. 53:7: “He was sacri-
ficed because He Himself willed it.” Ps. 40:8: “I have delighted to do
thy will, O my God.”15 {23}
Because biblical imputation and sacrifice go hand in hand with
responsibility, and atonement is also accompanied by regeneration,
Christ’s sacrifice does make holy. Humanistic sacrifices intensify sin.
To illustrate, racism is today a major sin in the eyes of humanists. Thus,
where whites have been in the past guilty of racism, and of victimizing
other races, they must now be victimized and sacrificed to make
atonement for their ancestors’ sins.
15. John Warwick Montgomery, ed. and trans., Chytraeus On Sacrifice (St. Louis,
MO: Concordia, 1962), 80–81.
But the human condition outside of Christ involves total depravity,

i.e., every aspect of the individual is governed by the fall and sin, and
every people, tongue, tribe, and race is affected totally by sin. Thus, to
stay with racism, no oppressed race has ever lacked its own form of
racism as well as the full complement of sins. One group may be cul-
turally richer in its inheritance, but both oppressor and oppressed have
a common problem. Exchanging places does not solve that problem,
nor does the idea of equality, which is, together with inequality, an
abstraction and a meaningless myth when applied to the concrete and
actual situations of men and races. As there are differences between
members of one family, so there are also between members of one
nation, or one race. Abstractions only complicate the concreteness of
human problems.
If man’s problem is sin, then political abstractions and political
attempts to solve problems by finding victim groups are dangerously
false, nor do they solve the root problem. Political scapegoats are
found, and the problem is intensified, because it is falsely dealt with, in
that irresponsibility is fostered. Laws can no more abolish racism than
they can abolish sickness, death, or bad weather.
How then can we deal with racism? We recognize, first, that there is a
basic division in humanity, between those who are of Adam, and those
who are of Christ. Second, those who are of Christ are only those who
manifest the works of Christ. “By their fruits shall ye know them”
(Matt. 7:20). The regenerate do not live by man’s law and mores but by
God’s word and law (Matt. 4:4). In terms of God’s word and law, they
seek the reconstruction of all things. If we pinpoint the evil as racism,
communism, or capitalism, we may or may not deal with actual evils,
but we do so then from a perspective which is false and in itself evil. We
fail to see sin in its true nature. We become self-righteous, and, if we
deal with actual victimization, our answer is to transfer victimization
to another group. Humanistic peace treaties lay the foundations for the
next war, and humanistic solutions become the fabric of the new prob-
lems, because in essence they involve false imputation and require false
sacrifices. These sacrifices do not make holy: they pollute humanity.
Christ’s sacrifice redeems the humanity of the new Adam and makes it
righteous or just. As Paul says,

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto {24} all and upon all them that
believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short
of the glory of God: Being justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a
propitiation through faith in his blood to declare the remission of sins
that are past, through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this
time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him
which believeth in Jesus. (Rom. 3:21–26)
Man’s obedience to the law, if that were possible, could not effect man’s
salvation. The justice or righteousness of God, to which the law and the
prophets witness, requires the penalty of death upon sin. All men are
sinners, and none are righteous in and of themselves. The atonement
and justification of the people of Christ is thus not of themselves but of
Christ. By means of His atoning sacrifice, He effects the remission of
our sins and makes us legally righteous before God. Christ’s is the one
true sacrifice for sin.
Where a false sacrifice or victimization for sins is effected, a false
order and a false peace are created. If one problem is alleviated, it is
only to create another. In the humanistic worldview, we are all of us
victims, and we are all of us victimizers, because we belong to a group,
race, class, or profession someone can find responsible and hence
guilty for their plight. Men endlessly document their humanistic doc-
trines of imputation in order to “solve” problems of poverty, racism,
war, class conflict, crime, and all things else. Because of our extensive
social interlocks, all these solutions have a semblance of truth. The roll-
call of “facts” is an endless one. We are thus guilty of racism, and we are
also the victims of capitalism, socialism, fascism, or communism. We
are alternately victim and victimizer and always more and more the
slaves of the civil government which seeks atonement by imputing sins
falsely to these various factors. Politics becomes the art of imputation
so that some group or class may be sacrificed in order to save society.
False imputation destroys society, however, because it leads to false vic-
timization, to making another group the scapegoat. In the Bible, the
people had to identify themselves with the scapegoat. It was the sin of
all the people which the scapegoat bore. In humanism, others are the
scapegoats, and all sins and problems are imputed to them. The conse-

quence is self-righteousness and hypocrisy, and also social anarchy and

civil conflict. In trying to victimize one group, all are sacrificed; by fail-
ure to confess total depravity, sin is magnified and given status as good
politics and sound sociology. False imputation leads to false sacrifice,
and the result is death, not life.
6. The Unatoned
The unatoned, those who have no redemption in Jesus Christ, can-
not live without atonement. They seek that atonement in sadomasoch-
istic activities. “A large percentage” of prostitution is concerned with
meeting {25} the demands of sadomasochism.16 Politics provides a fer-
tile area of activity for many sadomasochists. We are told of Lloyd
George “that he reduced those who worked with him to nervous
wrecks, almost as a way of charging himself with energy.”17 The treat-
ment of employees and associates in the world of business and labor
unions is rich in sadomasochism. Our literature has become pathologi-
cal, and its prominent figures are perverse in their natures and writ-
ings.18
Those outside of Christ seek, consciously or unconsciously, an
atonement by means of their own sadomasochistic plan. But, without
Christ’s atonement, men are trapped in their own cycles of self-punish-
ment, pleading guilty to the lesser offense, and to sadism, ascribing the
greater and real offense to others. This sadomasochism will manifest
itself in every area of our lives, and it will lead to a politics of self-abase-
ment and self-destruction, combined with an ascription of ultimate sin
and offense to a class, religion, race, or group. Sadomasochism sepa-
rates men from reality to fantasy; it creates what Warner rightly calls
the urge to mass destruction, often presented as the salvation of man
and the world.19
16. Perry Whittacker, The American Way of Sex (New York: G. Putnam’s Son, 1974),
190.
17. Aurens Uris, The Frustrated Titan: Emasculation of the Executive (New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1972), 97.
18. See the examples given in Otto Friedrich, Going Crazy: An Inquiry into Madness
in Our Times (New York: Avon Books, [1975] 1977).
It leads not only to a nonproductive and suicidal life, but also to fear.
Out of a background of police and detective work, O’Grady saw clearly,
“Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.”20
The unatoned seek atonement, usually unconsciously, in sado-
masochistic activities, through fantasy, politics, marriage, religion,
social work, and so on, polluting all that they touch.
Consciously also, they recognize that sin must be atoned for, somehow
removed. Massive and costly political and social efforts are demanded
and instituted in order to remove sin, and we have the politics, sociol-
ogy, and psychotherapy of sadomasochism on all sides. Sin somehow
must be erased.
Another common effort was early favored by Reik: everybody sins,
so let us all forgive one another and thereby undermine the seriousness
of sin. Of course, such a reading of sin is humanistic. If man could for-
give and wash away the guilt of sin, then long ago all guilt would have
been abolished, and men would be sinning without guilt or fear. But sin
is a violation of God’s law, and the sinner cannot abolish either God or
His law, and his guilt therefore remains. {26}
The problem of guilt will not go away. John Ciardi, in commenting
in 1962 on the Adolf Eichmann case, wrote, “For the question ‘Who is
guilty?’ might better become ‘Who is not guilty?’ ” He had been in an
air crew responsible for massive destruction in Tokyo during World
War II. He commented:
But what if Japan had won and it turned out to be Japanese judges who
tried the case? What could I have offered in my own defense but, one
by one, all of Eichmann’s arguments: I was only a cog—the smallest
kind of cog, in fact, one of the four gunners who rode at least fifty feet
away from the controls and bomb switches. I only obeyed orders—
when I had to. It was my duty—alas. But in the end what could I plead
to that—happily—never-convened court but “guilty as we all are”?21
All are guilty, and there is no remission of sins. Humanism begins by
trying to abolish sin and guilt and ends by making it inescapable and
19. Samuel J. Warner, The Urge to Mass Destruction (New York: Greene & Stratton,
1957).
20. John O’Grady and Nolan Davis, O’Grady: The Life and Times of Hollywood’s No. 1
Private Eye (Los Angeles: J. Tarcher, 1974), 206.
21. John Ciardi, “Manner of Speaking,” Saturday Review, July 7, 1962.
ineradicable. By denying the fixed and eternal law of God, it substitutes

for it man’s law, which becomes quickly totalitarian and provides no
hope of escape.
Thus, Dr. Lorand sees “the demonic, dark side” of man as the primi-
tive, primordial, and personal. It is Freud’s id and ego. Our hope for Dr.
Lorand is in the superego, our socialized part. “We are constantly wit-
nessing a struggle in our psyche, recognizing hostile and antagonistic
powers in perpetual battle with the socialized part of our personality,
our censor.”22 This means when developed to its logical conclusion,
salvation by total socialization by means of the totalitarian state.
The unatoned may be in the church, and they may be in the world at
large. In either case, their lives have no valid direction. As Jude
observed, all such men are rebels against God’s authority; they are the
living dead, “twice dead”; they are like “wandering stars” having no
orbit. They are “trees whose fruit withereth,” and they are “clouds with-
out water” (Jude 10–13).
The unatoned, being aimless, are also the bored. They seek “some-
thing new” as a substitute for becoming a new creation. Thus, a letter
by a Miss B. L., aged twenty, wrote of an affair of over eighteen months
with a married man of thirty. Every sexual experiment was tried by this
“happy” couple, and then boredom apparently set in. “Nothing else to
try. Can you help us? We seem to be looking for something new all the
time.”23 Luke comments on the decadent Greek thinkers of Paul’s day,
noting, “For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent
their time in nothing else, but either to tell, {27} or to hear some new
thing” (Acts 17:21).
The unatoned may deny both sin and guilt, but they remain guilt-
ridden sinners whose lives manifest their lack of peace and their trou-
bled conscience. Having no peace, they are at war with God’s peace,
and they are troublers of the peace of this world. “There is no peace,
saith the Lord, unto the wicked” (Isa. 48:22).
22. Dr. Sandor Lorand, M.D., in the “Preface” to Arthur Zaidenberg, The Emotional
Self (New York: Bell Publishing Co., [1934] 1967), 14–15.
23. Dr. Harold Greenwald and Ruth Greenwald, “Nothing Left,” in The Sex-Life
Letters (New York: Bantam Books, [1972] 1973), 446.
7. The Atoned
One of the great proclamations of Scripture sounds forth in Romans
5:1–2 which, while specifically referring to justification, sets forth the
power and the privilege of the atoned:
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ:
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we
stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Because our atonement, our reconciliation to God, and our
justification are totally the work of God through Jesus Christ, our
security is firmly grounded in the Lord, and we have peace. We are
released from guilt into faith, grace, joy, and hope.
Peace with God is an impossibility on man’s terms, or by man’s works.
The sinner cannot find peace nor a clear conscience. Because he is a
guilty man, he is deeply and thoroughly involved in sadomasochism
and is in flight from reality. He seeks escape in the fantasy world of fic-
tion, entertainment, and self-pitying indulgence, because there is no
escape in reality. He is a self-doomed and willfully blind man.
The atoned, however, have peace with God. They are delivered from
the enervating power of guilt into the freedom of godly action. True
faith thus is alien to charnel-house theology; instead of bewailing mor-
tality and concentrating mournfully on the dead bones of its fallen
estate, it works joyfully in Christ to do His will. The Great Commission
does not ask us to spend our days mourning over past sins and what we
once were but to go forth in Christ’s power, commanding all nations of
the world by “teaching them to observe all things” which our Lord
commands, and to baptize them into the new creation (Matt. 28:18–
20).
Calvin, in speaking of the life of the atoned, declared, in comment-
ing on Romans 4:20,
All things around us are in opposition to the promises of God: He pro-
mises immortality; we are surrounded with mortality and corruption:
He declares that he counts us just; we are covered with sins: He testi-
fies that he is propitious and kind to us: outward judgements threaten
his wrath. What then is to be done? We must with closed eyes pass by
ourselves and all things connected with us, that nothing may {28}
hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true.24

The atoned do not evaluate themselves in terms of either their pride or

their guilt: God is true, and God declares them to be reconciled in Jesus
Christ, to be atoned and justified by His sovereign grace.
Atonement thus means freedom. It is freedom from sin and guilt, and
from the fallen humanity of the first Adam. We are freed from an end-
less dwelling on the past, the mark of hell, and are given a life of hope,
power, and glory. The atonement is God’s great Emancipation Procla-
mation. It releases us from the slavery of sin and death into the free-
dom of righteousness and life.
This means the ability to rest. There is neither rest nor peace for the
wicked (Isa. 48:22). It is the mark of hell to be endlessly concerned with
the past, trying to rearrange, edit, and alter past events (Luke 16:20–
31). The redeemed work to alter the present and the future by means of
God’s law-word. Moreover, being heirs of life, they can rest, one day in
seven, one year in seven, two years at the end of forty-eight years.
Those who are the living dead cannot rest: life is always running out on
them, and, with unceasing and sleepless activity and fretful self-indul-
gence, they try to seize life, but without joy, peace, or rest.
True rest and true work go together. Godly rest is productive of faith,
energy, and action, and godly work is marked by joy, peace, and rest.
Thus, the atonement also means the ability to work productively and
effectively, because we know that our labor is never vain or futile in
Christ (1 Cor. 15:58).
The life of the atoned is also deliverance from the delusions and fan-
tasies of a man-centered mind. A woman in Moravia’s The Empty Can-
vas epitomizes this reduction of reality to the limits of a person’s
thinking, so that the real is what man conceives it to be, and nothing
more. Asked, “What do you believe in?” Cecilia answers:
In nothing. But I don’t mean I didn’t believe in it because I thought
about it, and realized that I didn’t believe in it. I didn’t believe in it
because I never thought about it. And even now I never think about it.
I think about any sort of thing, but not about religion. If a person
never thinks about a thing, it means that for him that thing doesn’t
exist. With me, it isn’t that I like or dislike religion, it just doesn’t
exist.25
24. John Calvin, Romans, 180.

This is the logic of modern philosophy come to fruition. The

protagonist in the novel echoes a common opinion, a good illustration
of sadomasochism, as he recalls an opinion that
Humanity is divided into two main categories; those who, when faced
{29} with an insurmountable difficulty, feel an impulse to kill, and
those who, on the contrary, feel an impulse to kill themselves.26
The unatoned are caught in some form of this internal dialogue.
Because they are guilty, they know the power of guilt over themselves,
and they use guilt to control others. Husbands and wives try to make
each other feel guilty as the means of governing one another. A guilty
person is unfree and is essentially incapable of consistent independent
action. Preachers commonly preach to heighten a sense of guilt in their
congregations. Supposedly this is done to further holiness, but holiness
comes with faith and growth in obedience, not growth in the paralysis
of guilt. Politicians use guilt heavily to control people: citizens are
made to feel guilty for all the ills of the world and their country so that
they might surrender more power to the state. The politics of guilt and
pity is the politics of totalitarian humanistic statism.
Where control by guilt prevails, legalism does also. Man-made rules
are imposed rigorously, and law proliferates in church and state. Even
“free sex” groups impose rigid rules and find violations unforgivable.
Because man is ultimate for all such people, man’s rules are basic. Fear
of offending other persons, fear of man, is then basic, so that a double
guilt governs such men. First, there is the guilt before God, who made
them, and whose laws are implanted in every atom of their being. Sec-
ond, because man is made his own god, there is guilt and fear before
man, lest others be offended or despise the law-breakers, or rule-break-
ers, as outcasts, as socially unfit.
The atoned are free from the burden of sin and guilt because they are
legally and personally redeemed by the atonement effected by Jesus
Christ. Their salvation is grounded in an effectual, objective, and legal
act by God the Son. Pietistic religion undermines that objective legal
fact. As Aulen noted, “the watchword of Pietism was New Birth ...
25. Alberto Moravia, The Empty Canvas (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy,
1961), 272.
26. Ibid., 302.
rather than Justification—that is to say, the word chosen was one that
described a subjective process.”27 The new birth is very important, but
its importance rests on the background of an objective and unchanging
legal act by Jesus Christ. To stress the results of that act rather than the
act itself is to place the emphasis on man. The result, too, has been a
weakening of the objective legal fact. Because priority is given to man
in pietism, man then assumes a place of sovereignty: God’s legal act,
the atonement, is then available to all who of their own free will choose
Christ. The result is an ineffectual legal act made effective only by
man’s personal choice. As G. B. Long observes tellingly:
This author sees no purpose, benefit, or comfort in a redemption that
does not redeem, a propitiation that does not propitiate, a {30} recon-
ciliation that does not reconcile; neither does he have any faith in a
hypothetical salvation for hypothetical believers. Rather, he has faith
in a redemption which infallibly secures the salvation of each and
every one for whom it was designed, namely “the children of God that
were scattered abroad” (John 11:52), which is such a multitude of sin-
ners declared righteous that no man can number them. God forbid,
therefore, “that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ” (Gal. 6:14).28
It is a real and objective law, which is broken by sin. That law is not a
mere code which represents a human demand: it is the word which sets
forth the righteousness of the living God. Our redemption from the
penalty of the law for sin is Christ’s work. We are not, as Murray
pointed out, redeemed from the law itself, because the law is summed
up as our obligation to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind,
and being, and our neighbor as ourselves. “It would contradict the very
nature of God to think that any person can ever be relieved of the
necessity to love God with the whole heart and to obey his
commandments.”29
27. Gustaf Aulen, Christian Victor (London: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, [1931] 1937), 150.
28. Gary D. Long, Definite Atonement (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Co, 1966), 65.
29. John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B.
Eerdmans, 1955), 49–50.
The atoned are redeemed from the penalty of the law into the power
of the law. The law expresses the righteousness of God, and it is the
means to dominion (Deut. 28).
Our religious experiences are thus at best hardly secondary to the
supreme importance of God’s great act, the atonement. The atonement
is the charter of man’s freedom.

PROPITIATION
William Still
Reading: Romans 1:18; 1 John 2:2; 4:10.
I told you what the text was. It leads on to lots of things, but we’ll just
take the first part of it, and you will see why, later on. It is the first few
words in Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 1, verse 18. Paul has been
saying that he is not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God
to salvation, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile; for in the Gospel,
the righteousness of God, the saving righteousness of God, is revealed
from faith to faith; as it is written in Habakkuk 2: “The just shall live by
faith.” And then he goes on to say, “For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.”
Some modern scholars, who work on the Scriptures and teach others
how they should read them and what they should preach and teach
about them, are very unhappy with this word, “wrath,” because they
don’t believe it applies to God at all. They think that that word, along
with the word practically synonymous with it, “anger,” ought not to be
applied to the God of the Bible and of the Gospel, the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the God who is love; because they think to speak
about the wrath or anger of God at all suggests ideas that rank pagans
have about an angry God, with the suggestion—it is perhaps more in
their minds than in other people’s minds—that God is liable to get into
a temper, a bad temper, and be capricious in His anger; vindictive
indeed, and arbitrary and unethical. But even the Bible tells us there is
such a thing as righteous wrath, righteous anger. Why shouldn’t God’s
wrath, which Paul speaks about here and the Bible speaks about in so
many places—more places than you might imagine—be righteous
wrath? Surely we can assume that when the Bible says God is angry,
that God is wrathful with wicked men, it doesn’t mean He is in a bad
temper, but that His anger and wrath are righteous.

Propitiation 47
That is why in the second portion of Romans which we read, while

the Revised Standard Version reads the word, “expiate,” in 3:25, we
stand by the Authorized Version, which reads, “propitiate,” which
means to appease one who is angry.
Turn to 1 John 2:2, where practically the same Greek word for
“propitiation” in the Authorized Version is also translated, “expiation.”
You find the same again in the fourth chapter of the same letter, verse
10; “expiation,” again, for our sins. They have changed the translation
in these places, because, they say, {32} this must refer to the removal of
sin without reference to an angry God. We can’t have an angry God.
The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ can’t be angry. We can’t
have it; it savours too much of superstition, heathenism, paganism.
Well, that, it seems to me, is like saying we must put out a fire without
reference to the cause of the fire—such as fire-raisers or incendiary
bombs. Nothing started it!
That is to say, the expiation of sin, not the propitiation of an angry
God, the expiation of sin is something done in a vacuum. It imperson-
alizes the whole action. It is said that it is just a fact that we are sinners
and have sinned, and by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on the
cross, sin is put away. It is “expiated,” without reference to God; not that
God is excluded altogether, they could hardly do that, although some
even would go as far as that, but they exclude any reference to a God
who is angry with sinners. I hope you see that this is nonsense. Some
have gone to great lengths, they have ransacked the Old Testament and
the New Testament, and ransacked pagan literature, Greek and so on,
to try to prove that this is so, because they don’t like the idea of an
angry God.
Now it must be clear, and it is to anyone who has sense—it is amaz-
ing how little sense some people have—it must be clear that the wrath
of God spoken of in Romans 1:18 is holy wrath. It is the wrath of a holy
God. And I want you to note in that connection that in 3:25 it is God
who puts forward Jesus Christ as our propitiation. We don’t offer to
God our propitiation. Another of their objections to the idea of an
angry God being appeased is that the pagans offer gifts to appease their
gods when calamities come upon them. They appease their angry gods
by offerings and gifts. But we don’t offer gifts to God to appease His
anger; it is God Himself who provides the Gift we give Him back again,

Jesus Christ. It is He who puts forward His own Son, Christ crucified,
to be our propitiation.
Now, note that it doesn’t say that Christ is put forward to be our Pro-
pitiator, although He is. That is to say, He is not offered us merely as a
Saviour who does something for us, but He is offered us as Someone
who, having done something for us, is Himself the propitiation. It is
Christ who is our propitiation, not merely what He has done, although,
of course, it is Christ having wrought efficaciously, that is offered to us:
but it is not the mere fruit, as if Christ handed you something and said,
“Here is your redemption; here is your forgiveness,” and then ran away;
as a messenger hands a gift in at the door, and the door shuts and away
goes the messenger; he has done his job! Not a bit of it! It is Christ
Himself, the Worker, who comes to us Himself. It is Christ, personally,
who is our salvation, because we become new creatures in Him; and it
is with all the efficacy, the fruit, of what He has done, and is the propiti-
ation for our sin.
“Yes,” you say, “you keep using that long word, and some of us don’t
know what it means.” Well, one way of translating the word, {33} “pro-
pitiation,” which should possibly be found in the Revised Standard Ver-
sion of Romans 3:25 and elsewhere, is simply to call it by the term,
“mercy-seat.” If you looked at Hebrews 9:5 you would find the word
“mercy-seat” there, and it is exactly the same word in the Greek here.
I’m not saying it should be translated the same, but it is exactly the
same word in the Greek, and it is there translated, “mercy-seat.”
You want to know what propitiation means? Let me take you back to
the Jewish Tabernacle in the wilderness. God gave Israel the dimen-
sions and prescribed the furnishings of the place in which they were to
worship God; with its outer court and brazen altar, on which they sac-
rificed the animals, and the laver for washing themselves before they
entered the first division of the Tabernacle. Within that, the Holy Place,
were three pieces of furniture; the table of the shewbread, the seven-
branched candlestick, the altar of incense; all of gold. Then there was
the curtain, and behind it the ark of the covenant, the wooden chest
completely overlaid with gold, so that no wood was to be seen. Inside
the chest were the two tables of the Ten Commandments, the Deca-
logue as we call it (see Ex. 20 and Deut. 5).

Propitiation 49
As the ark stands hidden in that unspeakably dark inner chamber

called the Holy of Holies, there is a seat on top of the ark, overlaid with
purest gold. Who sits there? God sits there! That is His Judgment Seat,
and He is judging men according to the Ten Commandments inscribed
in the tables within the chest. That is the judgment seat. But then, one
day in the year only, in the month of October, on the Day of Atone-
ment, the High Priest of Israel will dare to part the curtain and go in to
that place where no one is to enter on any day of the year—except this
one man only. If any other man entered he would be smitten to death.
But the High Priest does not enter empty-handed; he enters with a
vessel bearing the blood of the animal which has been sacrificed out-
side, and very fearfully he takes of the blood in the basin and sprinkles
it on the golden seat above the Ten Commandments. It is the blood of
the Lamb. God is there: invisibly, we may think of Him, but that is His
seat.
But it is then no longer a judgment seat, but a mercy seat. The sins of
the people not only have been expiated, blotted out by the sacrifice of
the Lamb, who, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ, but the anger of
God, who is seated on the judgment seat, and who is wrathful with
men because they have broken His commandments, every one of them,
the anger of God is appeased, assuaged, exhausted, and it is then mercy,
not judgment, which He dispenses from that seat to those who will
come to Him by the blood of the Lamb.
That is what propitiation means, and you can see it when it is applied
to the Lord Jesus Christ in His death on the cross for us. For, you see,
our text, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven,” tells us that God
is angry with sinners in their sins. I said to you a moment ago that you
find the {34} wrath of God expressed in many places in the Old Testa-
ment and in the New; a number of times in the New, perhaps oftener in
the New than in the Old. For it is our Lord Himself at this point who
says, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey
the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests on him” (John
3:36).
You find the wrath of God mentioned quite a number of times in the
book of Revelation, more often there than anywhere else; and we even
read in 6:16–17 of “the wrath of the Lamb.” Not only is God who sits on
that judgment seat angry with sinners, but the Lamb Himself who spilt

His blood for the forgiveness of sins and the deliverance of sinners, is
angry with men because of their rejection of His sacrifice and the
atonement He has made.
But back again to our text. “The wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” If you
were to scan the first chapter of Romans from verse 18 onwards, you
would see that God is angry with men because they turn their backs on
Him so that they may not feel the guilt of their wicked deeds; that is
why He is angry. He is angry with them because of their sins, but He is
much more angry with them because they won’t face their sins and
admit them and turn to God and receive forgiveness for them. They
turn their backs upon Him, because they can’t stand the feelings of
guilt and shame which come over them when they know they commit
wicked deeds in God’s sight. They ignore what they see of God in
nature, blind their eyes to what they see of the glories of nature. The
sunset tonight, the glimpse that I had in a moment of freedom to see
just the last remnants of the sunset, it was marvellous! Just a little strip
of light and etched against it, silhouetted against it, a few chimney pots.
It was so beautiful against the dark of the night as I looked, that it spoke
of the glories of God’s creation and of His grace and goodness.
But men turn their backs upon God as they see Him in nature, men
turn their backs upon God as they know Him in their own consciences
(that is the beginning of Romans 2). Men turn their backs upon God as
they see Him in the Commandments and in the whole Old Testament
law. Men even turn their backs upon God—sometimes, most of all,
when they see Him in the holy Gospel, where both the grace of God
and the wrath of God are revealed, because the anger of God is
revealed in that cross. Rich blood was spilt because of men’s sins, and
so there is wrath there as well as mercy. There would be no need of
mercy if men had not sinned, and God was not wrathful with them.
And so men turn their backs upon all the light God shines upon
their paths, the glories of nature as God has created it, fallen as it now
is, the light that God has streamed into men’s consciences to know
what is right and what is wrong, the light God has given to men by His
holy law in the Old Testament and the far greater, blazing light in the
Gospel. Men have turned their backs, and today are still turning their
backs on all that. Why? {35} Because they want to go on living their

Propitiation 51
own lives and doing what they want and living in their sins; and since
this is so, they dismiss the Christian church and they dismiss the Chris-
tian gospel and they dismiss the Bible and they dismiss anything that
has to do with good at all, simply because they want to live their own
kind of lives.
We understand, of course, why this is. They are blinded, have shut
their eyes and have turned away; but it is all because they have been
wrought upon by a certain character, a loathsome enemy of God, the
devil. And that is why Paul, speaking about those who are blind, having
turned their backs upon God, and who, therefore, cannot see the glory
of His grace, says of them, “In their case the god of this world has
blinded the minds of the unbelievers” (2 Cor. 4:4). The devil has
blinded men’s minds. Indeed, when they turn against God they don’t
even know that they are being wrought upon. When men turn their
backs on the Gospel, they think they are doing it all by their own intel-
ligent wit and will. They don’t like it. They don’t believe it. “Away with
your Bible and your Gospel,” they say. But they don’t know that they are
being wrought upon by the devil, that it is he who makes them do it.
But that is what the Gospel says, “In their case the god of this world has
blinded the minds of unbelievers.”
Nonetheless, they are responsible for yielding to the enemy, and for
following him, even though they do not know him as such nor call him
by his name. They still have consciences, and that is why Paul, writing
to the Ephesians and speaking about men who have turned their backs
upon God and His holy gospel, calls them “children of wrath.” Of these
he says, “We [Jews] all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following
the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of
wrath, like the rest of mankind [Gentiles]”(Eph. 2:3).
So men who turn their backs upon God are children of wrath,
although they are unaware that God is angry with them. How can they
know that God is angry with them? How can they see His flaming
wrath when the devil has come to them and wrought upon them, and
they have gladly welcomed his attentions until they themselves turn
away in hate? They are absolutely unaware of it. If they really knew that
God in heaven was flaming angry with them in their sins, they
wouldn’t sin as they do. And they will not know until the Spirit of God

breaks into their consciences and tells them, “God is angry with you for
what you do and what you are!”
That is exactly what happened to David when he took another man’s
wife and, to get her, murdered her husband. He committed adultery,
and then murder. Now, here was a man who had quite a lot of light,
because God had regarded him as a very favoured man and had
revealed very wonderful things to him; and yet, in a moment, because
he was greatly tempted in his own passions, he turned his back upon
God and lusted after that woman, and to get her, had her husband slain
in the battle. Then he took her. But, {36} because God doesn’t wink at
our sins but knows every sin we commit, God sent His prophet,
Nathan, to him, to say, “David, I’ve a story to tell you.” And he told him
the story of the man who, having guests come to his home, instead of
taking of his own large flock to make a feast for them, helped himself to
the one ewe lamb of a poor man. When David heard the story, he was
furious with the man for taking the poor man’s one ewe lamb to make a
meal for his guests, but Nathan said to him, “Wait a moment, David;
not so angry, unless you are being angry with yourself, because you are
the man. That is what you have done. You have plenty of wives, far too
many, and this godly man, Uriah, who was not even of your nation, and
one lovely wife, Bathsheba; and because you have not enough wives
and concubines of your own, you have taken his one, lovely, pure wife
and have killed her husband to get her. You do right to be angry at this
story, David, if you are angry with yourself!”
And it was thus that David knew what he had done. He didn’t know
beforehand, or, rather, wouldn’t let himself know that God was angry
with him for his sin. David never prospered after that. He might have
laid down his head and died there and then, because there was no good
in his life.
But you see the point? God had broken into the darkness of his
wicked heart and mind through the prophet, and had streamed light
into his soul to show him how angry God was with his sin; and then,
this is the interesting thing, David later wrote a poem about it, he was
so repentant. And in that poem he neither speaks of the wrong he did
Uriah, the man he had murdered, nor the wrong he did his wife, com-
mitting adultery with her, nor the wrong he did himself being God’s
servant and the king of Israel, nor the wrong he did Israel by leading

Propitiation 53
them into trouble that lasted for generations and generations. He does
not speak of the wrong he had done to the man, or the woman, or him-
self, or anybody, but God. He was so filled with the knowledge of what
he had done in God’s sight, the wicked, horrid, and filthy thing he had
done in God’s sight, that this is what he says, “Against thee, thee only,
have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight, so that thou art
justified in thy sentence and blameless in thy judgment” (Ps. 51:4). O
God, it is against You, it is against You only!
That doesn’t mean to say that he hadn’t sinned against the man and
the woman and against himself, but it meant that the sin he had com-
mitted against God was so heinous that the sin he had sinned against
the others seemed slight, almost, in his sight, compared with the fact
that he had wronged his God who had blessed him so.
You see what that tells us? When the knowledge, the news, the light
streams into our souls, that God is angry with us in our sins—the
things we treat so lightly and joke about—the revelation fills all our
horizon. The whole sky becomes black and we see nothing but the
anger of God filling the whole universe and smothering our souls; so
much so, that when it descends {37} upon us as an unspeakable black-
ness, our sin seems so heinous in the light of God’s wrath that it seems
impossible for it ever to be forgiven. We believe, then, that there is no
possibility of forgiveness, nothing in the world can ever atone for such
an enormity of sin.
And yet, you see, we are so made, that we say, “But I must try. O
God, I must try to make amends. I must try to atone for my sin, God.
You cannot forgive me. It would be indecent for You to forgive my sin.
It would be dishonourable; it would be unjust; it would be a monstrous
wrong for You to forgive my sin. God, You can’t do it. I must atone. I
must make amends. How will I make amends? Punish me, God. Visit
me with Your wrath. Visit me with Your judgment. I must pay for my
sin. If not, I will have to punish myself and suffer every day of my life
until I have paid for my sin.”
That is what conviction of sin says, when we see the wrath of God for
our sin. But someone comes along with the Bible in his hand and says,
“Yes, you are a wicked fellow, you are a wicked fellow. God says so, and
I agree with you, and say that what you have done is very, very wicked.
But, look, the Gospel says that God forgives. He forgives sinners.” “Oh,

no,” you say, “He can’t, it’s too cheap. He can’t forgive my sin. Nothing
that He could do, could forgive my sin. Only I myself can forgive my
sin by atoning for it. I must pay for it by suffering. It’s too cheap that He
should forgive me.”
And then the preacher, or the witness with the Bible in his hand,
begins to speak about the death of Jesus, and says, “Do you know what
this Book says?” One day, God sent His Son for sinners and put Him
on that cross and thrashed Him to death for sinners: the sinless One,
who never sinned one sin from birth to death, not one sin of thought or
word or deed! And God thrashed all the sins of all men on Him unto
death. God vented all His wrath for the sins of men, including your
sins, upon Him, so that you could go free and really be forgiven.
That is not cheap; and the proof of it is that Christ in Heaven who is
now the Advocate, is praying night and day—and there is no night
there—praying night and day for repentant and believing sinners, and
saying, “O God, You must keep forgiving them, because, remember, I
died for them. You must forgive them, Father. I know they are bad and
wayward and perverse, but you must forgive them, because I died for
them.” “And so,” says the preacher, “He died for you in particular. He
was thrashed for your sins; the thrashing, the punishment, the judg-
ment for what you did, if it was a sin like David’s, or any one else’s, has
been paid for. He was thrashed to death for it. There is nothing you can
do and nothing you need to do. It is done, it is done, it is done.”
Listen to this hymn: you know it well: {38}
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
[that is, Christ’s death]
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Not the labours of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow,

Propitiation 55
All for sin could not atone:

Thou must save, and Thou alone.
Nothing in my hand 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.
Or, this hymn:
Jesus, Lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high;
Hide me, O my Savior, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide;
O receive my soul at last!
Other refuge have I none;
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone;
Still support and comfort me.
All my trust on Thee is stayed;
All my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.
Indeed, this is the sin of sins, that when you have been convicted of
your sin, when you know the wrath of God is upon you because you
have sinned and some one comes to you with the Gospel, you say, “Oh,
no, I can’t take that; it’s too cheap.” The death of Jesus, too cheap! “I
must make atonement for my own sin.” That is the sin of sins, which
will not let God forgive you, because you are so proud. You will not
even forgive yourself, you are so proud; you will never forgive yourself
for sinning when you learn that God is angry with you—which you did
not know before.

This is the second shaft of light that has to stream into our souls. The
first is a horrid shaft of light which reveals how angry God is with us.
The second {39} is far more difficult for us to accept. Did you know
that? It is to know that God forgives you freely by the death of Jesus
Christ and all you have to do is to lift your hands (and He even helps
you do that) to receive His salvation, His redemption.
It is so humbling to accept His mercy. “No, no,” we say. “Justice! I will
not accept justice vested in Another. I will only accept justice that has
been done by myself. My pride will not allow me to accept this great
sacrifice which Christ has made for me. I cannot accept. I will try and
save myself.”
And so, to come to Jesus Christ involves two deaths. The death of
learning what wicked sinners we are in His sight and how angry God is
with us; and, second, the death to our pride; coming with empty hands
like beggars and saying, “Oh, God, I’m undone; I’ve made an awful
mess of it and I can do nothing to undo it, but You have done some-
thing for me. I accept it. I accept Him, and propitiation concerning my
sins. Come and forgive me. Come and forgive my sins and take me into
Your heart, a saved sinner.” Will you?
Let us sing this hymn:
Depth of mercy! can there be,
Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God His wrath forbear?—
Me the chief of sinners, spare?

THE PASTORAL USAGE
OF THE ATONEMENT
Bill Kellogg
Introduction
In this age of guilt, and its exploiters, it is essential that those who teach
and counsel in the church apply the full counsel of God to the lives of
God’s people more faithfully than has been the case for years. This
writer has attended only two churches where the Scriptures were
applied in a clear and powerful way to the lives of twentieth-century
believers. In the vast majority of churches that I have attended the
preaching read twentieth-century psychology lessons from the Bible
(an especially common instance of this is David going through “male
menopause” or “the midlife syndrome” in 2 Sam. 11). In some of the
Reformed churches that I have attended, though the preaching has
been doctrinal, yet it was not effectively applied to the lives of the peo-
ple. Either the teaching was so academic in character that it never
touched ground, or it was couched in the language of the seventeenth
century. Thus it was insulated from twentieth-century people. Like-
wise, our counseling is often richer in twentieth-century relational psy-
chology than it is in the pure milk and meat of the Word. A few thick
volumes could be spent cataloging the various categories of inadequate
preaching and counseling, but that would be of little profit. It will be of
far greater value to begin a discussion of what profitable use Scripture
is for both teaching and counseling.
Let us begin by outlining some general principles to guide us in the
task at hand.
First, our usage of the atonement or any other biblical doctrine must
always be in accord with the context of Scripture. This may seem like a
foregone conclusion, but in reality it is not. Many times in the crush of
daily responsibilities, whether in the vocational Christian ministry or
in some other calling, those involved in teaching doctrine neglect to
study the context of a doctrine adequately. This is a special danger

when one is teaching a topically organized lesson rather than an expos-

itory lesson from the text of Scripture itself. As one example of this pit-
fall, not long ago the writer heard a sermon from the text of the
Authorized Version on Proverbs 3:5–6. In this sermon the pastor’s
third major point was that if we trust in the Lord completely, He will
guide our path in life. He cited Romans 8:28 by way of illustrating this
point. The only problem with the sermon was that Proverbs 3:6 {41}
does not teach that God will guide us through life, but rather that if we
trust in the Lord wholly, He will make our path “straight,” or lawful, as
opposed to the crooked path of unbelievers. The preacher’s point was
an excellent point, but he should have used another text, if that is the
point he wanted to make. Another famous example is the use of Reve-
lation 3:20 as a text for evangelism. Such usage of this text is illegiti-
mate. The passage is a call for the church to repent of her compromise,
not a call for sinners to repent and believe the gospel. This is not to say
that we may not draw inferences from the text that are not brought out
in it explicitly, but it does mean that we should not use a passage to
teach something that is inconsistent with the explicit teaching of the
text.
Not only should our usage of a doctrine be consistent with the texts
of Scripture that teach it, but our usage should be consistent with the
nature of the doctrine itself. For instance, to use the atonement as a
means to make people feel guilty for something they are doing or not
doing would be inconsistent with the very nature of the atonement
itself. Christ died on the cross to remove our guilt, and to make us the
very righteousness of God judicially now, and practically in the eternal
kingdom. The writer has heard a number of sermons that have grossly
violated this principle in making the people in attendance feel that they
were totally unworthy before God, and must “save souls” if they would
be in God’s good graces. If we would use the atonement to motivate
believers to action, then we must use it as the incomprehensible exam-
ple of self-sacrifice for the kingdom of God that it is.
Consistency to the text of Scripture, and consistency to the nature of
the doctrine itself are still not enough. Our usage of any given doctrine
must be consistent with the whole counsel of God. Orthodox Chris-
tians confess that the Bible is a self-consistent unity, and so it is. Often,
however, a given doctrine is applied in such a way as to do violence to

The Pastoral Usage of the Atonement 59
other doctrine. Not long ago a minister performed a funeral for a high-
school boy from his own congregation. The young man had been killed
in an accident. The pastor assured the family and congregation that the
deceased was in glory because he was a covenant child by baptism. The
problem was that the young man had a reputation as a rebel against the
church and his family. In this case the minister not only violated the
Reformed teaching on baptism, but he also did violence to the Scrip-
ture teaching on human responsibility; sanctification (cf. Heb. 12:14);
the honor of God, etc. At this point he failed to “rightly divide the word
of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). With these three guidelines in mind let us con-
sider the application of the atonement from select passages in the New
Testament.
The Atonement and False Guilt

Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in
respect to a festival or a new moon on a Sabbath day—things which
are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to
Christ. {42}
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-
abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he
has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. (Col. 2:16–18,
NASV)
False guilt is not a new thing. It is an ancient game used by the prin-
cipalities and powers, and evil men, to enslave God’s people. Briefly,
false guilt is any guilt that does not arise from violation of some godly
obligation, which comes explicitly or by proper inference from Scrip-
ture. In Paul’s day the Judaizers went around enslaving both Jewish and
Gentile converts to falsely understood elements of the Old Covenant.
Further, they laid the burden of a Gnostic doctrine of angels and ascet-
icism on the new converts as well. The story has not changed through
the ages, only the sources for false guilt have varied. The cure is still the
same. In the verses preceding those quoted above, Paul reminds the
Colossians of their position in Christ, and focuses particularly on their
vicarious death to the flesh in Him. From this position he concludes
above that they are to allow no one to act as judge to them in things
that are not Gospel obligations. (Paul’s use of the atonement in Coloss-
ians 2 will be of further interest as it applies to apologetics and educa-

tion in the last section of this article.) As New Covenant believers we

can only stand in the finished work of our Head if we are to be strong
against the snares of the evil one. And it is only as we thus stand that we
can be free for profitable kingdom endeavors in all of life.
There are three examples of false guilt that we will examine in the
light of Christ’s atoning work. We use them by way of their frequency.
First, everyone involved in teaching or counseling in the church today
has dealt with the false guilt of adolescents. Young people are not only
oppressed by the class consciousness that is one of the intended evil
effects of graded progressive education, but they also suffer under the
guilt that comes from their failure to measure up to some imagined
ideal of perfection. The writer had opportunity to counsel with a young
woman who suffered from excessive shyness. She felt that she was ugly.
It was not that she compared herself with other girls, for she had few
female friends and did not pay much attention to other girls. She hated
herself because she did not measure up to a standard of her own imag-
ining. What was remarkable about her situation was that she was one of
the most striking beauties that I have seen. From talking with one of
her friends, I learned that she had discouraged many a young man who
had shown interest in her. She did so because she could not believe that
they could be genuinely interested in one as homely as herself. What
was the hated flaw in her appearance? She could not endure the fact
that her nose was too big and veered a bit to the left. No one could see
the basis of her complaint without studying her face for some time!
This story is very common. Many young people condemn themselves
because they are not gods like Adonis or Venus de Milo. This self con-
demnation is {43} nothing to be laughed at either, as many young
women especially, will carry it to the point where they will starve
themselves to death, on the grounds that they are too fat, or they will
commit suicide in some other fashion for any number of imagined
flaws.
In dealing with this kind of problem in a Christian way, we not only
need to determine the exact history of the individual’s problem,
through listening to them, but we must determine whether they are
regenerate or not. Grace is not some superficial icing on the religiously
neutral cake of human existence. If a counselee has received the grace
of God in Christ, then they must be dealt with as the new creatures that

they are; as citizens of the growing order over which Christ is Head
(see R. J. Rushdoony, Revolt Against Maturity [Fairfax, VA: Thoburn
Press, 1977], 165ff.). If they are not regenerate then they must be ear-
nestly called to repentance. They must be shown that the evil root of
their problems lies in their state of rebellion and spiritual death (cf.
Rom. 1:18–3:18; or Eph. 2:1ff.). In short, they must be shown that their
problem is much blacker than they thought, but that the most desper-
ate part of their condition is common to all men. We must encourage
them, though, that they are indeed blessed in having the particular
problem that brought them for counsel.
It is a priceless opportunity to identify the raging cancer within, and
to obtain the only cure possible.
False guilt implies both a false standard of righteousness, and a false
atonement. The young woman mentioned above, though she was and
is a regenerate Christian, labored under a false standard that comes
straight from the rebellion in the Garden. She assumed that she should
be perfectly symmetrical as a Greek goddess should be. Unknown to
her, she was practically denying the biblical doctrine of creation in this
false standard. If she had understood and believed the doctrine of cre-
ation in everyday life, she would have accepted her particular crea-
turely endowment as a wise gift from God. But as it was she labored
under an idolatrous standard, and condemned herself for failure to
measure up. Further, she atoned for her failure through self-imposed
exile from the many young men and women who would have
befriended her. Each weekend she would stay at home and punish her-
self with schoolwork. Her consolation was academic achievement, but
even that was tainted by disappointment. She thought she was a failure
even in this area, having received such low marks as three “A” minuses
and one “B” in the three years of high school.
In dealing with this young woman, as mentioned above, it was nec-
essary to get her to talk about her problem: how she perceived it, her
feelings, etc. As the problem was rooted in a faulty doctrine of creation,
I began by asking her if she believed that God created all things. Then I
asked her if this meant that God had created her too. She said that she
was a creature of God. I then asked her if God had played a dirty trick
in making her the way {44} He had? She said that He had not. I asked
her if she was telling me what she knew was the orthodox answer, or

what she really felt? She replied that she had real problems at this very
point. I then pointed out to her that she hated herself because she was
judging in the light of a false standard. I pointed out to her that the
heart of all sin is our insane belief that we are somehow divine, and that
she hated herself because she did not fit the supposed image of deity. I
told her that men have always had the greatest hatred for their bodies
and their emotions, because these most remind us that we are not
divine, but creatures.
My second step in dealing with this young woman was to open
Colossians 2:8–19. I pointed out to her that in Christ she had died not
only to the righteous demands of the law against her as sinner, but that
she died to all of the false claims that evil men and her own fallen self
would lay on her. As to the results of the few sessions that I had with
her, I am not very hopeful. She came from a mixed-up family, and I did
not have as much time with her as I felt necessary to really help. Nor
did I have the opportunity to meet her family or work with them,
which would have been most helpful.
A second type of false guilt that both the counselor and teacher must
often confront is that kind which is a direct evasion of the real sin in
the individual’s life. A fellow minister had a young woman come to him
for counsel. She complained of not being able to eat. She said that when
she sat down to a meal she would think of all of the starving and mal-
nourished children in the third and fourth world nations. If this young
woman had gone to some evangelical ministers with such a complaint,
they would have praised her for her heightened sympathy with the
poor and oppressed of the world, and encouraged her to major in Latin
American studies. My friend, however, was not so inclined, and real-
ized that her professed guilt was a cover up for something deeper. He
asked her directly what the real problem troubling her was. She tried to
fend off his probing, but he replied that she would get no healing until
she was willing to confess the real sin that was troubling her. After a
brief silence she tearfully confessed that she had been having sexual
relations with her father. I do not know how this case came out, as I did
not hear the rest of the story. Needless to say, it was not resolved in one
or two sessions.
The cover up mechanism used by this young woman is familiar to us
all, for we have all tried at one time or another in our lives to avoid a

real source of guilt by replacing it with some lesser or imagined sin. We

can then punish ourselves, and avoid major surgery, or so we think. But
when we try to make our own atonement for sin it becomes a matter of
continual and growing slavery. We become obsessed with our problem,
and sometimes our refusal to deal with the real sin and guilt leads to
breakdown. Truly, when we do not acknowledge our sin we waste away
(Ps. 38). The wonderful thing about owning up to the real sin is that
there is a real and finished {45} atonement to cover it. The sin is con-
fessed and behind us. We are then free to focus our energies on profit-
able endeavors, rather than on subjective and false guilt.
The third example of false guilt that we want to consider came upon
the evangelical church in the mid-seventies. It is the result of the influx
of revolutionary thinking through books such as Rich Christians in an
Age of Hunger (IVP/Paulist Press). This book by Ron Sider of Eastern
Baptist Theological Seminary opens by citing United Nations statistics
on world hunger, and talks at length about the possibility of India or
some other third world nation blackmailing the United States with a
nuclear bomb to get food. Throughout the book Sider talks about the
sin of the rich northern hemisphere nations as the prime cause of the
lamentable plight of the underdeveloped nations of the world. Whether
Sider intended to make his readers feel guilty and fearful is immaterial:
he does it one way or another. By the way, for an excellent critique of
Sider and the Radical Christian movement, see Robert E. Frykenberg,
“World Hunger: Food is not the Answer,” Christianity Today, Decem-
ber 11, 1981. He points out just how un-Christian and implausible the
whole guilt-raising campaign on World Hunger is.
Sider’s book is a masterpiece of proof-texting that violates all three of
the guidelines that we noted in the introduction. First, he takes the
doctrine of covenant redemption as it is in Exodus, and strips it down
to nothing more than God liberating the oppressed Jewish people (Rich
Christians, 60). He uses this example as an illustration of God’s plenary
concern for the liberation of all the physically poor and oppressed
everywhere. This violates, among other things, the context of Exodus,
which not only shows no concern for any oppressed people other than
God’s covenant people, but speaks of God’s total wrath against Egypt
culminating in the killing of the first born from the son of Pharaoh to
the first born “of the captive in the dungeon” (Ex. 12:29). Why are the

Hebrew’s spared? Because of the blood of the covenant on their door-

posts. God saves the Jews because He remembers His covenant with
Abraham (2:24). In the book of Exodus there is no saving concern out-
side of the covenant, and the same is true for the rest of Scripture.
Secondly, as noted above, Sider violates the biblical doctrine of salva-
tion by making it into a purely physical liberation. At no place through-
out the book does Sider talk about the relation of salvation and the
covenant. He does not, because in the moment that he admitted the
biblical concept of covenant redemption, his whole thesis would fall
dead to the ground. Nowhere in the Bible is the physical plight of men
separated from their spiritual plight as an object of God’s direct con-
cern. Every passage that speaks about the poor being oppressed has to
do with inequities within the covenant community. The one possible
exception is the story of the Good Samaritan. {46}
Thirdly, in his reduction of the doctrine of salvation to a purely
physical liberation, Sider does violence to the whole counsel of God.
Nowhere in his book does he talk about the physical plight of pagans as
in some degree judgment upon them for their worship of the creature
rather than the creator (Rom. 1:18ff.). He does not talk about the Gos-
pel or the Kingdom, and how God seeks to totally restore us to profit-
able servanthood through the Gospel. Sider not only does a gross
disservice to the counsel of God in taking Scripture out of context, but
he does a gross disservice to the very poor that the radicals tell us they
are so concerned about. By muddying up the waters with pop theology,
economics, and lots of false guilt, he and his colleagues of like mind
have simply succeeded in complicating what is already a very perplex-
ing problem.
Someone remarked recently that radicals, whether they call them-
selves Christians or not, are like lemmings who are bent on their pro-
gram of societal and self-destruction. Could it be that this insane desire
for death is another instance of self-atonement for misplaced guilt? As
R. J. Rushdoony has noted in the above-mentioned work, man’s
attempts at atonement are both sadistic and masochistic. The sinner is
out to atone for his false guilt by destroying others as well as himself.
The radicals, like their ancient forbearers the Pharisees, do not want to
admit that evil is a matter of a corrupt heart. No, it is rather unclean
hands, or immoral women, or publicans, or in these latter days capital-

ist parasites, or anything but my rebellious self that is the source of evil
in the world. When we are faced with such teachers of false guilt and
atonement, we must remember the words of Paul in Colossians 2, that
we have died to the flesh and its ways. All of it was nailed to the cross,
and we are free to serve!
The Atonement and True Guilt

At first it may seem passing strange that men would load themselves
with so much false or groundless guilt when they have so much to feel
really guilty about—like the many blasphemies perpetrated against
their Creator and His word. If we have understood what Scripture has
to say about man, though, it should not surprise us that man creates his
own guilt. Having rejected the one true God and His word, man must
come up with his own idolatrous substitutes. Thus he must come up
with his own idolatrous guilt and atonement as well. But no matter
what he does man cannot at any time admit into court his real guilt, for
at that moment his god, his guilt, and his law would vanish, and he
would be left naked and helpless.
Believers in Jesus Christ, though they are righteous in Him, still have
the inherent corruption from the fall within. As a result, we not only
miss the mark of God’s righteousness in our living, but we still set up
our own false standards that have nothing to do with God’s kingdom
and righteousness. Thus we still struggle with both true and false guilt,
but unlike those who {47} are outside of God’s kingdom, we have an
atonement made by our King for His servants. Whenever we are faced
with guilt of whatever kind we must hold up the shield of the finished
work of Christ. Where the guilt is false, baseless guilt, we must let it fall
to the ground. Where it is true guilt from some lack of conformity to
God’s righteousness, we must by the power of the Holy Spirit endeavor
to put such sin away from us, as that which is unworthy for children of
the King.
One sin that is and always has been a pitfall to God’s people is that of
lawlessness. Paul deals with it in Romans 6:1ff., and applies the atone-
ment to it. To those who say “let us continue in sin that grace might
abound!” or to put it in modern words, “Christians aren’t perfect: just
forgiven!” Paul says, “how can we continue in the very thing that we
have died to in Christ?” Those who have been baptized into Christ by
the Holy Spirit have been baptized into His death. Do dead men play
tennis? No more than true Christians can live lives characterized by
sin. The fact is that Christians still do sin, just as faithful Abraham did,
but if they really belong to the Lord that is not what characterizes their
lives.
There are those in the church today who say that as long as someone
prays the prayer at the end of the Four-law booklet they are Christians,
no matter what they do after that. Many of those who believe this do
not realize what they are saying because they have been given a lawless
view of Grace. There are a few, however, who know exactly what they
are saying. If you probe such ones you will find out that they hate God’s
law, whether it be found in Old or New Testaments. They hate God’s
law because back of that they do not accept themselves as being crea-
tures. Men hate law for the same reason they hate the body and the
material aspect of the creation: because all three remind them that they
are not the divine fire that they dream themselves to be. If man were
the god that he claims to be, he would not need law. Only creatures
need law as the structure within which they can function and live.
Being limited, they have to have a structure, a basic direction within
which to focus their creaturely energies: otherwise they dissipate like
water does when it breaks out of the water main.
Paul’s use of the atonement against antinomianism is brilliant! We
must make note of it if we would deal effectively with believers who
have been led into a lawless view of grace. If you start talking about a
right view of law such believers may not understand what you are say-
ing. The first step is to talk about the nature of the atonement. The
cross is central to their view of grace, as it should be. However, just as
they do not understand grace, so they do not really understand the
focal point of grace—the cross. Paul’s question is a good one to begin
with, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Why not? Take
them to the brink of the cliff that they are heading for anyway. Pull
them to the very edge, so that they will begin pulling away. Next bring
in Paul’s second question, “How shall we that are {48} dead to sin, live
any longer in it?” Was I really on that cross through faith in Christ?
Was He really dying for me? If I believe, I must answer yes. Then I must
also answer that I am dead to sin. An illustration will be of use here.
Suppose that a student has failed two of three exams in a course on

which the course grade depends. At that point he is a slave to failure.

There is no point in even showing up for the third exam. But if the pro-
fessor calls him up and says that his whole grade will be based upon the
third exam alone, he is no longer a slave to failure. He can now work
toward success in the course. The analogy is theologically weak, but the
basic point is there. Before I died in Christ through faith, I was a slave
to sin. I had no hope of ever gaining God’s favor. Now that I have died
to sin in Christ, I am free to live unto God and His righteousness (Matt.
6:33).
The law was written on the cross. The cross was the only answer,
other than hell, to the law’s just demands against sinners. Jesus Christ
not only lived to fulfill all righteousness, but he died to fulfill the law as
well. He died so that the law which was “good and spiritual” and
“intended for life” might be life in Christ to those who trust only in His
atoning death as their acceptance before God. The law was never
intended to save anyone. It was always and only the righteous standard
of God’s kingdom. The people that know God’s grace as their accep-
tance before Him know God’s law (the Scriptures) as the way of life and
blessing within God’s grace.
The sin of antinomianism has many faces to it. We often see it in one
form, but swallow it in another. Many people can readily recognize the
form that says, “All you need is to pray to receive Christ as Saviour, and
there is nothing that can separate you from God after that.” Few, how-
ever, perceive the antinomianism of many who say all the right words,
but do not abide by them. There are many individuals who learned the
Augsburg, Heidelberg, or Westminster confessions and/or catechisms
by heart, who nonetheless do not follow the great truths they have
memorized. No matter how sparse or how detailed your confession,
James says “Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it
not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17, AV). Antinomianism may be a satanic
hatred of law; it may be an incomplete or false view of grace, or it may
be the belief that knowing and confessing are essential, but that doing
is optional. No matter what form it comes in, it is dangerous. We can
deal with it effectively, though, and one powerful tool available to us is
a right understanding of the finished work of Christ on the cross.
In chapter 7 of Romans, Paul deals with a closely related sin—legal-
ism. As in chapter 6, he applies the atonement to it, and so it is of inter-

est for our study. Legalism and antinomianism are Siamese twins,
linked by a false or incomplete view of Creation. As such, they are like
volitionism (Arminianism) verses determinism (hyper-Calvinism). In
both of these so-called antinomies (pun intended) people fail to carry
the doctrine of creation out {49} as Paul does in Romans 9. In the first
case, both the legalist and the antinomian want to maintain their pre-
tended independence by offering God the sop of lawless/heartless con-
fession or a lawless/heartless obedience. Man is obligated to give God
his entire created being—beginning with his heart—as a perpetual
thanksgiving offering for his creation and sustenance by God. With
regard to the other so-called antinomy—volitionism vs. determinism—
man is not willing to accept the creaturely nature of his thinking. Both
the Arminian and the so-called hyper-Calvinist believe that their
thinking is not created (finite, dependent, and derived). So they try to
resolve the mystery of God’s total sovereignty and man’s creaturely
responsibility as if their thinking were divine and therefore ultimate.
When we think of legalism we think of a self-justifying legalism, but
legalism, like its twin, has many faces. Paul in the first part of chapter 7
deals with our death to the law as our accuser and/or a means for self-
justification. When we were alive in the flesh (our unregenerate and
fallen selves), we were subject to the condemnation of the law. The law
demands that one keep every point to be acceptable before God. No
one can do that. But when we died at the cross with Jesus Christ, we
died not only to sin but to the law as the standard of God’s holiness,
which could only condemn us. Having died to the law as our accuser,
we are now free. We serve God by the power of the Holy Spirit. The law
is to us what God intended it to be: the way of life and blessing to His
redeemed covenant people.
However, legalism has a second face. It has always been a temptation
for God’s people who have begun in grace to believe that they can be
sanctified by the law. Paul deals with this in the latter half of chapter 7
of Romans as well as in the epistle to the Galatians. In the latter half of
chapter 7 Paul argues from his own experience that the law alone can-
not sanctify. How could it? It lacks the power to create obedience. That
is why in Romans 8, Paul teaches that we must walk by the Spirit.

The Atonement and the Meaning of Love

But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:8, NASV)
The Greek word that is rendered “demonstrate” is a beautiful term.
Its root meaning is literally “to stand with.” It is used in this sense in
Luke 9:32, where the apostles see Moses and Elijah standing with the
Lord on the mount of transfiguration. In 2 Peter 3:5 it is used to speak
of the creation “consisting” by the word of God. In the present text it is
an illustration of what love means in the Bible. God demonstrates His
love by standing with us even though we are sinners. Biblically, love is a
commitment of the will at its heart. God proved His love for us, His
people, by committing Himself to us, even while we were still rebelling.
He did this in the most graphic way possible: He sent His Son to pay
the penalty for our rebellion. The atonement, {50} then, stands as the
graphic proof and definition of God’s love for His people.
Before going any further let us apply our three general principles for
the proper application of a scriptural doctrine. First, Paul’s usage of it is
consistent with the context of the Gospel accounts (cf. John 3:16).
Scripture at many places speaks of the atonement as the outworking of
God’s love. Secondly, his use is consistent with the nature of the doc-
trine itself. The atonement is at its heart a demonstration of God’s
redeeming love. The second point that Paul draws from it in verses 9–
11 is consistent with the nature of the doctrine as well: having paid
such an unspeakably great price for our justification, how much more
we can be assured of our sanctification and perseverance. And thirdly,
Paul’s usage is harmonious with every other facet of the counsel of God
as a whole: his usage of the atonement here does not violate any biblical
teaching at all.
It remains for us to derive a proper usage of the doctrine from this
passage for our own context as twentieth-century believers. First, in the
atonement as the demonstration of God’s love, we can see an important
principle of ministry. There is a lot of cheap talk about love these days
both within and without the church. Sadly, there is a great lack of lov-
ing action. Part of this poverty of loving action flows from a confusion
about what love is. We will deal with this confusion in the next point.
But with so much talk and so little action people are rightly skeptical
about our words. How are unbelievers to know that we really represent
the one true God? According to this text, they will know that we are
credible witnesses to the gospel because we prove our love to them
through loving deeds. After we have shown a tangible concern for
them, our words will have a concrete meaning. How do I apply the
atonement in my witness to my neighbor? Prior to beginning a gospel
proclamation, I demonstrate a gospel concern for him. I start by get-
ting acquainted. I help him work on his house, car, etc. I invite him to
next Saturday’s baseball game, or to come along on the next hunting
trip. All during this I am secretly praying for his salvation. With all of
this tangible concern, he will soon ask what makes me tick. Then I can
tell him about God’s love in the atonement.
Secondly, in the atonement we see the very definition of love. Love is
a commitment of the will. God was committed to us His people while
we were still rebelling against Him, so we know that His love is not
some sentimental attachment based on our attractiveness. The world
today, and unfortunately many Christians, sees love as a sentimental
attachment that you have or you don’t. In marriage, if you have it, you
have the only reason for being married. If you don’t “it’s too late,” and
“it’s over.” With this view of love, we should not be amazed by the num-
ber of divorces amongst both Christians and nonbelievers. We should
rather be amazed at the number of couples that do not get divorced! I
had opportunity to counsel with a {51} Christian couple who were
contemplating divorce because they didn’t love each other anymore.
Their marriage had been built on the false, sentimental view of love.
What’s more, they viewed God’s love as essentially a heavenly version
of their sentimental love. I shared with them the meaning of love from
Romans 5:8. I told them that this is the kind of love that husband and
wife are to have for each other (cf. Eph. 5:21 ff.). After the first session
they moved back together, and now, a few years later, you’d think they
were a couple of newlyweds just off their honeymoon. Love is a com-
mitment of the will, as we noted above. As my will is committed
unconditionally to my spouse, the marvelous thing is, the feelings fol-
low right along. The more you work at the commitment, the more the
feelings of attachment and abiding joy grow. The more I simply trust
and obey God’s word, and the atoning example of my Lord, the more
my attachment to and delight in His kingdom, word, my wife, family,
fellow believers, and my neighbor grow. Here is a powerful application

of the atonement that we must preach to the assembly of the church,

and apply in counseling with broken individuals and families.
Finally, the term that is rendered “demonstrate,” as we noted above,
gives us a beautiful illustration of the fruit of the atonement and the
love that it exemplifies. As the word of God is the ground upon which
the creation “stands together,” or “consists,” as Peter tells us, so too the
atoning love of God in Christ causes us to “hold together” both indi-
vidually and collectively. Christ died so that we might be redeemed
from sin and its fragmenting force. As we build upon Christ’s atoning
work, and the love that it exemplifies, we will become more solid and
settled both individually and collectively.
As you think upon the above usages of the atonement as it is found
in Romans 5:8ff., you will find that it satisfies all three of our stated
guidelines. There are many more applications that can be derived from
Paul’s usage of the atonement in this passage. You may discover them
by chewing the passage over in your mind, and checking each applica-
tion in the light of the above-mentioned principles.
The Atonement, Apologetics, and Education

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in
the wisdom of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made
void. (1 Corinthians 1:17)
In speaking of the homiletic usage of the doctrine of the atonement,
we can hardly overlook this passage, as here Paul states that the cross of
Christ dictates how he preaches. Many sermons have been preached on
this passage that present Paul as the first among Christian anti-intellec-
tuals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Paul tells the Corin-
thian believers that he did not in any way appeal to the baseless and
arrogant knowledge of {52} the Greek mind. Paul did not appeal to
their belief that salvation comes through knowledge. If he had done so
he would have rendered void the very power of the cross. From the
Garden of Eden to the Acropolis, man had maintained that his think-
ing was divine (and you shall be as gods): ultimate, uncreated, inde-
pendent, and certainly unfallen. For Paul to have appealed to these
people on their false terms would have meant the immediate emascula-
tion of the gospel. No, they must be confronted with what seemed to
them utter foolishness. Then and only then would the Spirit of God be
pleased to open some of the blind eyes in their number. We, too, with
Paul of old, must think of the cross of Christ when we prepare our ser-
mons, our apologies, and our presentations of the gospel message. We
must in no way compromise the foolishness of the cross to make the
gospel “relevant” to either the Jew (the religious man) or the Greek (the
pagan intellectual). Rather we must confront them with the authorita-
tive proclamation of their fallen estate, and of God’s solution for their
redemption. We must, as Paul did at Athens, call them to repent of the
ignorance that they call knowledge, lest they and their culture be
damned. The way in which we give the authoritative call may vary, the
authority and the scandal of the cross must not. We may give the call in
a matter of fact, a friendly, or a confrontational tone—whatever godly
wisdom dictates for the situation—but the message itself must not be
changed.
Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae comes from the period of his
first imprisonment at Rome, ca. AD 60. Paul writes the epistle to
counter the influence of Greek thought that would later develop into
the Gnostic heresy. This pagan thinking denies the doctrine of creation
and views the world as consisting of two substances: spirit/mind on the
one hand, and physical/material stuff on the other. To the Greek mind
of Paul’s day, for the most part, mind and spirit are divine and good,
while the material is evil. With those who held to this dualistic think-
ing, the Christian doctrine of creation and the doctrine of Christ’s
incarnation were utterly hateful. They thus tried to deny both the vir-
gin birth of Jesus Christ and His real substitutionary death on the
cross. Paul writes what is the most detailed and one of the most power-
ful statements of the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ in the New
Testament to counter this creeping heresy. His references to the atone-
ment in Colossians 1:19ff. and 2:8ff. are of special interest for the pur-
pose of this article.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in
Him. And through Him to reconcile all things to Himself having
made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say,
whether things on earth or things in heaven. (Col. 1:19–20, NASV)
First, Paul states that Jesus Christ was the incarnation of all that God
is: “all the fulness.” He was not some emanation from Plotinus’s “One,”
but the Creator and Sustainer; the Covenant God of Israel come in the

flesh. {53} Further, Paul states that the Father reconciled “all things” to
Himself through the blood of the cross. In the last line of verse 20 Paul
is more specific, when he adds, “whether things on earth or things in
heaven.”
The redemption that Paul speaks of here goes as far as the created
universe itself. Man is lord over the terrestrial heavens (the atmo-
sphere) and the earth, but man’s fall tainted the whole creation, so it
was necessary for Him to reconcile “all things” through the “blood of
His cross.” Through His death, resurrection, and ascension, He
becomes the firstborn of the new creation which He bought through
His blood. Jesus won a victory at the cross that grew from that point
through the resurrection, to His ascension, when “he led captivity cap-
tive” and distributed gifts to His church. It continues to grow as the
church plunders Satan’s house (Mark 3) under the rule of the ascended
Christ, who looks forward to the final and climactic victory of His
kingdom through the reconciling and victorious cross.
Here is a view of the atonement that we can and must apply with as
much power as it contains. Are those troubled saints who find them-
selves in the subjective slough of the twentieth century helped by a pri-
vate, man-centered, pietist atonement? No more than they are by
continuing to focus upon themselves. What they need is the universal
atonement that Paul speaks of in this passage. It is the atonement of
Calvary in history; it alone is able to tear them out of the mire of rela-
tivity, subjectivism, and sin; it alone is able to focus them on the victo-
rious Christ who has made a superabundant provision for their
redemption and their restored service in the new creation that is com-
ing. It is this atonement, too, that is more than adequate to fuel victori-
ous Christian endeavor in every area of life. The peace that Paul speaks
of in Colossians 1:20 is an objective state of peace between those who
had been adversaries, as in Romans 5:1. This passage sounds strange to
ears trained by a Pietist faith, as much as it would have sounded dis-
gusting to Gnostics in the first century. For neither is willing to think of
the death of Christ as reconciling “things,” whether in heaven or earth.
The Gnostic because of his hatred for the physical, as evil, and the
Pietist because of his limitation of the faith to the saving of individual
souls.

Pietism has had a great effect, especially on the application of doc-

trine to life. When we think of the pastoral usage of Scripture, we auto-
matically think of comforting the bereaved, giving spiritual solace to
those in doubt, or exhorting those who are weak or lax in faith. Who
ever thinks of pastoral application of the teaching of Scripture to so-
called “secular callings”? In this passage Paul applies the atonement to
the whole of creation. Through Adam’s fall the creation was cursed, for
Adam was federal head “over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air”
as well as his own posterity. Jesus Christ, the fullest expression of the
godhead bodily, died to reconcile all to God the Father. What does this
mean? Simply, now not only man can be restored as God’s obedient
servant-king, but man’s God-given realm, the {54} creation, is now at
peace with God. The creation still groans under the remaining corrup-
tion, yet God’s redeemed servant-kings must work out the reconcilia-
tion of the creation that was purchased by Jesus Christ: in education,
the arts, law, science, commerce, etc. It is this atonement, as well, that
has the power to motivate believers to have done with the sin and com-
promise that so easily beset us. If Christ has redeemed all things in
heaven and on earth, then our sanctification must flow out to all
things—beyond the private and personal, just as God’s word is the all-
encompassing standard for His universal kingdom.
In Colossians 2:11, Paul employs the atonement as part of a seven-
point argument against the Colossian believers becoming involved in
“philosophy which is vain deception,” or anything that does not have
Christ as “head over all things.” Specifically, in verse 11, Paul refers to
the atonement in the figure of circumcision. The death of Christ on the
cross was “the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of
Christ.” The flesh in this passage as in many others is the sin nature
inherited from Adam. In the atonement this was removed judicially.
We are therefore dead to the flesh and the world of rebellion that it pro-
duces. Why should we avoid involvement with vain humanist philoso-
phy? Because through the circumcision of Christ in our behalf, we are
dead to it and all that does not subject itself to Christ.
The applications inherent in this Pauline usage of the atonement are
limitless. For one, here is a usage of the atonement that should make
glad the heart of every Christian school supporter. How can we, as
those who have died to the world which does not know God in all that

it does, accept any education for our children or ourselves that does not
begin with Christ as Lord? The apostle would emphatically say that we
cannot, for we are dead to any such idolatrous education. Secondly, this
text, as the text in 1 Corinthians 1, has often been used as a launching
pad for sermons railing against “intellectualism.” Such preaching is ille-
gitimate from this text, because in it Paul does not argue against philos-
ophy per se, but only against that philosophy which is “vain deception.”
Christians must separate themselves from philosophy which does not
begin with the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, “head over all
things.” Paul would applaud the work of Van Til and others in the tradi-
tion of Calvin and Kuyper who, in the words of the apostle himself,
“demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against
the knowledge of God, and ... take captive every thought to make it
obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5, NIV). Because of the atonement
wherein we died with Christ, we must “demolish” everything that does
not begin with Christ as head over all, and begin to build a philosophy
that does exalt Him. Providentially, this task has already commenced
under the lead not only of Van Til, but also R. J. Rushdoony, Dooyewe-
erd, and Vollenhoven. It is now the godly duty of a new generation of
Christian scholars to continue {55} this reformation of thought in the
light of Scripture.
In Colossians 2:15 Paul makes a second direct reference to the atone-
ment, only in this passage the focus is on the atonement as the public
defeat of the powers of darkness. The verse is one of the most beautiful
ironies in all of Scripture. Christ who was crucified naked on Calvary,
in so doing was leading the principalities and powers (cf. Eph. 6) naked
and in chains. Paul speaks of the death of Christ as though it were a
Roman triumph. Paul can do this because it was a triumph, one much
greater than those granted to all the generals of history. The cross was
the triumph over the powers of evil for all of God’s people. This was the
mortal blow to the head of the serpent’s seed (Gen. 3:15). Here is a text
that has obvious application for the many individuals in our time who
are oppressed by the occult in some way. There is complete deliverance
in the blood of the atonement simply accepted as God’s redemption for
sinners. This is the seal of God that will shield His saints against the
wrath of Satan himself (cf. Rev. 7). Though they fight unto the shed-
ding of their own blood for the kingdom, yet they themselves will not

be harmed. They will emerge triumphant in the train of their vic-

torious Lord.

THE ATONEMENT IN
IRENAEUS OF LYON
Douglas Kelly
The greatest theologian of the Christian Church in the second century

was Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, the senior of the three (or four) Anti-Gnos-
tic Fathers (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus; sometimes Clement of
Alexandria is included). Irenaeus’s strong and influential teaching led
the Church safely through a theological and moral crisis of immense
proportions, when the Gospel seemed in danger of being perverted
and overwhelmed by the tides of a powerful, radical heresy known as
Gnosticism. Irenaeus’s writings effectively devastated the virulent
forces of Gnosticism and set the church’s fundamental dogma on a
solid foundation upon which later theologians and church councils
could reliably build. Irenaeus’s writings are the turning point between
the earlier “ad hoc” occasional apologetic writings of the first two cen-
turies, and the later deeper and more systematic writings of the Church
Fathers of the next few centuries of church history. He is also a major
link between the subsequently divergent theological traditions of the
Eastern and Western Churches. His testimony then is of central impor-
tance in tracing how the fundamental doctrines of Christianity have
been understood, passed down, and developed over the ages. He faced
many of the same basic issues that confront the church once more in
our own generation. His stand for the truth in difficult times can give
us valuable guidance as we “contend for the faith once delivered”
against the modern resurgence of doctrinal error and moral darkness.
Life of Irenaeus
Before we look specifically at Irenaeus’s teaching on the atonement
of Christ, we must first place him in his historical context, and then
consider his general theological approach. Irenaeus was a native of Asia
Minor, probably born around AD 140. As a young man he was taught
by Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, the famous martyr, who in turn had

been taught by the Apostle John, beloved disciple of Christ. Thus Ire-
naeus had direct contact with the very origins of Christianity. While
still young he went from Asia Minor to Gaul (France). He was a pres-
byter of the church in Lyon, and was sent to Rome in 177, to help
Bishop Eleutherius deal with the Montanist Controversy. When he
returned to Lyon he was chosen Bishop in the place of the martyred
Pothinus. Later he wrote a letter to Pope Victor I {57} of Rome, urging
him to make peace with the Eastern Church over the Paschal Dispute
(as to when Easter should be observed). Some later sources claimed
that Irenaeus was a martyr, but this is not at all certain.
Gnostic Threat
During the latter half of the second century AD, the greatest threat
to the spread of the Gospel, and indeed to the very life of the church,
was not external persecution by the civil government (though thou-
sands did seal their testimonies with their blood rather than acknowl-
edge Caesar as Lord): the greatest danger was internal—a rampaging,
cancerous heresy that was striking at the vital organs of Christian truth
and life. Unchecked, Gnosticism would have leeched the life out of
Apostolic Christianity, and transformed its remains out of all recogni-
tion to the scriptural religion of redemption.30
We must see what Gnosticism was in order to understand Irenaeus’s
answer to it. The nature of the enemy he faced shaped in large measure
the specific form in which he presented his teaching on Christian truth
in general and atonement in particular. What is called “Gnosticism”
was a hydra-headed movement in both Eastern and Western areas of
the Roman Empire. Irenaeus and Hippolytus said its origins lay in
pagan Greek Philosophy and in Greek mystery religions.31 Probably
the Eastern religions (such as Hinduism and Parseeism) as well as
some aspects of late Judaism entered into this strange conglomeration
30. Harnack’s theory of the Gnostics as merely differing in detail but not in essence
from the Early Church, and his praise of them as “the first Christian Theologians” is a
travesty of the facts—Adolph Harnack, History of Dogma (English Translation), vol. 2
(London: Williams & Norgate, 1896), 230–318. See on the other side: James Orr, The
Progress of Dogma (London: James Clarke & Co. Ltd., 1901), 55; and Geoffrey W.
Bromiley, Historical Theology, An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans,
1978), 19.
The Atonement in Irenaeus of Lyon 79
of religious philosophy, superstition, and practice.32 The various

groups of “Gnostics” (from Greek Gnosis—knowledge; i.e., “the
enlightened ones”), while disagreeing on particular details, were united
in their dualism: holding that the “spiritual” is good while material cre-
ation is utterly evil. They posited a radical disjunction between the {58}
Supreme God (Buthus—depth) and the world. To solve the problem of
evil, as they saw it (the existence of material reality and man’s alien-
ation because of it), they imagined a whole series of gods (or “aeons”)
between the Supreme God and the world; each one producing a lower
and inferior god. Creation, they held, was made by one of these inferior
gods: the Demiurge, who was the same as the God of the Old Testa-
ment. Furthermore, Christ was one of these emanating “aeons.” The
Gnostics—especially Marcion of the Valentinian School—radically
rejected the Old Testament as harsh, materialist, and from an inferior
God. They also—because of the material properties involved—denied
the Incarnation of Christ and His bodily resurrection.
Although to the Gnostics creation was a disaster, still they believed a
spark of divinity was implanted in some men. There were three classes
of men: the spiritual, who had a bright spark of divinity, and would be
automatically saved; the soulish, who had a little spark, and could go
either way, depending on their use of “knowledge”; and the animal
men, devoid of the spark, who could only be lost. To be saved meant to
escape the material creation and rise up through the series of aeons
back to the Supreme God by the proper use of knowledge and secret
passwords.
31. Irenaeus, A.H. 2.14.1–6; Tertullian, De Prsc. 7; Hippolytus, Refut. Hr. bks 1; 4;
5.6, 9, 16–24, 32, 47; 7.2.13, 17, etc. Carpocration Gnosticism is said to have originated
in magic according to Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 276.
32. See Hans Jonas, Gnosis and spatantiker Geist: Teil I; Die Mythologische Gnosis. 3
Auflage (FRLANT, Neue Folge, 33 Heft; Gottingen: Van den hoect & Ruprecht, 1965);
and A. D. Nock and A. J. Festugiere, Hermes Trismegiste: Corpus Hermeticum, Tomes 1–4
(Paris, 1954–60). J. Danielou, Theologie du Judeo-christianisme (Paris: Desclee, 1958);
James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row,
1977); Robert Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (New York, 1959); and Gersham
Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition, 2nd ed. (New
York, 1965).
Though Gnosticism was largely a matter of knowledge and theory, it

did involve practice. The Gnostics took two different approaches to the
despised physical body. In order to deny the body, some of them were
ascetic. Others, however, were utterly licentious—on the theory that
since the body is bad, what one does with it makes no difference any-
way.33 Incidentially, recent discoveries at Chenoboskion in Upper
Egypt in 1945–46 of a whole library of ancient Gnostic writings have
served to confirm the accuracy of the knowledge of Irenaeus, Tertul-
lian, and Hippolytus of their theories and practice.34
Modern Principles of Gnosticism

Without entering into further details of the Gnostic teachings, we
may note certain of their cardinal, anti-scriptural principles, which
underlay their deformed body of belief. First, they confused morals
and metaphysics: that is, they thought man’s problem is physical limita-
tion rather than sin. In this they were not unlike Hinduism, Buddhism,
and certain aspects of later Christian Neoplatonism and modern Exis-
tentialism. Secondly, as Bernard Lonergan points out with much
insight, the Gnostics rejected propositional {59} truth.35 Hence they
must describe reality by means of myth-making. The parallel here to
large segments of current Liberal Protestantism is too obvious to miss.
Thirdly, as contemporary authorities on Gnosticism have noted, this
movement rejected the “usefulness and meaningfulness of historical
events.”36 Having rejected history, they turned to an extreme form of
“idealism.” Much post-Enlightenment theology (especially after Hume,
Kant, and Hegel) has been entrapped in some of the same mythical
assumptions as ancient, discredited Gnosticism (and yet, ironically,
33. See Smith, Clement of Alexandria, 82, 185, 295ff., concerning Gnostic license.
34. See W. F. Albright, “Recent Discoveries in Palestine and the Gospel of John,” in
The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology in Honour of C. H. Dodd, ed.
Davies and Daube (Cambridge, 1956); and also Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library,
4–10, 37, 207, 308, 329, 417, 435.
35. Bernard Lonergan, The Way to Nicea (a translation by C. O’Donovan of the first
part of De Deo Trino) (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964), 8.
36. Malcolm Lee Peel, The Epistle to Rheginos: A Valentinian Letter on the
Resurrection (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 151n156, which refers to Peuch
and Laeuchli.
post-Enlightenment thought considers itself to be ultramodern in its

liberation from the shackles of the past).
These cardinal principles of Gnosticism (which the Church faces in
new forms today) effectively subvert the Good News of the Incarnation
and Atonement of Jesus Christ. The way Irenaeus waged victorious
battle against this perversion of the Gospel can give us light as we face
the darkness of contemporary confusion which passes for relevant and
liberated theology.
OUTLINE
Irenaeus wrote several works, of which two remain: Detection and
Overthrow of the Pretended but False Gnosis (better known as Adversus
Haereses; hereafter cited as A.H.), in five books, and Demonstration of
the Apostolic Preaching (hereafter cited as Demon.). These works are
not systematic, and are thus difficult to outline in logical detail.37 The
structure of Adversus Haereses in particular is largely determined by
the Gnostic theories he is refuting. Thus we may effectively enter the
substance of Irenaeus’s teaching on Christ’s atonement by noting how
he overturns certain of the cardinal principles of Gnosticism and estab-
lishes the Apostolic Truth in their place.38
The Gnostic Confusion Between Morals and Metaphysics

Irenaeus clearly reaffirmed the biblical doctrine that man’s problem
is not metaphysical, but moral: his alienation derives neither from his
materiality nor finiteness, but rather from sin-disobedience of God’s
Law.39 {60} To establish this point, Irenaeus brings forward these facts:
God is the creator of material reality; God entered the physical creation
in order to save it; the creation needs atonement, not because it is phys-
37. See Quasten’s basic outline of Adversus Haereses and Demonstration in Patrology,
vol. 1 (Utrecht-Antwerp: Spectrum, 1975), 289–92.
38. In this paper, which concentrates on the atonement, we shall consider only the
metaphysical/moral and antihistorical principles of the Gnostics and not their
epistemological position (denial of propositional truth).
39. Cornelius Van Til deals with moral/metaphysical confusion in modern theology
(see Defense of the Faith); Francis Schaeffer deals with this confusion in modern
philosophy (see He Is There and He Is Not Silent).
ical or limited, but because it disobeyed its Creator. Let us look at these
propositions.
The one true God created the material world. The Gnostics taught
that material reality is inherently unworthy of the “Supreme” God
(Buthus), so without his knowledge, an inferior power created it: “And
hence they declare material substance had its beginning from igno-
rance and grief, and fear and bewilderment” (A.H. 1.2.3).40
Irenaeus shows the foolishness of thinking there can be a Supreme
God who is ignorant of what a lesser god does, and the impossibility of
there being a Supreme God who does not contain all things in his own
power:
For how can there be any other Fulness, or principle or power or God
above Him, since it is matter of necessity that God, the Pleroma [Ful-
ness] of all these, should contain all things in his immensity, and
should be contained by no one? (A.H. 2.1.2)
For it must be either that there is one Being who contains all things,
and formed in His own territory all those things which have been cre-
ated, according to His own will; or again, that there are numerous
unlimited creators and gods, who begin from each and end in each
other on every side; and it will then be necessary to allow that all the
rest are contained from without by someone who is greater.... (A.H.
2.1.5)
That God is the Creator of the world is accepted.... all men, in fact,
consenting to this truth: the ancients on their part preserving with
special care, from the tradition of the first-formed man.... while the
very heathen learned it from creation itself. (A.H. 2.9.1)41
The Gnostics posited an impassible gap between God and (evil)
material creation. Man’s only hope for redemption was to escape mate-
rial reality by crossing over the gap. But far from avoiding the material
world, Irenaeus shows on the contrary that God truly entered physical
creation in order to atone for creation. He shows that the material can
be redeemed: “For if the flesh were not in a position to be saved, the
Word of God would in no wise have become flesh” (A.H.5.14.1).
Christ came into the very flesh that had been lost in order to save it:
40. In all cases I follow the translation taken from The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1,
ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1975).
41. See also A.H. 2.30.9.

But flesh is that which was of old formed for Adam by God out of the
dust, and it is this that John has declared the Word of God became.
(A.H. 1.9.3)
But the thing which had perished possessed flesh and blood. For the
{61} Lord, taking dust from the earth, moulded man; and it was upon
his behalf that all the dispensation of the Lord’s advent took place. He
had Himself, therefore, flesh and blood, recapitulating in Himself not
a certain other, but that original handiwork of the Father, seeking out
the thing which had perished. (A.H. 5.14.2)
This axiomatic “gap” between God and man, instead of being an
antiquarian curiosity, is very prevalent in twentieth-century theology.
In particular, we see its influence in current views on the Incarnation
and on the Old Testament.
In the Fundamentalist-Modernist debate earlier this century, the
Modernists were operating on the basis of this assumption in denying
the Virgin Birth. To them it was philosophically and religiously
unthinkable that the Eternal God could become Incarnate. German
liberal theology had operated on the same assumption all through the
nineteenth century. T. F. Torrance has pointed out that liberal theology
is ultimately docetic: first it denies the divinity of Christ, and ends up
losing His humanity (as can be seen in the “New” and “Old” Quests for
the Historical Jesus). Hans Kung, the liberal Catholic, recently dis-
missed from his teaching post in Tübingen by Church authorities,
seems to be bound by this same “gap” when he transmutes the real
Incarnation into a species of adoptionism.42
Closely related to this abhorrence of “God in the flesh” is the modern
revival of the Gnostic hostility to the Old Testament. The Gnostics
(particularly as represented by Marcion) claimed that a degenerate,
inferior god, who had made the material creation, was the god of the
Old Testament. Hence Old Testament law was harsh and evil, whereas
the New Testament (at least some parts of it) was kind and good.43
While no modern thinker would follow Marcion in these particulars,
their hostility to Old Testament Law as something too barbaric to be
applied in modern society is only too evident. If the true God has not
42. Hans Kung, On Being a Christian (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1976),
444–57.
43. For Marcion’s canon, see A.H. 1.27.2.
bridged the gap in the Incarnation of Christ, then there will inevitably
remain a disjunction between Old and New Testaments.
In the face of this disjunction, it is salutary to hear Irenaeus:
For all the apostles taught that there were indeed two testaments
among the two peoples; but that it was one and the same God who
appointed both.... (A.H. 4.32.2)
... The Lord did not abrogate the natural [precepts] of the Law ... but
He extended and fulfilled them.... [The Sermon on the Mount] does
not contain or imply an opposition to and an overturning of the [pre-
cepts] of the past, as Marcion’s followers do strenuously maintain; but
[they exhibit] a fulfilling and an extension of them [as Mt. 5:20
shows].... Now He did not teach us these things {62} [i.e. not to lust]
as being opposed to the law, but as fulfilling the law, and implanting in
us the varied righteousness of the law. That would have been contrary
to the law, if he had commanded his disciples to do anything which
the law had prohibited. But this which He did command ... is not con-
trary to [the law]... neither is it the utterance of one destroying the law,
but of one fulfilling, extending, and affording greater scope to it. (A.H.
4.13.1)
Preparing man for this life, the Lord Himself did speak in His own
person to all alike the words of the Decalogue; and therefore, in like
manner, do they remain permanently with us, receiving by means of
His advent in the flesh, extension and increase, but not abrogation.
(A.H. 4.16.4)44
The unity and consistency of the revelation of the one true God in
both Old and New Testaments is important to the plan of salvation and
to the mode of atonement. As we will see later in this paper, Christ’s
work of atonement was “according to law” (thus fulfilling, rather than
replacing, Old Testament principles).
Having demonstrated that the problem of man and the world is not
metaphysical (for the material creation is good, not evil), he shows that
evil, alienation, and death spring from a moral disorder. That is, cre-
ation needs redemption, not because it is material and limited, but
44. In A.H. 4.16.5, Irenaeus speaks of “laws of bondage” being cancelled by the new
Covenant of Liberty, but of an “increasing and widening those laws which are natural
and noble and common to all.” Since in the next section immediately following this
statement (4.17) he speaks of the true meaning of Levitical sacrifices, we are probably
safe in assuming that the “laws of bondage” refer to the Levitical ceremonies, whereas
the “natural, common laws” refer to the moral law.
because it disobeyed its Creator: “Because of the sin of disobedience,

infirmities have come upon men.” (A.H. 5.15.2).
Hence the solution to evil—its atonement—will not be metaphysical
(i.e., escaping the material through secret knowledge), but it will be
moral (doing what is necessary to set right the original creation).
The need to redeem the created order leads us to examine Irenaeus’s
refutation of another major Gnostic principle:
The Gnostic Rejection of History as Meaningless and Useless

The position of Irenaeus is, in a word, that man fell in history, God
made atonement in history, and therefore, history is redeemed. But to
appreciate how Irenaeus works out this doctrine, we must consider
more closely the Gnostic denial of history and their consequent myth-
making. T. F. Torrance has rightly stated:
Hellenistic thought operated with a radical dichotomy between a
realm of ideas and a realm of events, and it took its stand within the
realm of ideas as the realm of the ultimately real. From this perspec-
tive it could only regard the Christian doctrines of God at work in
{63} history, of the coming of the Son of God into human and crea-
turely existence, of the Eternal entering the world of space and time, as
unreal, or at best as a “mythological” way of expressing certain time-
less truths. Various attempts were made to solve this question, by the
Gnostics who sought to give a philosophical interpretation to Chris-
tian “mythology” and so developed a highly intellectual system in
which gnosis and ritual, the conceptual and the symbolic, while
sharply distinguished, were religiously correlated; and by some early
apologists who sought to “demythologize” the Christian Gospel by
subjecting the crudities of faith (pistis) to scientific treatment
(episteme) and so producing a Christian understanding (gnosis)
acceptable to the world of culture and science. Both these attempts
failed, although they have been revived from time to time, as in our
own day, and of course with different thought-forms, by thinkers like
Tillich and Bultmann.45
Inevitably man will have some explanation of reality. To deny history
forces one to move into a realm of idealism and myth production.
Modern philosophy since Immanuel Kant has encouraged the move-
45. T. F. Torrance, Theological Science (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), 17–
18.
ment of thought from history to idealism, and to this degree has fol-
lowed the ancient Gnostic tendency.
Van Til has extensively demonstrated the effect of Kant’s distinction
between phenomenal and noumenal knowledge on modern theol-
ogy.46 Increasingly, theology has been relegated to an idealistic, unhis-
torical “noumenal” realm: a realm in which solid, historic realities are
jettisoned in favor of ideals, symbols, and myths. This is thoroughly
Gnostic and is widespread in the world of modern culture.47
R. J. Rushdoony has analyzed this Gnostic rejection of history for an
ideal realm in the thought forms of contemporary Western Society:
[There] is no longer a belief that the entrepreneur will work to over-
come problems but rather a belief in wish fulfillment, a faith that real-
ity will bend to the imagination of man. Therefore, the counsel is,
“Hold a good thought.” When monetary crises developed in the 1960s
and the 1970s, there were more than a few who turned on those who
had forecast these things to blame them for it; all would have been
well but for their negative thinking. “The power of positive thinking”
had come to represent the implicit faith of modern man....
The radio and television keep man bathed in a dream world, and what
they do not supply, his imagination does. The sexual revolution has
deep roots in this flight from reality, in dreams of a consequence-free
world {64} of perpetual youth.
In brief, modern man is a product of his epistemology. He lives in a
dream world, implicitly believing that reality is somehow, or will be
somehow, a part of man, and totally at the command of man’s imagi-
nation some day. His awakening will be a rude one, and God will be in
it.48
Irenaeus’s answer to the anti-biblical idealism and myth-making of
the Gnostics was to endeavor to stab them awake from their dreams by
confronting them with the solid, historical reality of the Fall and
Redemption of mankind, exemplified and accomplished in Adam and
Christ.49 Negatively, as we saw earlier, he proved the falseness of their
46. E.g., C. Van Til, The New Modernism (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, ,
1955), passim.
47. As an example of the unhistorical, almost Buddhistic relativism of the Gnostics,
see the tractate “The Thunder, Perfect Mind,” in Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library,
271–77.
48. R. J. Rushdoony, The Word of Flux (Fairfax, VA: Thoburn Press, 1975), 96.

system by demonstrating the inherent contradictions and irrationality

of their assumption of competing and finite gods. Positively, Irenaeus
holds the truth before their eyes in the Incarnate Person and Atoning
Work of the Last Adam. His central use of the Pauline First Adam/Last
Adam schema demonstrates his insistence on the whole course of bibli-
cal history as the explanation of reality and font of redemption, over
against all humanly invented dreams and theories and systems:
For it is thus that thou wilt both controvert them in a legitimate man-
ner, and wilt be prepared to receive the proofs brought forward against
them, casting away their doctrines as filth by means of the celestial
faith; but following the only true and stedfast Teacher, the Word of
God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love,
become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is
Himself. (A.H. 5.prf.)
Last Adam: True Man

God became man in order to save man. Adam by his sin caused the
human race to “depart from God.” Christ, as Last Adam, would come
into the very place and condition in which the First Adam led the race
astray, in order to turn it around and lead it back to God:
… the Word arranging after a new manner the advent in the flesh, that
He might win back to God that human nature which had departed
from God .... (A.H. 3.10.2)
For I have shown that the Son of God did not then begin to exist,
being with the Father from the beginning; but when He became incar-
nate, and was made man, He commenced afresh the long line of
human beings, and furnished us, in a brief comprehensive manner,
with salvation; so that what we had lost in Adam—namely, to be
according to the image and likeness of God—that we might recover in
Christ Jesus. (A.H. 3.18.1)
The Last Adam had to be thoroughly human (true flesh) and thor-
oughly {65} divine in order to atone for man’s sin and restore the race
to fellowship with God. First, let us note the necessity of full humanity.
He had to be true flesh because it was Adam (a fleshly being) who
had sinned and whose race needed redemption:
49. For Irenaeus’s desire to see the conversion and restoration of the Gnostics, see
A.H. 4.prf.1.
... and because death reigned over the flesh, it was right that through
the flesh it should lose its force and let man go free from its oppres-
sion. So the Word was made flesh that through that very flesh which
sin had ruled and domesticated, it should lose its force and be no
longer in us. (Demon. 31)
He [God] sent His creative word, who in coming to deliver us, came to
the very place and spot in which we had lost life ... and hallowed our
birth and destroyed death, loosing those same fetters in which we
were enchained. (Demon. 38)
Irenaeus shows that Christ’s manhood was real by exposing Gnostic
subterfuges designed to avoid the contact of God with actual flesh. He
denied their teaching that Christ passed through Mary as a mere tube,
thus receiving no human nature from her (A.H. 1.7.2; 3.11.3; 3.19.3).
He negated their claim that a heavenly Christ came temporarily upon
an earthly Jesus, and then left Him before the shame of the cross (A.H.
1.24.4; 1.26.1; 3.12.2; 4.prf.3). Irenaeus denies that it could have been
any other than human, Adamic flesh which Christ entered and
redeemed (some Gnostics tried to invent a “super-celestial flesh” in
order to avoid the patent New Testament statements):
But if he pretends that the Lord possessed another substance of flesh,
the sayings respecting reconciliation will not agree with that man. For
that thing is reconciled which had formerly been in enmity. Now if the
Lord had taken flesh from another substance, He would not, by so
doing, have reconciled that one to God which had become inimical
through transgression. But now by means of communion with Him-
self, the Lord has reconciled man to God the Father, in reconciling us
to Himself by the body of his own flesh, and redeeming us by His own
blood, as the Apostle says to the Ephesians, “In whom we have
redemption through his blood, the remission of sins ....” (A.H. 5.14.3)
For unless man had overcome the enemy of man, the enemy would
not have been legitimately vanquished. (A.H. 3.18.7)
Last Adam: True God

Secondly, we must briefly note that the Last Adam had not only to be
true flesh, but also fully God in order to accomplish his reconciling
mission:
And again: unless it had been God who had freely given salvation, we
could never have possessed it securely. And unless man had been
joined to God, he could never have become a partaker of incorrupt-
ibility. For it was incumbent upon the Mediator between God and
men, by his relationship to both, to bring both to friendship and con-
cord, and present man to God, while He revealed God to man. (A.H.
3.18.7.) {66}
… And thus He took up man into Himself, the invisible becoming vis-
ible, the incomprehensible being made comprehensible, the
impassible becoming capable of suffering, and the Word being made
man, thus summing up all things in Himself: so that as in super-celes-
tial, spiritual and invisible things, the Word of God is supreme, so also
in things visible and corporal He might possess the supremacy, and
taking to Himself the pre-eminence, as well as constituting Himself
Head of the Church. He might draw all things to Himself at the proper
time (A.H. 3.16.6)
Divinity was essential in the Last Adam not only for supernatural
power but also for holiness. Unlike the blighted flesh of the First Adam,
the flesh of the Last Adam is “righteous flesh”:
... the righteous flesh has reconciled that flesh which was being kept
under bondage in sin, and brought it into fellowship with God. (A.H.
5.14.2)50
But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality,
unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which
we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incor-
ruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the
adoption of sons? (A.H. 3.19.1)
Recapitulation
The work of Christ, the God-man, was summed up by Irenaeus in
terms of “recapitulation.” Borrowing from St. Paul (Rom. 5:12–21; 1
Cor. 15:45–49), though developing the details in his own way, he sees
Christ, the Last Adam, as taking up the disobedient, dying race of the
First Adam in order to “recapitulate” its history and thus turn it back to
God and restore its moral integrity and physical wholeness.
In general terms, the goal of Christ’s recapitulation of Adam is to
restore the race to the image of God and to communion with God:
... when He became incarnate ... He commenced afresh the long line of
human beings, and furnished us ... with salvation; so that what we had
50. See also A.H. 3.18.7.

lost in Adam—namely to be according to the image and likeness of

God—that we might recover in Christ Jesus. (A.H. 3.18.1)
Wherefore also He passed through every stage of life, restoring all to
communion with God. (A.H. 3.18.7)
Christ came as an infant in order to accustom us gradually and gen-
tly to be able to participate in the immortal life of God (see A.H. 4.38.1,
2).
Irenaeus shows that the Last Adam performed this turning back and
restoration of the fallen race in terms of active obedience, passive obe-
dience, and victorious battle. We shall look at each in turn. {67}
Active Obedience
By his active obedience the Last Adam “recapitulates” the history of
the First Adam. He takes up the human race into Himself and takes it
back to the beginning of its moral history. This time the race is headed
by an obedient Man, who when tempted obeys God instead of turning
His own way. The idea here is not unlike Milton’s Paradise Regained.
Adam broke the law and brought death. Christ obeys the law and
brings life:
The corruption of man, therefore, which occured in paradise by both
[of our parents] eating, was done away with by [the Lord’s] want of
food in this world [i. e., the reference is to Christ’s refusal to turn the
stones into bread, when tempted by Satan]... thus, vanquishing [Satan]
for the third time, Christ spurned him from Him as being conquered
out of the law; and there was done away with that infringement of
God’s commandment which had occured in Adam, by means of the
precept of the law which the Son of Man observed, who did not trans-
gress the commandment of God. (A.H. 5.21.2)
Irenaeus speaks of obedience of the Virgin Mary counterbalancing
the disobedience of Eve, just as “the sin of the first created man receives
amendment by the correction of the First-begotten ...” (A.H. 5.19.1).
As Christ through all stages of life kept the law, He turns our nature
back to God, thus healing, sanctifying, and granting it new life. Ire-
naeus develops the idea (not found in St. Paul) that Christ’s very pas-
sage from infancy to adulthood sanctified the various ages and stages
of life through which He grew. Indeed, he had the odd idea that Christ
lived to be fifty years old, so that old men too could be sanctified:

Being a Master, therefore, He also possessed the age of a Master, not

despising or evading any condition of humanity, nor setting aside in
Himself that law which He had appointed for the human race, but
sanctifying every age, by that period corresponding to it which
belonged to Himself. For He came to save all through means of Him-
self—all, I say, who through Him are born again to God—infants, and
children, and boys, and youths, and old men. He therefore passed
through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying
infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age,
being at the same time made to them an example of piety, righteous-
ness, and submission; a youth for youths, becoming an example to
youths, and thus sanctifying them for the Lord. So likewise He was an
old man for old men, that He might be a perfect Master for all, not
merely as respects the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards
age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also, and becoming an
example to them likewise. (A.H. 2.22.4)
While the church has never accepted some of the speculative pecu-
liarities of Irenaeus’s teaching at this point, still his concept of active
obedience is a sound one, thoroughly based on Scripture. In general,
the Evangelical, Protestant {68} tradition has failed to do justice to this
concept, which has perhaps made its stress on passive obedience more
external and abstract than would otherwise have been the case. John
Calvin reemphasized Christ’s active obedience, but for the most part
this renewed emphasis was not developed by the later Reformed and
Evangelical tradition.51
In the famous British Westminster Assembly of the 1640s, there were
debates as to whether or not the active obedience of Christ was
imputed to the believer for his justification. The Assembly clearly
decided that it was an integral part of the Work of Christ, and so
included it in the Westminster Confession of Faith (see chap. 8 on “The
Mediator,” and chap. 11 on “Justification”).52
51. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.16.5. For the later seventeenth-
century Reformed Theologians, see Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1978), 458–63. John McLeod Campbell, a nineteenth-
century Church of Scotland minister, attempted to develop the doctrine of Christ’s active
obedience in The Nature of the Atonement (the Church, however, judged this book
heretical, and deposed its author). In the twentieth century, T. F. Torrance has done
significant work on this doctrine (see his Space, Time and Incarnation).
Passive Obedience
Irenaeus goes beyond the mere active obedience of the Last Adam.
He shows that it took more than the positive obedience of Christ to
save the lost race; suffering and death on the cross and shedding of
blood “as a ransom for many” (i.e., passive obedience) was required. J.
N. D. Kelly properly criticizes those interpreters who have accused Ire-
naeus of teaching a “physical” atonement, as though His mere incarna-
tion automatically in and of itself saved the race, which He assumed.53
Irenaeus’s writings make frequent reference to the death of Christ for
sinners and His shed blood as their ransom. In other words, Christ’s
Incarnation was in order to His atonement. His recapitulation of Adam
leads the fallen race not only through life, but also through death to
redemption and immortality.
Irenaeus’s references to the death of Christ as the head of the race are
not at all systematic. In some places he merely states the fact that Christ
redeemed us by blood “from the apostasy” (A.H. 3.5.3); that He “puri-
fied the Gentiles by his blood” (A.H. 3.12.6); that He “died and was
buried for the human race” (A.H. 3.9.2). After quoting Matthew 23:35,
Irenaeus states: “[Christ] thus points out the recapitulation that should
take place in his own person of the effusion of blood from the begin-
ning, of all the righteous men and of the prophets, and that by means of
Himself there should be a requisition of their blood” (A.H. 5.14.1).
In other places, Irenaeus points out the results of Christ’s death: it
{69} removed our condemnation (A.H. 4.8.2); it redeemed the fallen
race from captivity and brought it to communion with God and to
immortality (A.H. 5.1.1): “Our Lord also by His passion destroyed
death, and dispersed error, and put an end to corruption, and
destroyed ignorance, while he manifested life and revealed truth, and
bestowed the gift of incorruption.”
What Irenaeus does not do with any adequacy is to explore the nec-
essary connection between the death of Christ and the forgiveness of
sinners. He assumes that there is such a connection, but fails to inquire
52. Alex F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of

Publication, 1897), 154–60.
53. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1978),
173.
into the meaning of it. Possibly the closest he comes to explaining the
divine rationale behind the saving death of Christ is to be found in var-
ious remarks on the abiding validity of the moral law.
God required obedience to this implanted law: “For God at the first,
indeed, warning them by means of natural precepts, which from the
beginning He had implanted in mankind, that is, by means of the Dec-
alogue (which, if any one does not observe, he has no salvation)” (A.H.
4.15.1).
Thus breaking the law means one has no salvation: “Because of the
sin of disobedience, infirmities have come upon men” (A.H. 5.15.2);
“Adam died [when] he disobeyed God” (5.23.2). Thus infirmities and
death are the direct result of law breaking.
Being lawbreakers, according to Irenaeus, makes us into debtors to
God. That is, he sees our sins in terms of debt: “ ... He is our Father
whose debtors we were, having transgressed His commandments”
(A.H. 5.17.1). Irenaeus traces our debts (or sins) to the original sin (or
debt) of Adam in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree (A.H. 5.17.2,3).
Somehow the death of Christ on “another tree” (the counterpart of the
Tree of Knowledge) did something to cancel our debt to God:
For if no one can forgive sins but God alone ... He was Himself the
Word of God made the Son of man, receiving from the Father the
power of remission of sins; since He was man and since He was God,
in order that since as man He suffered for us, so as God He might have
compassion on us, and forgive us our debts, in which we were made
debtors to God our Creator ... pointing out [via Ps. 32:1, 2] thus that
remission of sin which follows upon His advent, by which “He has
destroyed the handwriting” of our debt, and “fastened it to the cross;”
(Col. 2:14) so that as by means of a tree we were made debtors to God,
[so also] by means of a tree we may obtain the remission of our debt.
(A.H. 5.17.3)54
In sum, Irenaeus is not clear on how the death of Christ cancels our
debt of guilt before a Holy God, but he is very clear on the fact that it
does so: “... the death of the Lord is the condemnation of those who fas-
tened Him to the cross, and who did not believe his advent, but the sal-
vation of those who believe in Him” (A.H. 4.28.3). {70}
54. See also A.H. 5.29.l.

What is somewhat surprising about Irenaeus’s lack of depth of clarity

at this point in his teaching is that he had the Epistles of St. Paul avail-
able, which unfold in such detail the inner connections between the
death of Christ and the redemption of sinners. Indeed, Irenaeus’s cen-
tral theological motif—Adam/Christ—is taken directly from Paul. In
theological terms we might say Irenaeus has more insight into Paul’s
teaching on the active obedience of Christ than on His passive obedi-
ence. Irenaeus does often quote central Pauline texts which explicate
the meaning of the finished work of Christ on the cross, but he does
not inquire into the implications of the verses.
Although Harnack is frequently an unreliable interpreter of the early
Church Fathers, still he spoke with genuine insight when he said: “...
Irenaeus followed sayings of Paul, but adopted the words rather than
the sense....”55 Yet we who have 1,800 more years of theological
resources at our disposal to help us interpret the doctrines of the New
Testament must not be unduly critical of the pioneering efforts of Ire-
naeus at this point.
Some interpreters of Irenaeus have denied any teaching of vicarious
atonement in his theology.56 We may grant that this important doc-
trine is not sufficiently prominent in his thought, but nonetheless it is
present:
…in order that God also might be pleased to offer up for all his seed
His own beloved and only-begotten Son, as a sacrifice for our redemp-
tion. (A.H. 4.5.4)
…having become “the Mediator between God and men;” propitiating
indeed for us the Father against whom we had sinned, and cancelling
our disobedience by His own obedience.... (A.H. 4.17.1)
Irenaeus definitely posits a vicarious exchange in these words: “Since
the Lord thus has redeemed us through His own blood, giving His soul
for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh ...” (A.H. 5.1.1). Elsewhere he
states: “For this cause too did Christ die ... [to] set free His slaves.”
(A.H. 5.9.4); “... thou hast been redeemed by the flesh of our Lord, rees-
tablished by His blood ...” (A.H. 5.14.4).57 Furthermore, quoting Isaiah
53:8, Irenaeus speaks of God taking the judgment off of those who
55. Harnack, History of Dogma, 270.

56. G. Aulen, Christus Victor, trans. A. G. Herbert (London: SPCK, 1931), 49ff.

believe in Christ (Demon. 69). And as we have already seen, he refers

to our being reconciled through the tree (A.H. 5.16.3; 5.17.1; 5.2.2).
In Irenaeus’s teaching on the atoning exchange in Christ, we notice
far more emphasis on the resultant benefit of immortality and incor-
ruptibility {71} for believers, than on the bestowal of the gift of righ-
teousness. In this emphasis Irenaeus is more like the later Fathers of the
Eastern Church than those of the Western theological tradition. R. S.
Franks states it well:
The tendency to lay the chief stress on the gift of incorruption rather
than on the gifts of righteousness or of faith (trust in God) marks the
change experienced by Christianity in passing over from a Jewish to a
Greek soil. From the very beginning of the Greek religion death is the
object of a supreme fear.58
Furthermore, we do not find the forensic structure of penal satisfac-
tion (which has given the Western theological tradition such profound
insight into the divine rationale behind the atonement) present in the
works of Irenaeus. J. Pelikan traces the development of a clearer doc-
trine of the atonement in the Western church through the introduction
of the appropriately legal term “satisfaction” into theology by Irenaeus’s
student, Tertullian, the converted lawyer. Tertullian (in De Pen. 7.14)
used this term to describe “the reparation made necessary for sins after
baptism.”59
Pelikan adds:
The momentous consequences of the introduction of “satisfaction”
into Christian vocabulary did not become evident until later. The first
to apply the term to the death of Christ seems to have been Hilary (in
Ps. 53:12–13), who equated “satisfaction” with “sacrifice” and inter-
preted the cross as Christ’s great act of reparation to God on behalf of
sinners.60
57. “reestablished by his blood” is in Latin “Et sanguine ejus redhibitus.” The editor
states that it corresponds to the Greek term apokatastatheis. He adds: “Redhibere is
properly a forensic term, meaning to cause any article to be restored to the vendor” (The
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, 542).
58. R. S. Franks, The Work of Christ (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1962),
32.
59. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1971), 147.
Yet for all his lack of clarity, Irenaeus undoubtedly helped prepare
the way for this significant advancement in theological understanding
of the atonement of Christ. Its “seeds” are to be found in his thought on
the canceling of debt through the cross of Christ.
To continue our explication of recapitulatory redemption, we have
already seen that Irenaeus sets forth the atoning accomplishment of the
Last Adam not only in terms of active obedience and passive obedi-
ence, but also in terms of Christ as the head of the race doing victori-
ous battle for us. We must summarily look at this before considering
how Irenaeus understands the application of the atonement to man in
history.
Victorious Battle
Previously we noted the lack of development of Irenaeus’s (truly bib-
lical) concept of active obedience in our Western theological tradition.
Christ’s work for us in terms of battle is even less familiar in both tradi-
tional Roman {72} and Evangelical teaching on the atonement.61 This
concept did have a later development—in a heterodox direction—in
the Eastern theology, in the thought of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa.
Irenaeus’s teaching on Christ’s victorious battle, however, does not go
beyond the biblical categories: indeed, he does little more than quote
the appropriate New Testament verses:
…By means of the Second Man [i.e. Second Adam] did He bind the
strong man [Satan], and spoiled his goods (Mt. 12:29), and abolished
death, vivifying that man who had been in a state of death. For as the
first Adam became a vessel in his [Satan’s] possession ... wherefore he
who had led man captive, was justly captured in his turn by God; but
man who had been led captive was loosed from the bonds of condem-
nation. (A.H. 3.23.1)
For He fought and conquered; for He was man contending for the
fathers, and through obedience doing away with disobedience com-
pletely; for He bound the strong man, and set free the weak, and
60. Ibid.
61. Aulen, Christus Victor, has done much to rehabilitate this emphasis, but with
considerable distortion (such as calling Origen’s “ransom” theory “classical” and playing
down penal substitution and propitiation).
endowed His own handiwork with salvation, by destroying sin. (A.H.

3.18.6)
Christ’s victory over Satan was on behalf of the imprisoned race
which He assumed into Himself in his recapitulation. His victory was
our victory and sets us free from evil powers. We shall return to some
aspects of this concept presently, as we examine Irenaeus’s teaching on
the application of Christ’s atonement to His people.
Application of the Atonement

There is a rich, nonsystematic diversity in the various models Ire-
naeus uses to present the application of the victorious work of the
“New” Adam to the needy descendants of the Old Adam. The very
diversity of his models and concepts means that they do not always
easily fit together with consistency, as we shall see. We may say of Ire-
naeus’s teaching on the application of redemption what B. B. Warfield
said of St. Augustine:
The extraordinary richness of his mind, and the remarkable variety of,
so to say, the facets of his teaching, lent him more than ordinarily to
the appeal of numerous and even divergent points of view ... within
the one Augustine there were very various and not always consistent
currents flowing, each of which had its part to play in the future.... In
him are found at once the seed out of which the tree that we know as
the Roman Catholic Church has grown; the spring or strength of all
the leading anti-hierarchical and mystical movements which suc-
ceeded one another through the Middle Ages ... and, above all, the
potent leaven of vital religion ... [which] burst all bonds and issued in
the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.62 {73}
As we shall soon see, “sacramentarian,” and evangelical, and (to a
much lesser degree) even “social gospeler” can all appeal to aspects of
Irenaeus’s teaching to buttress their particular theories of how the soul
receives redemption (which is not to say that Irenaeus’s total work,
taken in context, gives them all equal support).
We may group Irenaeus’s “means of grace” under four headings:
resurrection, faith, sacraments, and imitation of Christ.
62. B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed,

1956), 309, 311–12.
Resurrection
The resurrection of Christ as the channel of redemption to the race
is entailed in Irenaeus’s concept of Christ gathering up the lost descen-
dants of Old Adam into Himself as the “new man,” and taking them
with Him through an alternative historical course of holy obedience,
saving death, and victorious resurrection. Here he seems to be inspired
in particular by Romans chapters 5, 6, and 8. (He quotes extensively
from Romans 5 and 6 when discussing the saving significance of
Christ’s death and resurrection in A.H. 3.16.9, and from Romans 8 in
A.H. 5.7.1 on the same subject.)
In general terms, the resurrection is what brings us into the victory
of Christ:
... as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we
may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a
man death received the palm [of victory] against us, so again by a man
we may receive the palm against death. (A.H. 5.21.1)
Now Adam had been conquered, all life had been taken away from
him: wherefore, when the foe was conquered in his turn, Adam
received new life; and the last enemy, death, is destroyed, which at the
first had taken possession of man.... For his salvation is death’s
destruction. When therefore the Lord vivifies man, that is, Adam,
death is at the same time destroyed. (A.H. 3.23.7)
We observed earlier that Irenaeus sees the fruit of the atonement more
in terms of restoration of life than of the granting of righteousness to
the believer, though the latter concept is not entirely absent. When in
fact we come to Irenaeus’s teaching on faith as the means of receiving
the fruit of Christ’s work, we do find somewhat more emphasis on
righteousness, though still the predominant concept is of the
atonement restoring us to immortality and communion with God.
Faith
The necessity of personal faith to have the benefit of Christ’s work
applied to us is inculcated extensively by Irenaeus. His clarity on this
point represents a definite advance over the earlier church apologists.
He was closer to the New Testament understanding of faith than any
other Christian writer up to his time, and is superior to many who fol-
lowed him chronologically. {74}
Arguing against the Gnostic error that one is “saved” automatically

by nature (by being nonmaterial, i.e., “spiritual”), Irenaeus says: “For if
nature and substance are the means of salvation, then all souls shall be
saved; but if righteousness and faith, why should these not save those
bodies, which equally with the souls, will enter into immortality?”
(A.H. 2.29.1). Referring to John the Baptist’s preaching, he states: “This
knowledge of salvation, therefore, John did impart to those repenting
and believing in the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the
world” (A.H. 3.10.1).
After quoting Proverbs 1:7, Irenaeus says: “The sense of sin leads to
repentance, and God bestows His compassion upon those who are
penitent” (A.H. 3.34.5). Elsewhere, defending the evangelical character
of the Old Testament Law, Irenaeus explains: “... Men can be saved in
no other way from the old wound of the serpent than by believing in
Him who in the likeness of sinful flesh is lifted up from the earth upon
the tree of martydom, and draws all things to Himself, and vivifies the
dead” (A.H. 4.2.7).
Again relating Old and New Testaments, he writes: “As Paul does
also testify, saying that we are children of Abraham because of the sim-
ilarity of our faith, and the promise of inheritance” (A.H.4.6.2). Once
more, defending the unity of Old and New Testament saints, he speaks
of the importance of preaching and of belief: “If then, those who do
believe in Him through the preaching of His apostles throughout the
east and west shall recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ... one and
the same God is set forth ...” (A.H. 4.36.8).
Irenaeus says the Incarnation of Christ was to bring himself: “...
within the capacity of those who believe, that He might vivify those
who receive and behold Him through faith” (A.H. 4.20.5).
In a few places Irenaeus speaks of “justification by faith” and of
“imputed righteousness” (see A.H. 4.16.2; 4.13.1; 4.25.1). Taking these
phrases in their contexts, we cannot read back into them a full-blown
sixteenth-century Reformation understanding of the terms. Reinhold
Seeberg gives a fair interpretation of what Irenaeus seems to have
meant:
Faith itself falls under the category of the commandment (4.14.1; cf.
16.5), and justifying faith in Christ is defined as “to believe him and
do his will” (4.6.5). It cannot, therefore, be maintained that Irenaeus

understood the Pauline conception of the righteousness of faith, as he

held simply that God regards as righteous everyone who acknowl-
edges Christ and is ready to follow his teaching.63
Even so, we may add that Irenaeus probably came as close to the
Pauline {75} understanding of faith as anyone before Augustine, who
lived some 200 years later than Irenaeus.
Yet when we inquire of Irenaeus how one comes to saving faith in the
“Last Adam,” we are confronted with one of the major inadequacies of
his entire theology. In line with his immediate predecessors, the apolo-
gists of the second century, he had a rather superficial viewpoint of the
depths of sin and of its effects on the human personality. He (and the
apologists) failed to grasp the scriptural doctrine of the debilitating
effects of the Fall on every part of man’s makeup. He did not see that
sin brought man’s will into bondage that could be broken only by the
specific impartation of God’s grace before it would and could believe.
From this viewpoint Irenaeus describes free will (with no sense of
the effects of the Fall):
This expression [of our Lord], “How often would I have gathered thy
children together, and thou wouldest not,” set forth the ancient law of
human liberty, because God made man a free [agent] from the begin-
ning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul to obey
the behests of God voluntarily and not by compulsion of God.... (A.H.
4.37.1)
With the same perspective, quoting various passages from Luke, he
adds:
All such passages demonstrate the independent will [to autezousion]
of man, and at the same time the counsel which God conveys to him,
by which He exhorts us to submit ourselves to Him, and seeks to turn
us away from [the sin of] unbelief against Him, without, however, in
any way coercing us. (A.H. 4.37.3)
Yet we must consider Irenaeus’s stress on free will in its historical
context. Just as we cannot read back Luther’s definition of justification
by faith into Irenaeus’s use of the terms, neither can we take the Pelagi-
anism of two centuries later and transpose it onto his thought. Irenaeus
was not attempting to defend the powers of man over against the grace
63. Reinhold Seeberg, Text-book of the History of Doctrines, vol. 1, trans. C. E. Hay,
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1964), 132.
of God as was Pelagius. Rather, Irenaeus was fighting the Gnostics of

his time, who explained the presence of evil by the sheer material
nature of man. While there are a few “spiritual” ones (such as the Gnos-
tics themselves), they assumed man had to be and do evil simply by
virtue of what he was: a material creature. As we have seen, the prob-
lem of man was to them metaphysical, not moral.64 The need to com-
bat this false explanation of evil leads Irenaeus to lay such stress on
human free will, in order to show that evil is a moral problem that
derives from a choice made in history, not from a defect in original cre-
ation.
Moreover, Irenaeus seems at times to indicate a rather deeper
understanding of the problems of the human will. He says that if one
does not meekly {76} offer oneself to God, one can become hardened,
and (presumably) lose the ability to come (A.H. 4.39.2). He does not
work out this thought, however.
Sacraments
Alongside faith and resurrection as modes of receiving the benefits
of Christ’s redemption, Irenaeus elevates the sacraments: in particular
baptism and the eucharist. In common with many early Christian writ-
ers, Irenaeus taught some form of baptismal regeneration:
For our bodies [i.e. members of the church] have received unity
among themselves by means of that layer which leads to incorrup-
tion.... (A.H. 3.17.2)
And again giving unto the disciples the power of regeneration unto
God, He said to them, “Go and teach all nations, baptising them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (A.H.
3.17.1)
His teaching on the influence of baptism is much less developed than
most other aspects of his thought: it is so underdeveloped, in fact, that
it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from it. He makes far more
references (perhaps as many as ten to one) to salvation through faith
than to baptismal regeneration. It is clear, however, that he held to both
concepts without having thought out the connection—or lack of it—
between them.
64. See A. H. bk. 4, chaps. 37–39.

He has far more to say on the sacrament of the eucharist as convey-

ing the benefits of Christ’s atonement and resurrection than he did on
baptism; although here too he is not systematic nor always clear. His
teaching on this subject has been appealed to by both Protestant and
Catholic controversialists to enforce their own positions—which may
not have been the clearest way to comprehend what he understood by
the terms in his own context.
He sees the eucharist as nourishing the partaker with incorruptible
life. The eucharist has a “heavenly” as well as physical reality, and is
“offered” by the church to the Lord:
…How can they say that the flesh which is nourished with the body of
the Lord and with his blood, goes to corruption, and does not partake
of life? ... For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the
union of flesh and Spirit. For as bread which is produced from the
earth, when it receives the invocation of God is no longer common
bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heav-
enly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no
longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity.
(A.H. 4.18.5)
In A.H. 4.17.5, Irenaeus speaks of the eucharist as having a sacrificial
character, but he does not explicate or develop this concept. In A.H.
5.2.3, he speaks of the cup and bread “receiving the Word of God” and
being {77} made “the eucharist of the blood and body of Christ,” which
nourishes our bodies unto resurrection.
Imitation of Christ
A fourth means by which we are connected to the Last Adam in His
saving benefits is the continued imitation of Christ. Irenaeus may have
been influenced here by the Epistle of James, which taught that “faith
without works is dead” (he refers to James on occasion, but not to that
particular verse). Even more influential than James was St. Paul, whom
Irenaeus often follows fairly closely. Paul taught throughout his writ-
ings that the Spirit of God changed the life of the believer and pro-
duced “fruit of the Spirit” in the daily conduct. To profess Christ while
having an un-Christ-like life was to both Paul and James a false profes-
sion indicative of an absence of new life. The same emphasis on the
new life necessarily issuing in a Christ-like change in the believer is

also found in the Apostle John, teacher of Polycarp, teacher of Irenaeus

(see 2 John 9).
Thus this internal, spiritual change is the background of Irenaeus’s
thought that continuing imitation of Christ keeps one connected to the
blessings of the atonement and resurrection. His thought cannot be
reduced to a merely external imitation of the life of Christ as a means of
entry into forgiveness and immortality.65
Though Irenaeus is like Paul and the other Apostles in teaching that
the communication of new life from God is evidenced by ethical
changes, he is unlike them—and particularly unlike his great successor
St. Augustine—in believing that one can receive new life, and then lose
it through failure to walk in it. He says:
… Since in them continually abides the Holy Spirit who was given by
Him in Baptism, and is retained by the receiver, if he walks in truth
and holiness.... (Demon. 42)
We ought ... to fear, lest perchance, after [we have come to] the knowl-
edge of Christ, if we do things displeasing to God, we obtain no fur-
ther forgiveness of sins, but be shut out from His kingdom. (A.H.
4.27.2)
In sum, if we may consider the number of references to a term or
concept as being indicative of its importance to a writer, then we may
conclude that faith is primary in the theology of Irenaeus as the con-
nection between man and the Incarnation and Atonement and Resur-
rection of Christ. Yet faith is primary in a way that does not exclude the
other modes of grace.
Conclusion
Faith in the One who became incarnate in space-time history, shed
His {78} blood in the dust of the real world, and was bodily resurrected
in history was the exact antithesis of the Gnostic rejection of history
and substitution of idealist mythology as the way of salvation. The
repentance of mind and morals called for by Christ’s shed blood ends
all confusion between morals and metaphysics.
Irenaeus endeavored to draw these people back from the pale,
deathly land of their own unsubstantial imaginations into God’s
65. See A.H. 5.22.2.

revealed reality by the full bodied presentation of Christ, recapitulating

a dying race inis own historical birth, obedience, death, and resurrec-
tion, and outpoured Spirit.
How many of the Gnostics may have been reclaimed for the true,
substantial faith, we do not know, but we do know that Irenaeus’s writ-
ings—plus those of his followers Hippolytus and Tertullian—effec-
tively devastated this aggressive, humanistic idealism as a vital
movement. No longer could it credibly mask itself as an acceptable—
indeed superior—form of Christianity. The voluminous writings of the
Gnostics soon passed into nonexistence, so little were they valued now
that their true nature was revealed.66 The movement became as unsub-
stantial as was its own theology: its vapid clouds scattered by the clar-
ion notes of the silver trumpet of redemption.
Throughout this paper we have observed that the Church again con-
fronts revived forms of “Gnostic” error parading as philosophically and
scientifically enlightened statements of Christianity. We must—as did
Irenaeus—trace every humanistic transmutation of the Gospel down to
its false principles (which ultimately root in creatures attempting to
substitute their own imaginations for the Creator’s revelation). In
answer to this creaturely arrogance, Irenaeus proclaimed—with no
uncertain sound—that God’s Being and Word determine reality, and
are in turn undetermined by anything else (A.H. 2.13.3, 8; 2.25.4).
Then—along with Irenaeus—we must call those who are “alienated
in their minds from God” to repentance by setting forth in its own light
and majesty the Incarnation and Atoning Work of Jesus Christ. As we
do this, our life and efforts may serve to establish truth and righteous-
ness for coming generations, as did Irenaeus.
For all its imperfections, Irenaeus’s work brought the Church
through her greatest crisis up to that point in history, and set its official
teaching concerning the Person and Work of Christ on a sound basis
upon which succeeding theologians and Church councils could safely
build.
66. For a different interpretation of the disappearance of the Gnostic writings, see
Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library, 20.
2.
CHRISTIAN
RECONSTRUCTION

ANIMISM IN SCIENCE
Magnus Verbrugge, M.D., F.R.C.S. (C.)
PART I. THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMISM
1. Spirits and Their Production

On a hot day in summer some 2,400 years ago, a young fellow called
Phaedrus, majoring in Philosophy under Socrates, proposed to his
teacher that they move to a cool place under a tall plane tree near a lit-
tle stream called Ilissus. And so they lay down on the grass in the
shade, cooling their feet in the water, and had a quiet talk.
Phaedrus noted that people believed that a lady named Orithyia had
been carried off from that very spot by Boreas, who killed her by
throwing her over the rocks nearby, and asked Socrates whether he
believed the story. “The wise are doubtful,” replied he. Once you begin
inventing stories like that you “must go on and rehabilitate Hippocen-
taurs and chimeras dire.” There is no end to that: “this sort of crude
philosophy will take up a great deal of time. Now I have no leisure for
such enquiries.” The reason: “to be curious about what is not my con-
cern, while I am still in ignorance about my own self, would be ridicu-
lous.”67
Boreas was the name the Athenians had given to the great North
Wind, and in their mythology they gave this wind a personality who
could act like a human being. Invisible, Boreas became the fearful spirit
who had carried off Orithyia.
The Latin word anima means breath, wind, soul, and spirit. This
explains why the belief in spirits such as Boreas has been called ani-
mism. What is this animism and where did it come from?
Webster’s dictionary defines animism as:
the belief that all forms of organic life have their origin in the soul;
that all natural objects have a soul.
67. Plato, “Phaedrus,” in Dialogues, 229.

Animism in Science 107
The Oxford dictionary puts it this way:

1. the doctrine that the phenomena of animal life are produced by an
immaterial anima, soul or vital principle distinct from matter. The
doctrine of the anima mundi, upheld by Stahl;
2. the attribution of a living soul to inanimate objects and natural {80}
phenomena.
3. the belief in the existence of soul or spirit apart from matter and in a
spiritual world generally; spiritualism as opposed to materialism.
It is clear that the word animism refers to something invisible and yet
capable of “acting,” “producing,” “giving life.” The anima is a spirit
which men believe in although they can not see it. Another word for it
is “soul.”
As a small child I was often afraid to be alone in the dark and imag-
ined all kinds of beings that could do something to me. As soon as the
light went on I was reassured because they were not really there. Mod-
ern education soon dispels such “primitive” fears by pointing out that
there are no spirits, that mankind has given up such ideas long ago, at
least when we have grown up. And our teachers then tell us of people of
long ago who believed in spirits all their life and often worshipped
them in their “primitive” religions. A few examples may show that
there were a few different types of spirits which gave rise to different
forms of animism.
A. Concrete animism
The Egyptians made persons out of objects such as the sun and plan-
ets, the Nile, and even the sycamores. They gave them names, assigned
power to act like humans to them and called them their god: Horus,
Ra, Osiris.
The Babylonians practiced similar forms of animism by lending life
to the sun, the moon, the stars, earth, planets, fire, and the waters. And
in India animism reigned supreme and still does in some places by
worship of heavenly bodies, mountains, rivers (Ganges), trees, plants,
shells, stones, implements, etc. There is no end to the number of
objects that have been given a spirit with power to act and affect man’s
life in the course of human history. The one thing these forms of ani-
mism have in common is the fact that spirits were assigned to concrete
phenomena, be they objects one could see, touch, taste, and hold, or

phenomena one could feel, hear, or sense in some way, such as Boreas,
the North Wind of Athens.
B. Abstract animism
We noted that Socrates did not believe in the mythological spirits of
his fellow citizens. He called enquiring after them ridiculous. His great
pupil Aristotle felt the same way. E.g., he treats the practice of astrology
with contempt in his Metaphysics when he discusses the sun and its
planets. The forefathers have handed down the tradition that they are
gods with the form of men and animals. But this tradition
... has been added later in a mythical form with a view to the persua-
sion of the multitude and to its legal and utilitarian expediency.68
It is obvious that Aristotle saw the worship of celestial bodies as a
fraud, {81} perpetrated by the forefathers, and had no use for such ani-
mism in science.
However, there is a more sophisticated form of animism which
seemed to have escaped the keen eyes of the Greeks. S. Reinach in his
book on the history of religions remarks that:
…Greek animism gave “a body, a spirit, a face” even to the most
abstract conceptions.... It was Greece which created the images of
Peace, Mercy, Concord etc. After having endowed all bodies with
thought, she endowed all thought with bodies.69
The Greeks “abstracted conceptions,” says Reinach, personified them
and worshipped them. That is how gods like Venus, Bacchus, Poseidon,
and the other inhabitants of Mount Olympus reached their exalted
position in Greek religion. They were idolized abstractions of cultural
activity, just as their predecessors had been idols representing concrete
phenomena. The culture religion replaced the nature religion. But
Socrates and other philosophers began to doubt these gods too. Did
they abandon animism altogether? Did they stop assigning human
power to the abstractions of their own mind? Did pure science replace
abstract animism?
68. Aristotle, Metaphysics, bk. 12, 1074b.

69. S. Reinach, “Orpheus,” in A History of Religions (New York: Liveright Inc. 1930),
85; emphasis added.
2. The Spirits of Ancient Greece

The Greeks knew of no Creator. The cosmos they observed was held
to have been there from all eternity. That has been the belief of every
scientist who denies the Lord of Creation until today. All they may dif-
fer on is what form it took and whether it exploded with a big bang
long ago or not. But there must always have been something because of
the law on the conservation of energy.
Lacking a Creator Who made the cosmos while not being a part of it
Himself, man had to look for some principle inside of the cosmos with
the power to make things develop and grow. And since a power has no
body, no material substance, it was conceived of as a spirit. That is what
the early philosophers set out to do. Let us look at two of the best
known: Plato and Aristotle.
A. Plato on origins
Parmenides, one of the oldest Greek philosophers, speculated how
the things we see arise out of the “eternal flow of becoming and decay.”
The origin is the concept of “to be,” estin einai, which is the same as
“thought”:
This is evident from Parmenides’ identification of true being with log-
ical thought: ... all Being is being of thought and thought is thought of
Being.70 {82}
It is clear that Parmenides made the concept of thought, an abstraction
of his own thinking, into a spirit, indeed The Spirit, the origin or
Demiurge, who made everything out of eternal matter by giving it
form. This is one of the oldest attempts to present animism as
philosophy and the science of the mind. But it remained a religious
belief.
Plato modified the concept of this Demiurge, the “artificer” or
Former of things:
... in the dialogue Philebus all genesis is conceived of as an ideal para-
deigma, an ideal pattern for the form-giving activity of the divine
Nous, the Demiurge of the world of becoming and decay.71
70. H. Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, vol. 2 (Philadelphia:

Presbyterian and Reformed, 1953), 56.
71. Ibid.
But the real Spirit as origin has not changed: it is still the Nous, human
thought elevated to the level of divine spirit. This spirit does the
forming of things. It acts in the unchanging ways of the religion of
animism, no matter how abstract. But it never can create out of
nothing. It forms, fashions out of pre-existing material.
In “Timaeus” the leader of the dialogue (Timaeus) distinguishes
between what is eternal, grasped by reason, and that which always
keeps “becoming and perishing” without ever really existing, and is
apprehended by the senses and opinion (28). The “artificer” who forms
things out of chaos looks “to that which is eternal” for a “pattern” (29).
His artificer “creates” order out of preexisting material by copying:
And having been created in this way, the world has been framed in the
likeness of what has been apprehended by reason and mind and is
unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is admitted, be a
copy of something.72
Obviously, Plato declares here that the artificer is a creation of reason
and a product of man’s imagination. This artificer (demiurg) copies
ideas and brings form and order to chaos, and both chaos and demiurg
are merely mythological figures.73 The demiurg is human nous,
theoretical thinking, personified and elevated to the position of divine
former of material beings. It shows that Plato assigned an anima to the
abstraction of his own faculty of theoretical thought. He therefore was
an abstract animist.
B. Aristotle
Aristotle did not adopt the habit of his masters Plato and Socrates,
who taught mainly from what they had heard or thought. He was one
of the greatest naturalists who spent years investigating and observing
natural creatures and phenomena. He even managed to have Alex-
ander the Great {83} appoint men to collect materials and specimens
on his expedition to the East, to be sent back to Aristotle in Macedonia.
From his monumental writings we will have to restrict ourselves to
choose some pertinent passages out of De Anima, translated as On the
72. Plato, “Timaeus,” in Dialogues, 29.

73. F. M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology (London, 1937), 37, as quoted by H.
Dooyeweerd in Reformatie en Scholastiek in de Wijsbegeerte (Franeker: Wever, 1949),
363.
Soul. The only exception we make is the following quotation from De

Generatio Animalium—On the Generation of Animals:
There are four causes underlying everything: first, the final cause, that
for the sake of which a thing exists; secondly the formal cause, the def-
inition of its essence ... thirdly the material; and fourthly, the moving
principle or efficient cause.74
The first of these has been rejected by modern scientists on the basis
that time in respect to physical events is irreversible.
… as soon as we study the process of [physical] interaction itself, irre-
versibility is unmistakably present.75
We can also say that Aristotle here makes the concept of goal the end
state of a living being or physical subject, into an agent or invisible
spirit which can “cause” the earlier changes that take place in this thing.
The end state (telos) cannot go back in time and cause its own cause.
This abstract telos is used here by Aristotle as a spirit: abstract
animism.
Aristotle places the study of the soul “in the front rank” for gaining
knowledge because
... the soul is in some sense the principle of animal life.76
But it is more. First, “the soul is the final cause of its body.” The reason
is that:
... Nature, like mind, always does whatever it does for the sake of
something, which something is its end.77
It is remarkable here that he openly states that Nature and mind, both
abstract concepts of his own thinking, “do” things for a reason. Thus he
personalizes them, an obvious case of abstract animism. He looks at all
living beings and concludes that they have one thing in common: they
use food and reproduce. Through this, “life” manifests itself as:
... the most primitive and widely distributed power of soul being
indeed that one in virtue of which all are said to have life.78
74. Aristotle, DeGeneratio Animalium, bk. 1, 3, 4.

75. M. D. Stafleu, Time and Again (Bloemfontein, South Africa: Sacum Beperk,
1980), 123.
76. Aristotle, De Anima, 402a.
77. Ibid., 415b.

Soul seems to be identical with life here. He confirms this a bit further
on:
The soul is the cause or source of the living body ... in all three senses
{84} which we explicitly recognize. It is (a) the source or origin of
movement, it is (b) the end, it is (c) the essence of the whole living
body.79
Unfortunately, the personification of life as well as soul amount to the
same animistic mistake. Living beings eat and reproduce. That indeed
makes us conclude that they live. But it is not “life” that eats or
reproduces, life does not “cause” nutrition and reproduction. And since
“soul” is another word for “life” we must say the same about this soul. It
does not cause anything.
From his own “explanation” that follows the above quotation it
becomes obvious that Aristotle has painted himself into a corner. He
begins by proving (c): that the soul as its essence is the cause of the liv-
ing body. Here is his argument:
… for in everything the essence is identical with the ground of its
being, and here in the case of living things, their being is to live, and of
their being and their living the soul in them is the cause or source.80
He introduces the word “essence” here as a substitute for the words
cause and source. Thus he says: the soul is the essence, cause, source,
ground of being of the living being. That is merely saying what he
already said in other words, a mere play on words which explains
nothing. All we are left with is his original statement: the soul is the
cause of “life.” This is circular reasoning not based on scientific
evidence but on his animistic belief.
We said earlier that soul or life does not eat and reproduce. Life does
not “manifest itself ” in nutrition and reproduction. Living beings dis-
play these functions which mere physical things such as stones lack.
Life is a mode of being which living things display. It is an aspect of cer-
tain individual things which allows us to distinguish them from other
things that do not have it. We abstract this aspect in our thinking. But
giving it a name and using a noun to indicate what we mean does not
78. Ibid., 415a.

79. Ibid., 415b.
80. Ibid.

give life an existence of its own. It remains an abstraction. It can never

act like a human being. To believe that life or its equivalent soul
“causes” or does something is to assign a personality to a concept. And
that was the mistake of Aristotle and all scientists after him who failed
to see the aspects of the things in our world for what they are. To give
them a human face is to introduce animism into science.
This abstract animism came to its highest expression in the theology
of Aristotle. He saw the ideal of absolute theory realized in the spirit of
pure thinking:81
... for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality.82 {85}
Everything that lives has a soul for him. Plants have an anima vegeta-
tiva or nutrient soul. Plants possess an anima animalis, mainly charac-
terized by the sense of touch. Man has an anima rationalis: he can
think. In all these cases the soul is the cause or source of the individual
living things, as we saw. Now human thought is elevated to the highest
position as the “actuality of thought—God.”
Here we have the ultimate of human hubris. Man declares the vari-
ous souls, his own inventions, as the causes, the creators of all living
beings. And the crown of creation is his own thought, which he
declares to be God. Animism reveals itself as the religion of man who
wants to be god.
3. Spirits Going Cosmic

A. The Skeleton of Descartes
The animism of Plato and Aristotle wound its way through the his-
tory of philosophical thought for 2,000 years. Because it was not
accompanied by a steady growth of knowledge in the biological aspect
of plants, animals, and man, I gladly leave a description of it to the
experts in these matters. We shall now pay a brief visit to that old skep-
tic, Renee Descartes.
81. H. Dooyeweerd, “Individualiteits-Structuur en Thomistisch Substantiebegrip”

(“Individuality Structure and Thomistic substance-concept”), in Philosophia Reformata
(Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1943), 68.
82. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1072b.
He formulated a number of rules to be followed by scientists. The

second strikes our fancy because he advises us not to busy ourselves
with things we cannot know as surely as those of arithmetic and geom-
etry. For example, he says:
It is thus that all Astrologers behave, who, though in ignorance of the
nature of the heavens, and even without having made proper observa-
tion of the movements of the heavenly bodies, expect to be able to
indicate their effects.83
So much for concrete animism as practiced by astrology, even today.
We must also make sure that our thoughts move in a continuous
series.
Wherever the smallest link is left out the chain is broken and the
whole of certainty of the conclusion falls to the ground.84
And if we hit upon a step in the series that we cannot understand, “we
must stop short here.” If we fail to do that, we are in for trouble. We risk
admiring “certain sublime and profound philosophical explanations...”
... even though these are for the most part based upon foundations
which no one had adequately surveyed—a mental disorder which
prizes the darkness higher than the light.85
In doing that ,
the learned have a way of being so clever as to contrive to render {86}
themselves blind to the things that are ... known by the simplest peas-
ant.86
It is like “trying to find a knot in a bulrush,” and Descartes had already
in his college days discovered that:
...there is nothing imaginable so strange or so little credible that it has
not been maintained by one philosopher or other....87
He then begins to build his scientific structure by doubting everything
he has learned before. He then ends up with himself and concludes
with his famous:
83. R. Descartes, Rules, Rule 5.

84. Ibid., Rule 7–8.
85. Ibid., Rule 11.
86. Ibid., Rule 12.
87. R. Descartes, On Method, pt. 2.

... whilst I thus wished to think all things false, it was absolutely essen-
tial that the “I” who thought this should be somewhat, and remarking
that this truth “I think, therefore I am” was so certain.... I came to the
conclusion that I could receive it without scruple as the first principle
of the Philosophy I was seeking. And then, examining attentively that
which I was, I saw that I could conceive that I had no body, and that
there was no world nor place where I might be; but yet that I could not
for all that conceive that I was not.... From that I knew that I was a
substance the whole essence or nature of which is to think, and that
for its existence there is not any need of any place, nor does it depend
on any material thing; so that this “me,” that is to say, the soul by
which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from the body....88
After we took notice of what Aristotle had to say about the soul as the
cause of the living being, we can not help but feel that Descartes
without his body and its needs for a place to be and things to eat has
contrived something “so strange” and “so little credible” that the
simplest peasant knows better.
His soul without his body is a mere abstraction which he refurbishes
with a personality which thinks. He reduces himself to an abstract skel-
eton and then says: behold the real me. It is another example of abstract
animism and flies in the face of his own advice on rules.
B. A Critique of Pure Spirit
Immanuel Kant undertook to fight metaphysical speculation and
submitted theoretical thinking to a rigorous critique. In the section on
the transcendental doctrine of method he tells us that reason has little
interest in speculating about things like the immortality of the soul,
because:
…our conception of an incorporeal nature is purely negative and does
not add anything to our knowledge, and the only inferences to be
drawn from it are purely fictitious.89 {87}
It sounds like animism has found an effective enemy in Kant. However,
what are we to make of this:
Pure understanding distinguishes itself not merely from everything
empirical, but also completely from all sensibility. It is a unity self-sub-
88. Ibid., pt. 4.

89. I. Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, in Great Books of the Western World
(Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), 234.
sistent, self-sufficient, and not to be enlarged by any additions from

without.90
But we cannot eliminate faculties such as our sensory perception from
our act of thinking, just as we cannot think without at the same time
functioning in the aspects of physicochemical, juridical, moral, and all
the other “additions” which we as humans display.
Kant abstracts his “pure understanding” here in the same manner as
did Descartes with his abstract “I think,” and it, too, amounts to
abstract animism.
Herman Dooyeweerd spent a great deal of effort trying to unravel
this cleverly woven web of Kant, made up of difficult words that sound
quite impressive, and have exerted enormous influence. Says Dooyewe-
erd,
…an absolutizing of the transcendental logical function of theoretical
thought . . is ... the attempt ... to detach the logical function of theoret-
ical thought ... from the intermodal coherence of meaning and to treat
it as independent. 91
Yet, ... “it is merely an abstract concept.”
In other words, Kant tries to make his “pure understanding,” an
abstraction, independent, i.e., into a spirit which thinks. But that is
impossible, says Dooyeweerd:
Kant assumes a final logical unity of thinking above logical multipli-
city.... Logical unity above logical multiplicity, however, can not possi-
bly exist.92
The reason is that the only unity of logic is the concept of logic which I
as selfhood, form:
In Kant’s transcendental logic the I-ness has become a formal con-
cept.... The selfhood, as the unity above the diversity of meaning, can
never be grasped in a concept.93
And so, for all his efforts to avoid metaphysical speculation, Kant failed
to see that his elevating a concept which he abstracted first from the
activity of his own thinking, and then giving it the power to act—such
90. Ibid., 38.

91. Dooyeweerd, A New Critique, vol. 1, 19–20; emphasis added.
92. Ibid., vol. 2, 502.
93. Ibid., 503; emphasis added.

as to “understand”—amounted to nothing better than abstract

animism. {88}
C. The Soaring Spirits of Man
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel carried abstract animism to its pin-
nacle. In fact, he carried it aloft above and beyond the mountain tops of
human understanding, where it was lost in the mists of fantasy whence
it came: the ancient mythology of the dawn of history.
In his Philosophy of Right and Philosophy of History he sets the stage
for what has proven to become the greatest battle for man’s mind the
world has as yet known. It is the battle between the power of the God of
creation and power of the idol, the spirit of man’s own making. And he
leaves no doubt in his reader’s mind that he considers his own words to
be those of one who has heard the voice of truth. He needs no confir-
mation from any witness as to its authority. His is the voice of revela-
tion.
No doubt he felt equal to his friend Plato, who in his Republic
declared:
And when I speak of ... that other sort of knowledge which reason her-
self attains by the power of dialectic, using hypotheses ... as steps and
points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order
that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole; …94
That first principle of the whole was for Hegel the same: reason. And
the first task he sets himself in the introduction to his Philosophy of
History is to find the origin of this reason, “whose sovereignty over the
world has been maintained....” And boldly he observes that the ultimate
design of the world “belongs to the world of the spirit,” which he first
produced in his own imagination:
On the stage on which we are observing it—universal history—spirit
displays itself in its most concrete reality.
And what is this spirit?
Spirit ... may be defined as that which has its centre in itself ... it exists
in and with itself ... spirit is self-contained existence.95
94. Plato, “Republic,” in Dialogues, 511.

95. G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of History in Great Books, vol. 46, 160.

Its destiny is rather ambitious, for the consciousness of the spirit’s own
freedom is “the final cause of the world at large....“96 In this way all the
activities of individual human beings are brought under the direction
of this invention of Hegel:
The vast congeries of volitions, interests and activities, constitute the
instruments and means of the world-spirit for attaining its object.97
And so the genie is out of the bottle: Hegel has abstracted the common
reason and aspirations of all the constituents of the world of man into
one vast {89} Spirit, called freedom, which is the cause of the course of
history. A grander conception of the field of action could not easily be
imagined for the anima of Hegel. Not without reason his belief has
been called a “cosmic animism.” We will visit with the author of this
statement later on.
We are in pursuit of that bane of modern science: faith in nonexist-
ing, self-sufficient spirits. It has waylaid many from the difficult path
leading to understanding the phenomena of living beings. And one of
the dead-end roads which has trapped many modern scientists is
inhabited by the ghost of Hegel’s dialectics. The first major victims of
that trap were Marx and his friend Engels, to be followed by the unsus-
pecting victims of dialectical materialism. For that reason we must
have a brief look at this wraith.
Hegel formulated his well-known sequence of thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis. On the battlefield of human history this takes the necessary
form of freedom of man’s exercise of his will, which action evokes a
reaction, often of necessity, against his intention, whereupon history
“obtains” her end unexpectedly in a new “synthesis.”
Great men have formed purposes to satisfy only themselves. But they
serve a larger purpose, not known to them:
For that spirit which had taken this fresh step in history is the inmost
soul of all individuals.... These observations may suffice in reference to
the means which the worldspirit uses for realizing its idea.98
96. Ibid., 161.

97. Ibid., 164.

The World Spirit has an idea, and men who believe they act in freedom
really serve this spirit and realize its and only its idea. They cannot
escape the iron necessity of this spirit.
The state is the divine idea as it exists on earth ... the definite sub-
stance that exists in that concrete reality which is the state—is the
spirit of the people itself. The actual state is animated by this spirit....99
And behind it all the World Spirit carries man towards his destiny, a
better world, because:
This peculiarity in the world of mind has indicated in the case of man
an altogether different destiny from that of mere natural objects...
namely, a real capacity for change, and that for the better, an impulse
of perfectibility.100
So it is that human history is ruled by that invisible World Spirit of
Hegel’s making, which propels mankind—even against its own will—
towards an ever better future. It is a necessary development, an inevita-
ble evolution. It is the epitome of the soaring optimism of the spirit of
man. {90}
4. The Spirit of Revolution

A. The Pro’s and Con’s of Animism with Marx
Karl Marx was more concerned with real people than Hegel. But his
philosophy bore the marks of Hegel’s animism, although he “turned it
upside down.” He likes to speak of philosophy itself as if it were an
independent person that acts:
...as this philosophy turns outside against the appearing world, as will,
the system has degraded to an abstract totality.101
Hegel has society gradually evolving into its highest structure: the state.
Marx does not believe that things will automatically change for the
better. He has seen too much suffering, and religion, which with Hegel
99. Ibid., 171.

100. Ibid., 178.
101. J. van der Hoeven, Karl Marx: The Roots of his Thoughts (Toronto: Wedge, 1976),
18, quoting Marx from his Fruhe Schriften, ed. H. J. Lieber and Furth, trans J. van der
Hoeven (Stuttgart, 1962), 69.
could still play a role under the guidance of the World Spirit, is for
Marx an obstacle for progress:
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heart-
less world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the
people.... Religion is only the illusory sun about which man revolves
so long as he does not revolve about himself.102
Marx claims to use the dialectic method of Hegel, but he realizes that
without a helping hand from the side of man, “revolving about him-
self,” the spirit cannot become free. While the language remains ani-
mistic in color, the content is a message of man taking his lot in his
own hands:
... but theory itself becomes a material force when it seizes the masses.
Theory is capable of seizing the masses when it demonstrates ad hom-
inem as soon as it becomes radical.103
But time and again, his thoughts leave reality behind and the old devil
of animism rears its head:
It is not enough that thought should seek to realize itself; reality must
also strive towards thought.104
The coming revolution must begin in an animistic abstraction:
… a class in civil society which is not a class of civil society, a class
which is the dissolution of classes, a sphere of society which has a uni-
versal character because its sufferings are universal, and which does
not claim a particular redress because the wrong which is done to it is
not a particular wrong but wrong in general.105 {91}
Marx also clings to a certain necessity and inevitability in the course
history takes. Man, he says, becomes alienated from himself. And that
self-alienation becomes a significant power in itself for changing soci-
ety. It is a necessary ingredient for the progressive development of his-
tory.106 And with that we are right back again in the personification of
102. T. B. Bottomore, Karl Marx: Early Writings, quoted by van der Hoeven, Karl
Marx, 35.
103. Ibid., 52.
104. Ibid., 54.
105. Ibid., 63.
106. Ibid., 93.

one of Marx’s abstractions—alienation—which he grants power to act,

to change society, i.e., abstract animism.
Marx wanted to avoid a mechanical materialism exactly because he
refused to let man be completely dominated by the structure of matter.
Man operates from a material basis, but he will intervene in the process
of history by means of active revolt. Man can use matter to suit his own
purpose. Without realizing it, perhaps, Marx indicates here that he
refuses to let man be the impassive victim of the spirits, of the animism
he and his predecessors had brought upon the scene. It is the “negation
of his own negation.”
B. The Cosmic Animism of Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels worked with Marx from his early twenties. A cotton
manufacturer like his father, he soon became dissatisfied with the posi-
tion of the workers and turned to communism. At age twenty-seven he
wrote the first draft for the Communist Manifesto in London which
Marx rewrote later. Marx lived in the slums of Soho in London for the
last thirty-four years of his life, and nearly all he lived on was provided
by Engels.
Like Marx, Engels admired Hegel. Although an amateur in philoso-
phy, he undertook the ambitious project of writing a comprehensive
book on Natural philosophy called Dialectics of Nature. He never got
beyond collecting material and some organization of his notes, which
were published in English translation in 1940, after having languished
unnoticed for decades after his death in 1895.
I have found that many Christian scientists today are not aware of
the influence Engels has exerted upon the philosophy of nature and, via
his views on the origin and evolution of life, upon the philosophy of the
social sciences. There is one man who almost single-handedly has
shaped the thinking of the great majority of modern scientists on the
manner in which life originated on earth. His name is Aleksandr
Ivanovich Oparin, a Marxist biochemist in Russia. And he based his
theories on the Dialectics of Nature, by Engels, which he read long
before it was available in English. We will deal with Oparin’s applica-
tions of Engels’s dialectics in the second part of this essay. But we can-
not understand the course of theoretical biology and its animistic basis
without learning what Engels had to say in his notes on the dialectics of
nature.
Engels saw the entire cosmos with all that lives in it in very simple
terms: {92}
Motion in the most general sense, conceived as the mode of existence,
the inherent attribute of matter, comprehends all changes and proc-
esses occurring in the universe, from mere change of place right to
thinking.107
The investigation of the nature of motion began with that of the
motion of the planets. The motion of molecules came next, followed by
that of atoms, which established the sciences of physics and chemistry.
And only when these had reached a certain degree of development
… could the explanation of the processes of motion represented by the
life process be successfully tackled.108
All motion amounts to is a “change of place.” Engels reduces this
notion still further until all he has left is “change.” And he gets this idea
from the changes which take place in nature and human society in the
footsteps of Hegel:
It is, therefore, from the history of nature and human society that the
laws of dialectics are abstracted.109
There are three such laws, “All three are developed by Hegel”:
The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa;
The law of the interpenetration of opposites;
The law of the negation of the negation.110
Today scientists agree that “matter” displays four different
characteristics called “physical forces”: gravity, electromagnetism, weak
and strong nuclear forces. Motion is not a “force that causes a change of
place.” It is the other way around: two bodies with mass display a
mutual attraction (gravity) by moving towards each other unless
counteracted by friction.
Engels abstracted the concept of motion from the interaction we
observe between physical bodies. He then assigned to this concept the
107. F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, trans. J. B. S. Haldane (New York: International

Publishers, [1940] 1960), 35; emphasis added.
108. Ibid.; emphasis added.
109. Ibid., 20.
110. Ibid.

power to cause the evolution of everything in the cosmos, “from mere

change of place right to thinking.”111 Thus he replaces the Unmoved
Mover or Demiurge of the ancient Greeks and the World Spirit of
Hegel with the bare concept of Motion as the origin of everything in
the universe. This is the ultimate of abstract animism. It is “cosmic ani-
mism,” as Jacques Monod, Nobel prize-winning microbiologist, has
said, and amounts to an “epistemological disaster.”112 {93}
The application of the new dialectics to the understanding of natural
phenomena is as drastic as it is mythical. Engels ridicules the “old
metaphysical categories”113 now that “modern facts prove the dialectics
in nature.” Their “fixity” has gone, now that the dialectic sciences have
found that:
Physiology—the cell—(the organic process of development, both of
the individual and the species, by differentiation, the most striking
test of rational dialectics), and finally the identity of the forces of
nature and their mutual convertibility, which put an end to all fixity of
categories.114
All this demonstrates a lack of understanding of the most basic facts
of the real world, even taking the less developed state of the natural sci-
ences of his day into consideration. It would be easy to smile at the
naiveté of the pontifications of our cotton manufacturer if they did not
dominate the philosophical and practical notions of such an
immensely powerful portion of the scientific establishment in this
world. And when we consider its implications for the education of our
children, irony changes into tragedy. For side by side with the expan-
sion of human knowledge we have seen the consequences of the awe-
some dimensions of the evolution of cosmic animism. Today, its main
consequence is the spirit of the Marxist revolution.
111. Ibid., 35.

112. J. Monod, Chance and Necessity, trans. A. Wainhouse (New York: Vintage Books,
A. Knopf Inc., 1971), 39.
113. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 154.
114. Ibid.

PART II. THE ANIMISM OF EVOLUTION
1. The Spirits Are Coming

A. Eels From the Earth’s Guts
Aristotle was a careful observer of nature. He was trained to specu-
late about such things as life by his teachers. As we saw in part 1, chap-
ter 2. A., his fantasies about what makes living beings alive were as
animistic as those of all other Greek philosophers. But he also used his
eyes. He did not know the Lord, Creator of all that is. But neither did
he see any evidence of a Spirit giving rise to the birth of animals which
seemed to have no parents. Since no one had an explanation for this
fact, he simply accepted man’s lack of knowledge in these matters with-
out trying to do the impossible. If science could not find a cause of the
origin of certain living things, he was satisfied simply to acknowledge
that ignorance. Their generation was spontaneous.
He observed and investigated where possible. And he asked those
who had traveled where he could not go what they had seen, writing
down as accurate an account as he could of what he heard. And from
all his information he concluded that a number of species seemed to
arise through spontaneous {94} generation. A common place where
these originated was “putrifying earth” or vegetable matter, mud or
humid ground, the earth’s guts and the like. And among the species
that arose in this way were eels, some insects, testaceans, oysters, cock-
les, hermit crabs, sponges, etc.115
People believed in the spontaneous generation of many organisms
but opinions were divided as to where they came from. Initially it was
believed that only organic matter, derived from plants or animals,
could produce them. Organic matter was sometimes seen as a living
substance, which was called “biomolecules” when molecules had been
discovered. This process was called heterogenesis: living beings arise
from matter that can only result from the decay of living beings which
died. And the adherents of this view were often called vitalists.
Heterogenesis died a natural death with some scientists after chem-
ists succeeded in producing “organic” compounds in their laboratories
115. Aristotle, De Generation Animalium, bk. 1, 715a, 715b, and bk. 3, 762b, 763a,
763b.
beginning with Wohler, who in 1828 made the first one: urea. Since
then, untold numbers of organic compounds have been made. So that
left only the organisms “without parents.” As late as 1819, J. Bremser116
argued that the parasitic worms in man’s gut must arise there when
through some disharmony of the body more organic material is accu-
mulated in the gut than it can absorb. After 2,500 years the eels of the
earth’s guts were merely replaced by the worms of man’s guts.
Steady improvement of techniques such as that of making better
lenses allowed an ever-growing number of mysteries to be resolved.
The reproduction of parasitic worms via intermediate hosts was dis-
covered, and finally the experiments of Pasteur convince most people
that all living beings arise from living predecessors today.
B. From Molecules to microbes
With Pasteur the problem of the origin of living beings today was
settled: only from eggs or spores. But whence did they come in the
past? Since very few scientists believed that life had been on earth from
all eternity, and its arrival from another celestial body did not solve the
problem of its origin, it seemed logical to look for it here on earth.
Those who believed in a Creator found their faith strengthened by the
outcome of the demonstrations of Pasteur. But atheists still had the
same old problem of the origin of life.
With heterogenesis, the spontaneous generation of organisms from
organic material, discarded they saw only one way out. The first living
organisms must have arisen from inorganic matter, the only material
on hand “in the beginning.” So that became their working hypothesis
and they called it abiogenesis: the origin (genesis) of life (bios) not (a)
through a power outside matter. {95}
When Wohler had managed to produce the first organic molecule,
chemists the world over began to manufacture thousands of ever more
complicated organic molecules. And soon they began to assume that
even if they could not yet produce a living being in their test tubes, the
first living thing on earth must have arisen from organic matter which
was produced in nature’s large laboratory: the primeval oceans that
covered much of the earth after it had cooled off enough since its fiery
116. J. G. Bremser, Uber lebende Wurmer im lebenden Menschen (Vienna, 1819), 108–
9.
birth. The bolder among them even expected to one day indeed pro-
duce a replica of themselves in the tubes.
Newton had introduced the concept of physical forces acting
between material bodies. This gave some scientists the idea that per-
haps a similar force of nature could play a role in the formation of ani-
mals, as Pierre-Louis de Maupertuis asked in France in 1745.117 His
fellow countryman Georges-Louis de Buffon speculated that a “moule
interieur,” a mold which acts like the force of gravity, imprints itself
upon organic matter and so forms living beings.118
In England, Abbe Turberville Needham assumed a “vegetative force”
for both vegetable and animal generation: a “real productive force in
nature.”119 This led him to believe that microscopic animals could arise
spontaneously through a power that could act, produce, i.e., a spirit.
It is clear that both de Buffon and Needham had construed an
abstract concept similar to that of the anima of Aristotle and given it
personality and power to act, to produce living beings. It was the same
type of abstract animism.
D. Diderot started out as an orthodox deist but later became a politi-
cal radical and an active atheist. In 1769 he published Le reve de d’Ale-
mbert. There he stated that perhaps an elephant had started as an atom,
“this enormous mass, organized, the product of fermentation.”120 Here
we have another twist of animism: fermentation, a chemical process, is
personalized and given the power to produce a quadruped. And curi-
ously, all these new forms of animism returned to the acceptance of
spontaneous generation, be it as an on-going process or as the initial
transition from matter to life. Here the new spirit was a chemico-phys-
ical one.121
Another factor entered the debate. The Christian church of the day
had adopted the doctrine of preexistence: the germ for all living beings
is created by God in the beginning and conserved until the moment of
117. J. Farley, The Spontaneous Generation Controversy from Descartes to Oparin

(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 22.
118. Ibid., 23.
119. Ibid., 24.
120. D. Diderot, Le reve de d’Alembert (Paris: Librairie Marcel Didier, 1951), 14–15.
121. Ibid., 59.

its {96} development. Spontaneous generation represents “unquestion-

able atheism” (Priestly).122 It had to be rejected as against biblical
teaching. Now the emergence of materialism as advocated by Diderot
was seen as an attack upon the church, associated with atheism and
political radicalism and eventually held responsible for the French Rev-
olution. This demonstrated the danger for the church to engage in sci-
entific theorizing. And one result was that biology became politicized.
In Germany a different “spirit” arose among the Naturphilosophen.
George-Ernest Stahl taught that the soul directs all processes of the
generation of life. Schelling introduced the concept of pure being, and
Carl Carus carried this into his view of nature as a living spirit which
pervades all of nature. All its individual organisms are part of a greater
living whole:
… the totality of individual lives of individual organisms led to the
conclusion that there was a unity of life in all of nature, rather than a
plurality of individual lives.123
This is of course a direct reflection of the philosophy of Hegel.
So now we are back into cosmic animism. The entire cosmos was
seen as organic and thought to be in a creative process, “gradually man-
ifested over time.”
In France around 1800, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck began to teach that
the fossils of extinct species were evidence that species change over a
long period of time into different forms of life. The doctrine of evolu-
tion was beginning to take shape. Initially, however, what was lacking
was the method by which this could take place.
Jean-Georges Cabanis, a materialist and an ideologue of the revolu-
tionary period, believed that:
all phenomena in the universe have been, are and always will be the
result of properties of matter.124
He also believed with Lamarck that the more primitive forms of animal
life continually arise by spontaneous generation, thus feeding the
evolutionary “escalator” from the bottom up. We will now examine
122. J. Farley, Spontaneous Generation, 44.

123. Ibid., paraphrasing Carus, 33.
124. Oevres comletes de Cabanis (Paris, 1824), Memoire 10 vol. 4, 253n.

which were these properties of matter, responsible for the phenomenon

of life, the rise from molecules to microbes.
C. The Stage Gets Set for Battle
In 1847 four Germans formed the Physical Society so as to put physi-
ology on a chemico-physical basis and so give it equal rank with Phys-
ics. One of its members was Theodor Schwann. He formulated a
concise theory of the materialistic origin of living organisms. He
started with {97} the assumption that an organism comes into being by
the blind laws of necessity, “by powers which, like those of inorganic
nature, are established by the very essence of matter.”125 In other words,
the forces which are abstracted from physical matter such as gravita-
tion create organisms, merely by “another combination of these materi-
als.” And that brings the ancient spirits who dwelled in the idols of
wood and stone back to us. Concrete animism is now to fight the vital
spirit of Aristotle and the cosmic spirit of Hegel.
From this point on, we can distinguish three main denominations of
the religion without revelation or Creator. They all agree on the basic
doctrine of abiogenesis: there never was a special act of God which
established any living being. Life started with a primitive organism
which evolved into the diversity of life as we see it today. Their adher-
ents disagree on the way all this came about. We recognize: (1) Vitalis-
tic animism; (2) Physicalistic animism; and (3) Cosmic animism.
1. Vitalistic animism.
Vitalists believe in a living force which directs matter to serve the
ends of the organism. As we saw, Aristotle called this force soul. It is the
“cause, the source of the living body.” It is the “final cause, that for the
sake of which a thing exists.”
Needham assumed that a vegetative force was the “real productive
force in nature.” Many others have held similar views and still do. In
this century among the more famous were Henri Bergson and Hans
Driesch. Bergson believed in a vital urge, his élan vital, which traverses
all of nature in the form of evolution and so forces matter into orga-
nized forms as living beings.
125. T. Schwann, Microscopic researches into the accordance in the structure and
growth of animals and plants, trans. H. Smith (London, 1847), 187.
Driesch did his famous experiments with the eggs of sea urchins. He
concluded that there is order in their development which leads to a
purpose. He spoke of the “essential form,” a notion of order, and called
it “entelechy.” It is the same word which Aristotle used, although he
maintained that it did not have any metaphysical meaning. Yet, in his
Philosophie des Organischen Driesch wrote:
The being of the natural agent entelechy depends in no way upon any-
thing that is material....126
The reason for Driesch’s view is clear enough. He divided the egg of a
sea urchin in two in the early stage of its development. To his
astonishment he saw two perfectly normal larvae develop. Yet, his
concept of entelechy as a goal or ordering power that acts by directing
material processes was abstract animism in a new form. The being of
entelechy is immaterial, i.e., that of a spirit. {98}
Driesch himself saw a crucial problem in all this: how can an immate-
rial entelechy influence the cause—effect constellation of matter? And
how can matter, determined by its mechanical laws, be affected by an
immaterial entelechy?127
These questions cannot be answered by Driesch. The reason is:
An entelechy in Driesch’s neovitalist sense cannot exist in temporal
reality; for it is nothing but a theoretical abstraction of the biotic
modality of experience, absolutized to an “immaterial substance.” This
concept of entelechy is nothing but the counterpart of the mechanistic
concept of “matter,” which modern physics was obliged to relinquish
because of its incompatibility with the micro-structures of energy.128
In the 1950s the phenomenon of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin burst
upon the scene. In his The Phenomenon of Man he cut a broad swath
through the subtle structures built by philosophers and evolutionary
biologists over the years. He asked the old question of how matter
obtains its form and stated:
Without the slightest doubt there is something through which material
and spiritual energy hold together and are complementary. In the last
126. Philosophie des Organischen, quoted by Dooyeweerd, A New Critique, vol. 3, 739
127. Ibid., 742; paraphrased.

analysis, somehow or other, there must be a single energy operating in

the world.129
He then proposes the following solution:
We shall assume that, essentially, all energy is psychic in nature.130
And his explanation for the origin of living beings on this earth is just
as simple:
The mineral world and the world of life seem two antithetical crea-
tions ... but to a deeper study, when we force our way down to the
microscopic level and beyond to the infinitesimal, or (which comes to
the same thing) far back along the scale of time, they seem quite oth-
erwise—a single mass gradually melting in on itself.131
And so the psychic energy of de Chardin, the animistic spirit of his
imagination, produces the answer. Through its power the early oceans:
... here and there must unquestionably have begun writhing with {99}
minute creatures.132
In spite of a lengthy and sympathetic preface to his book by none less
than Sir Julian Huxley, the views of de Chardin are rarely mentioned
among scientists today. They have disappeared along with those of
most other forms of vitalist animism, including that of Driesch.
2. The Spirits in the Soup: The Return of Concrete Animism
Space does not permit a historical review of the development of this
brand of animism. Instead, I will let the recent discoveries and their
interpretation pass the reviewing stand.
We have seen that the creative spirit of this point of view is held to be
the physical forces inherent in matter. It arose long before modern
molecular science and before the advent of Charles Darwin. And as so
often happens, it was met with vigorous opposition at first. But the
acceptance of the theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin made it
easier to adopt the concept of abiogenesis:
129. Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, trans. B. Wall (New York, 1959),
63; emphasis his.
131. Ibid., 77.

Indeed, the materialists and Ernst Heackel were enthusiastic about

Darwin’s theory precisely because spontaneous generation and the
unification of the organic and the inorganic into “one great
fundamental conception” were implied. The materialists themselves
were not particularly concerned with the problem posed by the dis-
crediting of spontaneous generation, since abiogenesis was a meta-
physical necessity requiring no proof.133
After all, as one of them said, anyone who sees an essential difference
between matter and living things suffers from a “mental barrier.”134
Just as de Chardin declares the energy of matter to be psychic in nature,
the materialists put it the other way around and declare everything to
be physical and deny that life exists as a separate “quality.”
When biochemists demonstrated some of the vital processes, such as
reproduction and metabolism, to rest on chemical reactions and to be
carried out with the help of DNA molecules and proteins, particularly
the enzymes, materialism seemed to have won the battle. Vitalism had
never proved the existence of vital forces and few pay attention to it
today.
Because abiogenesis was the doctrine on which the faith of the mate-
rialist was built, scientists began to hanker after a scientific proof. If liv-
ing things arose out of inorganic matter in the past, why should it not
be possible to repeat this event in the laboratory? So the astrophysicists
spelled out what the atmospheric conditions must have been on the
young earth. Then the {100} physicists could tell how earth, water, and
other elements must have interacted. And finally the chemists got into
the act of reproducing the chemical processes that must have occured
before life began and led up to that.
Untold billions of public moneys have been expended on this
endeavor, the “metaphysical necessity requiring no proof.” What have
our chemists found?
Following the method of Descartes, they broke down the large mole-
cules of living cells, after having killed them first. Proteins, fat, carbohy-
drates, and many other compounds were split up into their smaller
constituents and their structural formula established. From there on
133. J. Farley, Spontaneous Generation, 142; emphasis added.

134. A. I. Kendall, “Bacteria as Colloids,” in H. N. Holmes, ed., Colloid Symposium
Monograph (New York: Chemical Catalogue Co., 1925), vol. 2, 195.
they tried to imitate the conditions as they must have prevailed on

early earth, submitting elements such as hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon,
and others to extreme changes in temperature, electromagnetism, pres-
sure and the like. In this way Miller managed to produce large mole-
cules, some of which occur in living things, along with many more that
are foreign to them, in 1953.135
In 1926 the American geneticist H. J. Muller stated that life origi-
nated from a chance combination of chemicals in the early environ-
ment on earth in the form of a gene. This was the first “living”
molecule, capable of reproducing itself, of mutating, and of producing
enzymes.
Muller claims that at least two large molecules, formed by purely
physical forces, accidentally formed a chemical bond. The resulting
molecule suddenly sprang to life, began to show metabolism and to
reproduce itself, to mutate and to evolve through the operation of natu-
ral selection.136 The key here is: “sprang to life.” These three words do
not explain anything since words do not create “life” out of a dead mol-
ecule. They are words of magic, spoken by a chemist who endows his
concrete molecule with a creative spirit: concrete animism.
In 1978 Lawrence S. Dillon published The Genetic Mechanism and
the Origin of Life.137 After 412 pages filled with information about our
present state of knowledge on the biochemistry in the cell, he formu-
lates what he calls “The early Sequence of Events” during the earliest
portion of life’s history. Here are the critical passages:
... as the shallow oceans became enriched with organic molecules and
polymers, two polyamino acid chains accidentally came into contact
which were mutually compatible in such a manner that each could
replicate the other (or, alternatively, a single self-replicating peptidoid
{101} molecule arose).... This first accidental combination of two
short interacting polyamino acid chains thus was the first living organ-
ism....138
135. S. Miller, “A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth

Conditions,” Science 117 (1953): 528. In this article Miller emphasized that his
experiments were started as “suggested by Oparin.”
136. H. J. Muller, “The Gene,” Proc. Roy. Soc. London 134 (1947): 1–37.
137. L. S. Dillon, The Genetic Mechanism and the Origin of Life (New York: Plenum
Press, 1978).
Again, no explanation as to how dead molecules spring to life. Mere

words of magic. The only force that is acknowledged to be capable of
performing the miracle of giving life to a dead molecule is that of
chemistry. And that can not be proved but must be believed. So all the
work done has come to naught. Physical forces, assigned the capacity of
creating life, are thus made into the spirits of creation that float in the
imaginary “hot thin soup” of the primeval oceans.
3. Cosmic Animism
We noted before that Descartes warned against leaving out a link in
the chain of an argument because then “the whole of certainty of the
conclusion falls to the ground.” In the two cases of concrete animism
just discussed we saw that the critical link in the chain of the progress-
ing argument was missing: the link between a dead molecule and a liv-
ing organism. And that destroyed the argument. In fact, Descartes
called basing a conclusion on a foundation “which no one had ade-
quately surveyed” a “mental disorder which prizes the darkness higher
than the light.”139
Around 1927–1929 scientists in Russia were told by Stalin to start
applying the teachings of Engels in biology. Until 1929 none of the
members of the Academy of Sciences belonged to the Communist
Party.140 But now they were to clean up their act, to remove all traces of
concrete animism by replacing it with cosmic animism and to bring the
struggle into the laboratory and the lecture hall.
Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin, a young biochemist, gave his first pub-
lic lecture in Moscow for the Botanical Society in 1922, which was pub-
lished in 1924. At that time he followed the then current line of the
materialists who saw no difference “between the structure of coagula
and that of protoplasm.”141 He saw a moment when a first coagulum
was formed as the point in time when “the transformation of organic
compounds into an organic body took place.” That was the standpoint,
held by the concrete animists such as H. J. Muller. But after 1929 he had

139. See note 84; emphasis added.
140. Farley, Spontaneous Generation, 172.
141. A. I. Oparin, “Origin of Life,” in J. Bernal, Origin of Life 211, as quoted by Farley,
ibid., 166.
to apply the dialectics of Engels to the problem of origins. He has done

so throughout the past half century with great agility.
The British biochemist J. B. S. Haldane was a communist like Oparin
and began working at Cambridge in the U. S. in 1923. He believed that
the first organic compounds had been formed in the primitive oceans
by the action {102} of ultraviolet light on CO2, water, and ammonia,
until the water resembled a “hot dilute soup.”142 Up till then these men
held a materialistic view consistent with that of most earlier concrete
animists. But now their theories had to be politicized. Now Engels had
to be given the floor.
Hegel had elevated his thought processes to the cosmic level of the
World Spirit, his homemade replacement of the Creator of the cosmos.
Engels had heard from his friend Marx that Hegel had turned things
upside down. In his Dialectics of Nature he gently raps Hegel on the
knuckles for this after mentioning the three laws of dialectics devel-
oped by Hegel:
The mistake lies in the fact that ... the universe, willy nilly, is made out
to be arranged in accordance with a system of thought which itself is
only the product of a definite stage of evolution of human thought. If
we turn the thing around, then everything becomes simple, and the
dialectical laws that look so extremely mysterious in idealist philoso-
phy at once become simple and clear as noonday.143
We note in passing that Engels personifies “evolution” (of human
thought) and assigns to it the power to produce a system of thought:
another example of abstract animism.
We saw that Hegel believed in the impulse of perfectibility in the
case of man. The World Spirit drives man inexorably towards a better
future. And he does this through the operation of the three laws of dia-
lectics. We will now examine the interpretation of Engels given by
Oparin.
The first law is that “of the transformation of quantity into quality.”
This addition of quantities comes in minute amounts:
From our point of view … the modern process of evolution of living
organisms is fundamentally nothing more than the addition of some
142. J. B. S. Haldane, “Origin of Life,” in Bernal, Origin of Life, 246–47.


new links to an endless chain, the beginning of which extends to the

very dawn of existence of our planet.144
Engels drew the evolution of things back into the material beginnings.
Matter is in constant motion and proceeds through a series of stages of
development. In the course of this progress there arise ever newer,
more complicated ... forms of motion of matter, having new properties
which were not previously present.…145
Oparin criticizes the physicalists for their mechanistic view because
they see all phenomena of life merely as physicochemical processes.
That way, he says, they deny that there is any difference between
organisms and inorganic objects. That leads to absurdity because:
{103}
We are thus in a position where we must say either that inorganic
objects are alive or that life does not really exist.146
That is indeed the position of, e.g., J. Monod, who calls living beings
chemical machines.147 Not so, says Oparin. Life has “specific biological
properties,148 qualitatively different from those of the inanimate world.
And the transformation from one quality to another is brought about
by minute changes in quantity. The astonishing thing here is that
Engels and Oparin believe that they can abstract the concept of number
(quantity) from existing material things and then give it the power to
produce more complex ones, eventually leading to living organisms.
This is another example of their animistic frame of mind.
One of Engels’s more famous instances of transformation of quantity
into quality involves ethyl alcohol, C2H6O. If you add to that the num-
bers of 3 C and 6 H atoms you get amylalcohol: C5H12O, a poison.
When you drink this, you get quite sick:
... one could say that the intoxication, and subsequent “morning after”
feeling, is also quantity transformed into quality....149
144. A. I. Oparin, The Origin of Life, trans. S. Morgulis (New York: Dover Publishing,
1938), 244–45.
145. A. I. Oparin, Genesis and Evolutionary Development of Life (New York: Academic
Press, 1968), 6.
146. Ibid., 5.
147. Monod, Chance and Necessity, 45.
148. Oparin, Genesis, 6.

Engels simply confuses real atoms with numbers. Atoms and alcohols
have numerical functions but numbers have no alcoholic functions.
You don’t get drunk on numbers. This type of philosophical confusion
Monod rightly calls an “epistemological disaster.”150 But Oparin’s
theories on the origin of life are based on it.
The second law is that of the interpenetration of opposites. For that
reason Oparin emphasizes the opposite processes of anabolism and
catabolism and the role they play in the process of genetic change.151
That implies that the highly abstract concept of opposition or conflict
is personified and given power to affect living beings: more animism.
The third law is even more curious. Engels observed that “living
means dying.”152
So by using the law of the negation of the negation we negate death, as
the negation of life, and end up with life again, employing the good
offices of dialectics. Even the concept of negation is made into a spirit
which is given the power to even negate itself and so to come up with
something substantial.
Jacques Monod, world famous biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate,
discussed {104} these “laws” of Engels and saw in them only a subjec-
tive experience of the thinking process. However:
... to retain these subjective laws just as they are and to make them
serve as those of a purely material universe, this is to effect the animist
projection in the most blatant manner....153
We can only agree that Engels’s laws are not based on reality. Therefore,
to assign them power to create living beings out of “matter of motion”
amounts to cosmic animism of a “blatant” type.
And so it is that the world of natural science has become divided into
two major camps, fighting over the origin of life. The fight is going to
be unequal, because the concrete animists are dwindling in number
and the forces on the side of cosmic animism are gaining the upper


hand. The spirits of Engels and Oparin are coming, and who is there to
stop them?
2. The Spirit That Came and Conquered

A. The Class Struggle of the Droplets
The old teleology has gone to the devil, but the certainty now stands
firm that matter in its eternal cycle moves according to laws which at a
definite stage—now here, now there—necessarily give rise to the
thinking mind in organic beings.154
Fortified by this revelation from the lips of Engels, A. I. Oparin only
had to show how matter began its present cycle. Engels warned that
matter moves slowly from one stage to the next:
... it has become foolish ... to believe it is possible by means of a little
stinking water to force nature to accomplish in twenty four hours
what it cost her thousands of years to bring about.155
There is only one way to solve the problem of the origin of life, says
Oparin, and that is the way Engels has shown us with his materialistic
dialectics:
Life has neither arisen spontaneously nor has it existed eternally. It
must have, therefore, resulted from a long evolution of matter, its ori-
gin being merely one step in the course of its historical develop-
ment.156
Oparin agrees with the idea of the growing complexity of chemicals
that apeared in the primeval oceans. But once they exist, he decides on
a course for them to follow that differs from that of the physicalists. In
1929 the Dutch chemist Bungeberg de Jong described his work with
drops that were rich in colloidal compounds, floating in a noncolloidal
liquid. Oparin chose {105} these drops as the best form of matter that
could over millions of years become so complex that they resembled
the protoplasm of living cells. These drops were called coacervates.
Once we have these complex drops, we have something which looks
like an individual, different from its environment. All it needs now is to
become alive. As he says, these drops must now shed randomness and:

155. Ibid., 189.
156. Oparin, Origin of Life, 33.

acquire properties of a yet higher order, properties subject to biologi-

cal laws.157
The way to do that is simple enough. All they need is natural selection
of the hardiest drops with the best chemical systems. Almost unnoticed
he slyly introduces the order of a system into the random solution
within the drops, no doubt imposed by the “necessity of progress” of
the World Spirit. The selection of the fittest is a term he borrows from
the study of biology, dealing with living things. To ascribe the process
of natural selection to little drops filled with unorganized chemicals is
to give a human concept power to organize their internal chaos.
Oparin cannot stand still. His newly organized systems must become
ever more coordinated, new chemical processes appear, and so, at his
bidding:
... systems of a still higher order, the simplest organisms, have
emerged.158
From here on the appearance of all the diverse forms of life was merely
a matter of increasing natural selection. That is the easy part. The
creation of the first living organism was the most difficult act. The
world spirit of progress which Hegel discovered, albeit upside down,
set rightly on its feet by Marx and Engels, moved into the drops of
Oparin and got them fighting for survival. And since this spirit bent
their chemical reactions to his will, he gave to some better enzymes
than to others. And so the best became so perfected that they began to
live. In this way the World Spirit has created the parent of all that lives
on earth. And the method he chose would later on be called the class
struggle. We hear this from the great pioneer himself:
... this question [of the origin of life] was always the focal point of a
sharp philosophical struggle which reflected the underlying struggle
of social classes.159
B. What Spirit Will Win?
Today very few scientists working on the materialistic theory of the
origin of life believe the accidental collision of two complex molecules
157. Ibid., 160.

158. Ibid., 195.
159. Ibid., 1.

could have resulted in a living being. Even the most primitive form of
life that we know, the smallest virus, is so complicated and has so many
large {106} molecules, all working in harmony, that even most hardy
evolutionists can not believe that they came from a single molecule.
Nearly all of them have adopted the view of Oparin and abandoned
concrete animism.
The idea of a droplet that undergoes a slow but steady improvement
appeals to them. Moreover, they can make such drops and work with
them and perfect them. This concept has provided thousands of the
most brilliant chemists the world over with the chance to do fascinat-
ing chemical work during a lifetime. And the taxpayer willingly pro-
vides the funds since he believes that in science everything is possible
as long as we try hard and long enough and pour sufficient funds into
it.
Oparin seemed to have taken the gamble out of working with the
random collision of large molecules. Even evolutionists had come to
the conclusion that the theory of probability rules out the likelihood of
such a random collision resulting in “life.” The coacervate droplet
seems so much more promising.
After World War II Oparin managed to organize international con-
ferences. At the First International Symposium on the Origin of Life at
Moscow in 1957, Oparin stated that “the principle of the evolutionary
origin of life” was shared by all participants. But there were still several
adherents of the physicalistic version of animism as we have described
it above. The cold war was fought even there between the “mechanists”
from the West and the Marxists from both East and West, many of the
latter coming from the U.S.A.160
Today, there are few physicalists left. Indeed, as Oparin has often
pointed out, their “random collision” amounts to spontaneous genera-
tion. Not many scientists can maintain their belief in it now. John Far-
ley wrote The Spontaneous Generation Controversy from Descartes to
Oparin in 1977. In his introduction he correctly observed,
That spontaneous generation is no longer an issue to most biologists,
stems, in the final analysis, from the work of Oparin, not Pasteur....
Most scientists today have abandoned such a belief. They have

accepted the evolutionary concept as expressed by the Russian Marx-

ist biochemist Aleksandr Oparin.161
And so cosmic animism has conquered both vitalistic and concrete
animism, not just in Marxist Russia, whence came its most eloquent
advocate ever since 1922, and it is still going strong. Cosmic animism is
the prevalent spirit that is instilled into the young minds of all the
countries that still have freedom of expression. But, as the founder of
the school of sociology at Harvard University once wrote, “evolution is
a jealous god.”162 {107}
If cosmic animism prevails for long because our citizens do not
demand that this primitive religion be removed from our public
schools, the freedom to teach creation at our own schools may not last.
And then animism will have really conquered. Are we willing to do
battle against this hideous animism in science?
161. Ibid., 7.
162. T. Parsons, Structure and Process in Modern Society (1960), 3, quoted by B. C.
Wearne, The Development of “The structure of Social Action” in the early writings of
Talcott Parsons (Hamilton, New Zealand: University of Waikato, unpublished masters
thesis, 1978), 106.
WHAT I BELIEVE TODAY
Cornelius Van Til
I believe today what Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, says he believes
in his day. He says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” and
adds, “since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more
shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when were
God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his
Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved
through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through
our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconcilia-
tion” (Rom. 5:8–11).
The Westminster Shorter Catechism expresses this belief very well. It
tells us first who God is, who man is, and what is the nature of the rela-
tion between the two. It asks: “What is God?” and answers: “God is a
Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power,
holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” It goes on to ask: “Are there more
Gods than one?” and answers: “There is but one only, the living and
true God.” And it asks: “How many persons are there in the Godhead?”
and answers: “There are three persons in the Godhead: The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one God, the same in sub-
stance, equal in power and glory.” (Q. 4–6).
At the beginning of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John
Calvin points out that man cannot know himself for what he is unless
he accepts what God in Christ through Scripture says he is. Says B. B.
Warfield: “The tripersonality of God is conceived by Calvin, ... not as
something added to the complete idea of God, or as something into
which God develops in the process of his existing, but as something
that enters into the very idea of God, without which he cannot be con-
ceived in truth of his being.”163 For Calvin the doctrine of the trinity
was involved in his experience of salvation (in the Christian’s certainty
that the redeeming Christ and sanctifying Spirit are each Divine Per-
163. B. B. Warfield, Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (New York: Oxford, 1930), 10.

sons).164 Again: “The main thing was, he insisted, that men should
heartily believe that there is but one God, whom only they should
serve; but also that Jesus Christ our Redeemer and the Holy Spirit the
Sancitifier is each no less this one God than God the Father to whom
we owe our being; while yet these three are distinct personal objects of
our love {109} and adoration.”165 It was because of his deep religious
interest in making the triune God the starting point of all theology that
Calvin found it necessary to exclude every last vestige of subordina-
tionism which might be said to be sanctioned by the language of Nicea.
He therefore used the word autotheos with respect to the Son of God.
The triune God of Scripture is, then, alone ultimate, self-sufficient
and self-referential. No man can say anything intelligible about any-
thing except on the assumption that such is the case. This I believe;
believing this, I am a Christian.
In opposition to this claim the non-Christian assumes that such is
not the case. If my belief were to be accepted, the non-Christian con-
tends, it would spell the end of significant personal thought and action
on the part of man at every point.
Man must be thought of as being his own final point of reference in
all his reactions to any thing. Socrates wanted to know what “the holy”
was regardless what any god might say about it. Rene Descartes
thought that he could intelligently doubt the existence of God but that
he could not intelligently doubt the existence of himself. Immanuel
Kant said that absolutely nothing can be said about any god that is not
the projection of the self-sufficient moral consciousness of man.
Thus there are two mutually exclusive points of view with respect to
man and the world about him. Christians are Christians because they
believe in the triune God of Scripture as the final reference point of
human speech and action; the non-Christians are non-Christians
because they believe in man as the final reference point in all signifi-
cant human speech and action.
I believe, secondly, that the triune God of Scripture “did, by the most
holy and wise counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain
whatever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of
164. Ibid., 195.

165. Ibid., 251.

What I Believe Today 143
sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty
or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established”
(Westminster Confession, chap. 3).
To this we may add at once the words of the Larger Catechism: “God
executeth his decrees in the works of creation and providence; accord-
ing to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel
of his own will” (answer to Q. 14).
So far we have the Triune God of Scripture by His decree ordaining
whatsoever comes to pass. This is, in a nutshell, my philosophy of his-
tory.
The non-Christian assumes or affirms that such is not the case. If my
belief with respect to the decree of the Triune God were true, he con-
tends, it would spell the end of all significant human thought and
action. To my {110} non-Christian friend, my belief on this point con-
stitutes an intolerable determinism in the field of being, an intolerable
authoritarianism in the field of knowledge, and intolerable tyranny in
the field of morals.
My non-Christian neighbor believes in a philosophy of history that
is marked by eternal process. For him 7 + 5 is an eternal novelty and, at
the same time, an eternal novelty. The non-Christian believes that the
distinction between divine, eternal, absolute being and human, tempo-
ral, and derivative being, is one of degree only. “God” as well as man
springs forth from the womb of pure contingency. Man, as well as God,
has existed “from all eternity.” The distinction between “God” and man
and his world falls within the idea of the idea universe or reality. This
universe never started and will never be complete. There has been no
creation out of or into nothing, by a self-sufficient, self-complete, eter-
nally self-existent God. The idea of creation stands for the novelty
aspect of reality. There could not have been anything like creation out
of nothing.
The man Jesus of Nazareth was not because He could not have been
the sort of being that the Chalcedon Creed (AD 451) made Him out to
be. There was not because there could not have been a “Person” who
had two natures, the one eternal and the other temporal, without mix-
ture. The distinction between the eternally divine and the temporally
human in Jesus of Nazareth must be one of degree only. Accordingly,
there is not, because there could not be, any basic distinction between

the personality of Jesus and the personality of any other man. As a real
man Jesus shared in the absolute contingency that marks all other men.
As real men all other men share in Jesus’s consciousness of identity
with the eternal Father. Again, as there has never been, because there
could never have been any such person as the Chalcedon Creed
describes Jesus as being, so the work that He did was not, because it
could not have been, that of a finished redemption of his people. Jesus
did not, because He could not have executed His office of a prophet “in
revealing to us, by His Word and Spirit, the will of God for our salva-
tion.” Jesus did not because He could not have executed his office of a
priest, “in His once offering up of Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine
justice, and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession
for us.” Jesus did not because He could not have “executed his office as
a king, in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us, and in
restraining all His and our enemies.” If Jesus was distinct as a prophet, a
priest, and a king, He was, at most, distinct from other men as being
ahead of them in the eternally ongoing development of human person-
ality.
Finally, there will never be because there can never be anything like a
final judgment day in which Jesus, as the Son of God and Son of man,
will consign to His left hand those who have in their life refused to own
Him as their Savior and Lord. All men have, because they must have, to
be men at all, the principle of victory of the good over evil built into
them. To have {111} any meaning to any man the idea of judgment
must be that whereby the self-sufficient moral consciousness of man
evaluates itself. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good are what they are
as ideals which the ever developing consciousness of man always sets
before itself.
It appears then that there are only two kinds of people in the world,
non-Christians and Christians; covenant breakers and covenant keep-
ers; these two kinds of people have mutually exclusive beliefs about
everything.
Now if I am worth my salt as a Christian, I want my non-Christian
neighbors and friends to rejoice with me “through our Lord Jesus.” But
how can I reach other men with the good news of redemption from sin
through the atoning death of Christ for men? As for men, may the tri-
une God keep me from thinking, even for a fraction of a second, that I

have accepted my belief because I am wiser or better than my friend. I

am, of myself, like all other human beings, one of the children of dis-
obedience. I am of myself one of those who persecute Christ. But He
who is the Prince of Life has sought me in my blood. He has called me
forth from the tomb, and behold I live. I was blind but now I see.
Like Noah I have found grace in the sight of God, and by that grace I
seek to walk with God and become a “preacher of righteousness.” I tell
my contemporaries that Christ has instructed me to warn them of
impending judgment. My reasoning with them is identical with my
witnessing to them. If they do not repent and turn for the forgiveness
of their rebellion against Him who calls them to Himself, they will ere
long call upon the mountains to cover them from the wrath of the
Lamb. You know, my friend Jones, that your wisdom is foolishness
even in your own eyes. May the Holy Spirit who took the scales from
my eyes give to my friend Jones to see, that is, to believe what I now
believe. May he and I together be present with the multitude that no
man can number when they sing “you are worthy, our Lord and our
God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things,
and by your will they were created and have their being” (Rev. 4:11).
What then is the use of my reasoning with Mr. Jones? Well, there is
much use in my reasoning just because he is not what he believes he is
but is what I believe he is. If he were what he believes he is and the
world about him were what he believes it is, he could not identify him-
self, any other person, or any thing about him. He, and all other men,
would be like whitecaps washed up by a shoreless, bottomless sea.
Whitecap I would not be able to distinguish himself from Whitecap II.
Whitecap II would not be able to distinguish himself from Whitecap I,
and the two could not begin to give any sign of identification or recog-
nition to one another before their whiteness would be lost in the blue
about them.
Mr. Jones knows that this is the case. He knows modern existential
philosophy. He knows, too, that the principles of modern existential-
ism {112} resemble those of Greek philosophy. He knows that both
ancient and modern philosophy assume: (a) the idea of the self-suffi-
ciency of man as the final reference point for all human speech and
action, (b) the idea of pure contingency or chance as a principle of

individualization of all reality, and (c) the idea of pure or abstract being
as a principle of unity.
Mr. Jones knows that these three principles involve the rejection of
my position in advance of any dialogue between us. These principles
amount to saying: (a) Nobody knows anything about the ultimate
nature of reality; to begin with, any hypothesis must be as good as any
other, (b) but your hypothesis is wrong because it claims that God does
know, and (c) my hypothesis is right because it assumes that nobody
knows.
I have often pointed out to Mr. Jones that this position of his presup-
poses that he has done and can do what in my belief the God of Chris-
tianity has done.
My friend knows well enough that he cannot in terms of his assumed
view of reality say anything intelligible about anything. If what I believe
were not true and what he believes were not false, neither of us could
say anything intelligible about anything. Mr. Jones knows that this is
the case, but he does not want this to be the case; he is spending his
days and his nights trying to suppress this knowledge. Mr. Jones cannot
escape seeing the face of God in everything of which he has any aware-
ness (Rom. 1:19). He knows that he is responsible for what God said to
him in Adam (Rom. 5:12). He knows that he is “without excuse” for not
repenting from his covenant-breaking attitude toward God. The claim
that my position is more in accord with the “facts” that both of us
know, and better satisfies the law of contradiction that both of us have
to take for granted if we are to have to converse together at all, dis-
tresses him and then he draws back in horror.
He will ask me how I can expect him to appeal with me to facts and
to logic, when what I really want him to do is to accept the nature of
fact and logic to be what they are in terms of my authoritarian deter-
ministic philosophy of history. If you offered your position, he will say,
as a hypothesis which might or might not be established by research,
then it would be reasonable that I should listen to you. But you claim to
prove your position to us by an appeal to facts while you have, in
advance, excluded even the possibility that these facts might be what
on my hypothesis they are. If you offered your position as more nearly
approaching the ideal that reality is what man by logic says it must be,
it would be reasonable that I should listen to you. But you claim that

the function of human logic is to discover order into a universe that has
already been ordered by your God. If I were to accept your view of man
and his world, I would, in advance, have to crucify myself as a free,
developing personality and reject the possibility of a developing reality
in which I may grow as a scientist and a philosopher. When you have
learned what scientific and philosophical inquiry requires {113} the
nature of fact and of logic to be, then I shall be glad to have you speak
to me. I am always glad to hear of some new hypothesis that might
enable me to enter more deeply into the process of our ongoing uni-
verse, than I have so far been able to do.
Well, what can I say in return? Shall I retreat from my bold assertion
that “facts” and “logic” can fruitfully unite only and alone if they are
first interpreted in terms of the Christian philosophy of history? Shall I
plead with my non-Christian friend, Mr. Jones, to think of Christianity
as a hypothesis that may possibly be true to the facts and in accord with
logic? But this would be to betray my Savior, who said: “I am the Way,
the Truth and the Life.” He never appeals to logic and/or to facts as hav-
ing any light in them that did not derive from Him. Shall I then simply
say: “Well, this is what I believe; if you don’t believe what I believe I
have no more to say to you”? Shall I “witness” to Mr. Jones instead of
reasoning with him? This would be impossible. I cannot witness to him
unless I show him the need of accepting my belief instead of his. I must
therefore distinguish what I believe from what he believes. But I am not
doing this unless I point out to him that my faith spells life and his
spells death.
But will he be able to follow me in my reasoning with him? Haven’t I
just before, myself, portrayed him as unable and unwilling to see any-
thing for what it really is? Indeed I have.
This is how Jesus pictured those who rejected Him; He tells them
that they are of their father, the devil. This is how Paul pictures the
“natural man.” Paul tells us that “those who live according to the sinful
nature have their minds set on what that nature desires, but those who
live according to the spirit have their minds set on what the spirit
desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by
the spirit is life and peace, because the sinful mind is hostile to God. It
does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the
sinful nature cannot please God” (Rom. 8:5).

Well, Mr. Jones, I was controlled by my sinful nature, no less than

any other man, but now I have been washed from my sin by the blood
of Him who gave Himself to the death of the cross and sent His Holy
Spirit who gave me new birth. May this soon be true also for you and
your family.

3.
CONTEMPORARY
THEOLOGICAL TRENDS

GREASE
John A. Nelson
Not too long ago a pastor I know asked me what our fellowship group
was currently “into.”
I replied, “We’re studying the Law of God.” A slight frown crossed his
face, and after a moment of thought he warned, “That’s okay if the law
of God is balanced with the love of God.”
In so saying, that pastor betrayed a heresy which puts forth its deadly
blossoms in every quarter of the Church today. Somehow the Church
has come to believe that God’s love counteracts His Law, that love and
law stand in opposition to one another. Law has become an ogre of
oppression and repression; love has come to be that which panders to a
vague something called human need; and grace has become grease—a
greasy escape from the rules of life. Or, said another way, the Church
today sees sanctification as a sort of boxing match with Love in one
corner and Law in the other: grace is the grease on Law’s glove which
prevents him from landing a solid punch.
Misguided pastors to the contrary, love and law—under God—are
not in the least opposed to one another. There is no such thing as love
without the law; such a lawless “love” becomes an embrace of death, a
willful drink of a poisoned cup. To understand the relationship of law
and love, it is needful to understand or, better said, see God, for in Him
are all tensions dissolved.
So let us consider God, taking as our text Romans 11:12, “Behold
therefore the goodness and severity of God.” St. Paul furnishes us not
only our text for consideration but also the vehicle through which we
shall consider it. To an immature church—the Corinthian—Paul says,
“Doth not even nature itself teach you...?” (1 Cor. 11:14).
Nature should have taught the Corinthians concerning the wearing
of long and short hair, and nature should have taught us that we serve a
God in whom love and law are not conflicting attributes for, in the
words of Dr. Cornelius Van Til, “All created reality is inherently revela-
tional of the nature and will of God.”
Grease 151
Nature teaches us, as it reveals the nature and will of God, that law is
the very context of life, of love. Without law, there is no love or life.
Our God is the God of law inasmuch as He defines what is. The
rigidity of nature teaches us the rigidity of God’s nature. Scripture
declares that {115} a man who sets aside the law of Moses dies without
mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. The revelation of
God in nature echoes the Scripture, for anyone going outside in
December at Barrow, Alaska, dies without mercy if he is not dressed
properly. At –70 degrees you’ll freeze to death in a pair of shorts—that’s
the law. Step off a 100-foot precipice and you’ll die just as quickly—
without mercy. If you plant beans, don’t expect to harvest corn; beans
produce beans, and that’s the law—rigidly, without mercy. If you breed
your mare to a mule, you’ll still be looking for a colt one year later.
Mules are sterile—that’s the law! Consider well the pages of nature’s
revelation for in that book, as in the Bible, we find revealed a God of
rigid law.
The Mother-earthers
The “back-to-the-land” thing is old enough now for most people to
know or know of folks who just couldn’t handle the move to the coun-
try. The “mother-earthers”—for the most part—are like today’s Chris-
tians: they sit at home reading the Mother Earth News, dreaming of a
paradise where meat suddenly fills the freezer, canned goods miracu-
lously appear on pantry shelves, wild fruits and nuts are found in the
forest in bushel baskets, ready-picked, and the skies are not cloudy all
day.
Let it never be said that these blithe spirits left their apartments for
the country-life in any lack of love. They were chock full of love for
mother-earth and all her little living things. The trouble was that no
one told them that before the freezer fills with meat there is death, and
stink, and viscera. No one told them about blisters, weeds, hail, and
potato bugs. They left the pavement and city lights secure in the
knowledge that in wildness is the preservation of the world, only to
find that the law of the wild reads, “Conquer or die.” Christians are like
that: they sit and read their Bibles and dream of paradise, and are sur-
prised when they find they’re dealing with a God who says, “This is the
way it must be.”
Nowhere in nature do we find revealed a “mushy” God or a God who

sets aside His law out of love. If you wander around at –70 degrees with
a heart full of love and praising God, that is how you’ll die—praising
God, but you’ll die nevertheless. Consider, indeed, the severity of God!
Love, then, seen properly, is not some greasy setting aside of the law on
the part of God, but love is God’s letting you in on the truth that you
must dress warmly at – 70. You may not like the truth; you may not
want to save enough money to buy an Eddie Bauer down coat, but God
has loved you when He let you know to dress warmly. Grace, by the
way, is when He gives you the ability to buy a down coat, and mercy is
when God sends help if you get stuck at –70. But never, never, never is
love to be understood as God giving you some special ability to cavort
around naked in the snow in violation of the law of freezing. Consider
well the severity of God! {116}
Closely akin to the matter of misunderstanding the relationship
between God’s love and God’s law is the unwillingness on the part of
goody-two-shoes Christians to understand the opposite of love—hate.
The opposite of love is not law; the opposite of love is hate, and God
does hate. “Jacob have I loved; Esau have I hated.”
If a man doesn’t love what God loves and hate what God hates, then
he will love what God hates and hate what God loves. There is no mid-
dle ground. Love without the law, or love that sets aside the law, or love
that overlooks sin, becomes a love of evil, for the essence of sin is law-
lessness. Christians who set aside the reproof of evil in the law, and
who scorn the counsel of God unto righteousness that is His law, begin
in simplicity and end in wickedness:
How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? ... Turn you at my
reproof.... They would none of my counsel: they despised all my
reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be
filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall
slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. (Prov. 1:22–
23, 30–32)
Logical End of Lawlessness

All this is to but say that many “Christians” today are worshipping,
not the God revealed in Scripture and nature, but a god of their own
making. Think well on it: one worships the God who is there or one

Grease 153
worships an idol. That God could really be all that “strict” will come as
a surprise to many, but that should not surprise us in an age like our
own with leaders telling us that the study of God (theology) will divide
us. Small wonder most Christians worship the Cosmic Blur.
Rudyard Kipling, in a telling passage that could be directed to the
Church of today, notes the logical end of lawlessness:
Ever since Akela had been deposed, the Pack had been without a
leader, hunting and fishing at their own pleasure. But they answered
the call from habit; and some of them were lame from the traps they
had fallen into, and some limped from shot wounds, and some were
mangy from eating bad food, and many were missing. But they came
to the Council Rock, all that were left of them, and saw Shere Khan’s
striped hide on the rock, and the huge claws dangling at the end of the
empty dangling feet.
“Look well, O Wolves. Have I kept my word?” said Mowgli. And the
wolves bayed, Yes, and one tattered wolf howled:
“Lead us again, O Akela. Lead us again, O Man-cub, for we be sick of
this lawlessness, and we would be the Free People once more.” (The
Jungle Book [Grosset & Dunlap, 1950], 109.)
Wolves or churchmen, it makes no difference; we worship, obey, and
follow the God of Law, finding our freedom in His law-word, or we,
like the wolf pack in Kipling’s jungle, become lame and mangy. Wit-
ness, if you {117} will, the saltless church of today—poised for rapture
out of a decadent culture, gathered in cozy little communities where all
is peace and joy, or worst of all, blithely unaware of any problems. This
is the “dispensation” of grease indeed!
Christian, realize that you’re dealing with God who decrees and has
decreed the law. He may and does accept simpletons but He doesn’t
take pleasure in them for long. He has given us a deposit—revelation—
and on that deposit He expects a return. Many today are preaching
unity, togetherness, community, for out of the collected wolf pack
comes the voice (supposedly) of God. Nonsense! God has spoken. It is
not the voice of God that we lack—it is obedience to God, who means
what He says, that we lack. Success will not come overnight; we have
come a long way downhill—with lots of grease on our skids. No matter
how hard you shake your tambourine, no matter how many times you
pray in tongues, no matter how many times you gloss over evil in the

name of love, the earth will tremble beneath our tread only when we
are obedient to the Law of God.
That Law stands written in Scripture. We don’t need clever men
abounding with “spiritual” insights, we don’t need wonder-workers, we
don’t even need unity, for that will come in God’s good time. What we
do need is to read and obey the law of God.
Fundamentalists are fond of calling the Bible “God’s love-letter to
men”—but do they even believe it? Modern dispensationalism has torn
the “love-letter” in seven (or is it eight?) pieces. God grant us teachers
who will give us the whole counsel of God! Christian, the love of God
in no way stands opposed to His law-word. Reject all leadership and
doctrine which leads you to believe there is any tension between the
two. Reject grease and embrace the grace of God, which is the ability to
obey His law-word.

THE CHRISTIAN CASE
AGAINST ABORTION
Kenneth L. Gentry Jr.
1. INTRODUCTION
In 1967, Garrett Hardin, professor of biology at the University of Cali-
fornia at Santa Barbara, wrote the following words (which at that time
would have been considered quite shocking to most Americans): “My
thesis is this: any woman, at any time, should be able to procure a legal
abortion without even giving a reason.... If my reasoning is correct, it is
almost impossible to imagine circumstances in which society would be
morally justified in withholding the right to abortion.”166 Today his
thesis is the law of the land, thanks to the Supreme Court of the United
States.
A tremendous moral and legal upheaval has occured in the United
States since Professor Hardin’s thesis was presented in 1967. Evidence
of the overwhelming success of the “abortion revolution” is best and
most easily illustrated statistically. In 1969, two years after he wrote,
there were 20,000 reported legal abortions in America.167 The latest
available government statistics put the number of abortions in America
at 1,238,987 for 1980. This represents a ratio of 358 abortions for every
1,000 live births.168 However, the Alan Guttmacher Institute projected
the 1979 abortion level at 1,540,000.169
Thus in ten years legal abortions have increased by over 5,700 per-
cent. To make matters worse, Willard Cates Jr., chief of the Abortion
166. Garrett Hardin in Alan F. Guttmacher, ed., The Case for Legalized Abortion Now
(Berkeley, CA: Diablo Press, 1967), 70.
167. Harold O. J. Brown, Death Before Birth (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1977),
15.
168. Annual Summary 1980 of the Reported Morbidity and Mortality in the United
States, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 103.
169. Walter Isaacson, “The Battle Over Abortion,” Time, April 6, 1981, 22.

Surveillance Branch for Disease Control, has said: “We think we’re
pretty lucky to have 85 percent of them [i.e., abortions] recorded.”170
Former abortionist and cofounder of the radical National Association
for Repeal of Abortion Laws (1969), Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., has
noted that “in the period since the Supreme Court decisions abortion
has become the most commonly performed surgical procedure on
adults in the United States....”171 {119}
The abortion issue is one which demands Christian involvement if
Christians are even to begin to pretend to take seriously their calling to
be the “salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:13–14).
True civil justice is preeminently a Christian concern, for as the writer
of Proverbs 24:11–12 warns: “If thou forbear to deliver them that are
drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest,
Behold, we knew it not, doth not he that pondereth the heart consider
it? and he that keepeth the soul, doth he not know it? and shall he not
render to every man according to his works?”
The abortion controversy is not only of momentous concern to the
Christian in terms of the number of innocent human lives being
snuffed out, but also due to the broader cultural and legal ramifications
it has in terms of the Christian community at large. The abortion revo-
lution represents only the tip of the iceberg of secular humanism which
is slowly wearing down the principle of freedom of religion and dimin-
ishing the hope of Christian cultural transformation in this age. Francis
Schaeffer put it well when he said:
Recent history shows us the unthinkable today can through callous-
ness become the thinkable tomorrow. To fail on this question of abor-
tion will be the failure of the greatest moral test of the century. It is my
serious opinion that this could possibly be the last chance for Chris-
tians to stop our society from becoming totally secular and humanis-
tic. If Christians do not take this opportunity to take up leadership, I
doubt if we will get another.172
The January 22, 1973, Roe v. Wade173 U.S. Supreme Court decision
made the abortion revolution complete by instituting abortion-on-
170. Cited in Linda Bird Francke, The Ambivalence of Abortion (New York: Random
House, 1978), 16.
171. Bernard N. Nathanson, Aborting America (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979),
270.
The Christian Case Against Abortion 157
demand as the law of the land. The landmark Roe decision is the water-
shed which radically divided American ethico-cultural history in terms
of this significant moral issue. Before Roe, America was essentially an
antiabortion society; since Roe it has become a proabortion society—
with all that that entails.174 That Roe was in fact an abortion-on-
demand edict is seen not only from the resultant dramatic increase in
abortions, but also from Associate Justice Byron White’s dissent in
which he stated that Roe allowed abortion “for any ... reason or no rea-
son.”
Roe v. Wade represents a major and disturbing breach with legal
trends in American jurisprudence. As such it is a classic demonstration
of the {120} ascendency of arbitrary, existential law. In 1957, Glanville
Williams (a proabortion activist somewhat later) commented on the
then prevailing tendency in law in terms of the unborn:
At present both English law and the law of the great majority of the
United States regard any interference with pregnancy, however early it
may take place, as criminal, unless for therapeutic reasons. The fetus is
a human life to be protected by criminal law from the moment when
the ovum is fertilized.175
Well over a decade later, attorney Douglas Strip wrote much the same
thing in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association:
... the law of property ... grants to a fetus yet unborn a conditional legal
personality. That is to say, if a fetus is subsequently born alive it may
immediately receive a legacy, obtain an injunction, have a guardian, or
even be an executor, even though it was at the critical moment, en
ventre sa mere.
172. From the present writer’s notes taken at the December 4, 1979, Francis Schaeffer
lecture at the “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” film seminar in Nashville,
Tennessee.
173. Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973). For an excellent, nontechnical summary of Roe
see Brown, Death Before Birth, chap. 4, and C. Everett Koop, The Right to Live; The Right
to Die (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1976), 34–43.
174. Harold O. J. Brown and others have noted that the substantial gains achieved by
the late 1960s and early 1970s by the abortion rights movement were only precariously
held and were in serious danger of being washed away—until Roe, that is. Cf. Brown,
Death Before Birth, 14.
175. Glanville Williams, The Sanctity of Life and Criminal Law (New York: Alfred
Knopf, 1957), 149.
Moreover, according to a steadily growing number of recent cases in

the area of tort law, a fetus can maintain an action for the death of a
parent while it is still in utero. It has been recently held by several
courts that an action can be maintained on behalf of the child who
was born deformed because of prenatal injuries negligently inflicted
upon it; and, that an action can be maintained against a tort-feasor if
the child dies—regardless of whether the death occurred before or
after birth.
Moreover, as early as 1965 eight American courts when dealing with
cases in tort law followed a biological approach and now hold that life
begins at conception; thereby according legal personality to the
zygote.176
Yet, in keeping with the radical nature of Roe, Justice Blackmun
defended abortion as a constitutional right not only in despite to legal
precedent, but also by side-stepping the most crucial questions
involved in the matter. Blackmun’s majority opinion stated: “We need
not resolve the difficult question of when life begins....” Subsequent to
the issuance of Roe there was widespread legal criticism from a host of
prominent legal authorities, including Harvard Law School’s Archibald
Cox177 and John Hart Ely,178 the University of Texas’s Professor of
Jurisprudence Joseph P. Witherspoon,179 Notre Dame Law School’s
dean J. O’Meara,180 University of {121} California’s Professor of Law
John T. Noonon Jr.,181 and others.182 For example, Cox commented
that
... the opinion fails even to consider what I suppose to be the most
compelling interest of the state in prohibiting abortion: the interest in
176. Douglas Strip, “Questions and Answers: When Does Life Begin?” Journal of the
American Medical Association 214:10 (December 7, 1970): 1893. Cf. also Edwin
Patterson’s Law in a Scientific Age (1963), 35.
177. Archibald Cox, The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government (New
York: Oxford, 1976), 57ff.
178. Cited in Nathanson, Aborting America, 261.
179. J. Witherspoon in Texas Tech Law Review, vol. 6 (1974–1975).
180. J. O’Meara in Human Life Review 1:4 (1975).
181. J. T. Noonan Jr., “Why A Constitutional Amendment?” Human Life Review 1:2
(1975).
182. Cf. discussion in Brown, Death Before Birth, 77ff.; Nathanson, Aborting America,
260ff.; and Koop, Right to Live, 34–43.

maintaining that respect for the paramount sanctity of human life

which has always been at the centre of Western civilization.183
Interestingly, the breach with legal history was so radical, unexpected,
and ill-defended that even Bernard Nathanson, while an abortion
rights advocate, was taken aback at the magnitude of the abortionists’
victory before the Court. In his semiautobiographical Aborting
America, he wrote:
I was pleased with Justice Harry Blackmun’s abortion decisions, which
were an unbelievably sweeping triumph for our cause, far broader
than our 1970 victory in New York or the advances since then. I was
pleased with Blackmun’s conclusions, that is. I could not plumb the
ethical or medical reasoning that had produced the conclusions. Our
final victory had been propped up on a misreading of obstetrics, gyne-
cology, and embryology, and that is a dangerous way to win....184
Clearly, Roe represented a miscarriage of justice that effected a radical
discontinuity with traditional Western jurisprudence. Furthermore, in
his majority opinion Blackmun specifically discounted arguments
which were in any way based upon conclusions drawn from the Judeo-
Christian ethico-legal tradition. He even went so far as to discredit the
validity of the Hippocratic Oath’s statement against abortion on the
grounds that it was popularized mainly due to Christian influence. He
noted instead that “ancient religion did not bar abortion.” Such an
argument demonstrates what most Americans are only gradually
realizing: America is in the midst of a radical de-Christianization.
American social mores are being shifted from their traditional
Christian ethical base to a wholly secular, humanistic one. Indeed,
David Louisell, while Professor of Law at the University of California,
Berkeley, noted that Roe was almost the “perfect challenge” to
Christianity.185 Harold O.J. Brown concedes that Roe v. Wade has
confronted us with the formal challenge of paganism.186 Blackmun was
historically correct in noting the strong Christian influence on anti-
abortion {122} sentiments in Western culture.187 The tremendous
183. Cox, Role of the Supreme Court, 53.

184. Nathanson, Aborting America, 159.
185. Cited in Harold O.J. Brown, “Legal Aspects of the Right to Life,” in Thou Shalt Not
Kill, ed. Richard L. Ganz (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1978), 123.
186. Ibid., 124.

impact of Christianity on the development of Western culture and

jurisprudence is well-attested.188 In light of the fact that Christianity
has been the major formative influence at work molding Western
civilization, it should be obvious that its role will be diminished today
only at great cost. That cost doubtless will be the total reorientation of
America’s entire sociopolitical order. Such would be extremely
dangerous, for as Paul G. Kauper, distinguished Professor of Law at the
University of Michigan, has commented: the “Judeo-Christian
understanding of the worth and dignity of man...has much to say in
defining the ethos of our democratic order.”189 As Christianity goes, so
goes our political order.
In light of the prominence of Christianity’s influence in our society
and law, Malcolm Muggeridge has written:
The abortion issue raises the question of the very destiny and purpose
of life itself; of whether our human society is to be seen in Christian
terms as a family with a loving father who is God, or a factory-farm
whose primary consideration must be the physical well-being of the
livestock and the material well-being of the collectivity.190
In an interesting article in the British Medical Journal a few years back,
Sir Roger Ormrod noted:
Codes of ethics, like the Highway Code and the Ten Commandments,
receive very little consideration once the “L” plates are taken down.
This is not because they are ignored, but because they have been
absorbed and have become part of our way of life which we do not
think about and feel that we have no need to think about unless and
until a crisis is upon us.... When the profession as a whole has to face
187. That Christianity has historically promoted an antiabortion ethic is easily

demonstrable. Rushdoony has cited a variety of historical documents in support of this
thesis, including the Didache and writings by such prominent early Christian
theologians as Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Basil, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine.
See Rousas John Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1973),
264–65.
188. E.g., William E.H. Lecky, A History of Western Morals (New York: Brasiller, 1955)
and Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Old Tappen, NJ: Revell, 1976).
189. Paul G. Kauper, Religion and the Constitution (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press,
1964), 85.
190. Malcolm Muggeridge, “What the Abortion Argument is About,” Human Life
Review 1:3 (1975): 4.
new and difficult problems such as abortion, euthanasia, or the

transplanting of organs there is a sudden revival of interest in the code
of ethics.... The medical profession is approaching a crisis of this kind
at the present time. The Western World is changing over from a com-
munity or communities based more or less firmly on what is called the
Christian Ethic—which, however vaguely defined, is and has always
been perceived as a powerful force in shaping conduct of all kinds—to
{123} one based on humanist or sociological principles.191
C. D. Leake brought some similarly important observations to the
attention of the medical profession when he reviewed a medical
colloquium on ethical dilemmas in Annals of Internal Medicine. He
noted that one participant cited atomic scientist Robert J.
Oppenheimer as saying: “I believe the strength and soundness of
Christian sensibility, the meaning of love and charity, have changed the
world as least as much as technological development.” The speaker
cited went on to add:
If we accept the importance of continuity with the past, Dr.
Oppenheimer’s words, which sound more like something coming
from a theologian than a scientist, should give pause about making
any drastic changes or departures from the basic Judeo-Christian con-
cepts of ethics and morals that are the foundation of all the law of
Western civilization.192
Few statements have been so bold and clear in speaking to the
relationship of abortion advocacy to Western culture as the following
one cited by the Christian Action Council:
Jerome Lejune, a French geneticist of international renown, reports
that a prominent European pro-abortionist flatly stated: “We are fight-
ing to destroy Judeo-Christian society and civilization. To destroy it
we have to destroy the family. We have to destroy its weakest point and
the weakest point of the family is the unborn child. Hence, we are for
abortion.”193
Doubtless the “prominent European proabortionist” finds a
sympathetic, if not so bold, spirit embodied in the Roe v. Wade
decision.
191. Sir Roger Ormrod, “Medical Ethics,” British Medical Journal 2 (April 6, 1968): 7.
192. C. D. Leake, “Technical Triumphs and Moral Muddles,” Annals of Internal
Medicine 67 (1967): supplement 7.
193. Action Line 4:4 (June 1, 1980): 3.

Many strong secular arguments against abortion have been pub-

lished, such as Thomas Hilgers and Dennis J. Horan’s Abortion and
Social Justice (1972), Baruch Brody’s Abortion and the Sanctity of
Human Life (1976), and Bernard Nathanson’s Aborting America (1979).
Nevertheless, due to both the infallible character of revealed Christian-
ity and the necessity of having epistemologically defensible presupposi-
tional foundations for moral discourse, it is imperative that a distinctly
Christian position against abortion be outlined. Thankfully, there are
several excellent publications from a Christian perspective, such as
Clifford Bajema’s Abortion and the Meaning of Personhood (1974),
Harold O.J. Brown’s Death Before Birth (1977), Francis Schaeffer and C.
Everrett Koop’s {124} Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (1979),
and others. In light of the fact that there are already available several
Christian analyses of abortion, the present article will seek to accom-
plish two limited purposes: (1) to emphasize the two fundamental
issues involved in the ethics of abortion, and (2) to develop the Chris-
tian position regarding these two issues more fully than any current
studies have done.
2. THE GENESIS OF INDIVIDUAL HUMAN LIFE

The initial and most fundamental question which must be con-
fronted in the debate regarding the morality of abortion is the very one
which the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider: At what point in
time does human life begin? No argument for or against abortion can be
taken seriously which is not informed by this prime consideration.
In seeking to resolve this crucial question a great variety of argumen-
tative data has been explored, including data from such realms as
mathematics (e.g., John T. Noonan Jr.), sociology (e.g., Mary Anne
Warren), biology (e.g., Bernard Nathanson), genetics (e.g., James
Humber), philosophy (e.g., Baruch Brody), and theology (e.g., John
Frame), as well as others. The conclusions elicited from these studies
have been used not only to determine whether fetuses possess human
life or not, but also comatose patients, mental incompetents, physical
defectives, the elderly, and other groups. Actually, in light of man’s
instinctive awareness and society’s historic concern, it would be more
accurate to say such arguments have been employed negatively in an
attempt to deny that certain classes of persons possess human life. The

question before us is not one capable of resolution via democratic sur-

vey, as some are inclined to think.194 Due to the potential far-reaching
moral and social consequences which can result from such research
(e.g., abortion, infanticide, genocide, euthanasia, genetic engineering,
cloning, organ farming, etc.) the question’s resolution requires rigorous
ethical argumentation based on and consistent with adequate presup-
positions.
Until recent times it was largely taken for granted that the fetus pos-
sessed human life. This assumption is questioned on all sides today,
however. Unfortunately, even some of the most conservative and
staunchly pro-life Christian scholars have recently expressed doubt as
to whether or not it can be demonstrably argued that the fetus possesses
personhood. Reformed scholar John M. Frame, who vigorously
opposes abortion for any reason (except possibly the impending danger
of the death of the mother), has written: “There is no way to prove,
either from Scripture or from science or from some combination of the
two, that the unborn child is a human person from the point of concep-
tion.”195 {125}
The question concerning the status of the fetus has, in terms of
recent negative research, become unnecessarily complicated due to the
dehumanizing direction of rebellious man’s technological advances.
Despite Frame’s concern, the present article will seek to answer the
question in terms of the scientific evidences as they are considered
against the backdrop of Scripture.
A. The Scientific Data

The present age is one which has seen the scientist elevated in the
minds of many virtually to the level of omniscient and omnipotent
deity. Increasingly “Technocractic Man” has become more confident
that all of life’s issues will find resolution in the laboratory. Such is a
false hope doomed to failure.
194. E.g., Andie L. Knutson, “When Does Human Life Begin? Viewpoints of Public
Health Professionals,” American Journal of Public Health 57:12 (December 1967): 2163ff.
195. John M. Frame, “Abortion from a Biblical Perspective,” in Ganz, Thou Shalt Not
Kill, 60.
Nevertheless, science does play an important role in the proper sub-

duing of the earth. Thus, technical data gleaned from the life sciences
deserve due consideration.
The scientific data touching on the issue of the beginning of human
life are clearly quite supportive of the pro-life contention that human
life begins at conception. As a matter of fact, the material from the
objective sciences is so supportive that it is obvious why the current
discussion is shifting to the subjective pseudoscientific fields, such as
psychology and sociology. Below will follow a brief, and hopefully illu-
minating, survey of the various scientific pronouncements relevant to
the issue of the genesis of individual human life.
In a medical text widely used in embryological studies in colleges of
medicine, Bradley M. Patten has observed in very simple and dogmatic
terminology that “fertilization ... marks the initiation of the life of a
new individual” and that fertilization “can be said to have occurred
when the chromosomes from the male and female pronuclei become
aggregated together....”196 Hymie Gordon, while Chief Geneticist at the
Mayo Clinic, wrote in the South African Medical Journal that
…from the moment of fertilization, when the deoxyribose nucleic
acids from the spermatazoon and the ovum come together to form the
zygote, the pattern of the individual’s constitutional development is
irrevocably determined.... Even at that early stage, the complexity of
the living cell is so great that it is beyond our comprehension. It is a
privilege to be allowed to protect and nurture it.197
Ashly Montagu, a geneticist who has taught at Harvard and Rutgers,
agrees when he writes: “The basic fact is simple: life begins, not at
birth, but at {126} conception.”198 Louis Fridhandler, contributor to a
medical textbook entitled Biology of Gestation, speaks of fertilization as
“that wondrous moment that marks the beginning of life for a new
unique individual....”199 E. L. Potter and J. M. Craig write in their
technical Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant: “Every time a sperm cell
196. Bradley M. Patten, Human Embryology, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968),
43–44.
197. Hymie Gordon, “Genetical, Socia1 and Medical Aspects of Abortion,” South
African Medical Journal (July 28, 1968). Cited in Thomas W. Hilgers and Dennis J.
Horan, Abortion and Social Justice (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1972), 5.
198. Ashley Montagu, Life Before Birth (New York: Signet Books, 1977), vi.
and ovum unite a new being is created which is alive and will continue
to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition.”200
A popular photographic series on human embryology in a 1965 edi-
tion of Life magazine asserted the same fact: “The birth of a human life
really occurs at the moment the mother’s egg is fertilized by one of the
father’s sperm cells.”201 Landrum B. Shettles, of the Columbia Univer-
sity College of Physicians and Surgeons, wrote in 1970:
Concerning when life begins, a particular aggregate of hereditary ten-
dencies (genes and chromosomes) is first assembled at the moment of
fertilization when an ovum is invaded by a spermatazoon. This
restores the normal number of required chromosomes, 46, for sur-
vival, growth, and reproduction of a new composite individual.
By this definition a new composite individual is started at the moment
of fertilization.202
Bart T. Heffernan, Director of the Calvin Heart Center and Chief of the
Department of Medicine at St. Francis Hospital, Evanston, Illinois, has
written that:
From conception the child is a complex, dynamic rapidly growing
individual. By a natural and continuous process the single fertilized
ovum will, over approximately nine months, develop into the trillions
of cells of the newborn. The natural end of the sperm and ovum is
death unless fertilization occurs. At fertilization a new and unique
individual is created which, although receiving one-half of its chromo-
somes from each parent, is really unlike either.203
In an address to the United Nations World Population Conference in
Budapest in 1974, Andre E. Hellegers, Professor of Obstetrics and
Gynecology and Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at
Georgetown University, said:
199. Louis Fridhandler, “Gametogenesis to Implantation,” Biology of Gestation vVol.

1, ed. N. S. Assau (New York: Academic Press, 1968), 76.
200. E. L. Potter and J. M. Craig, Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant, 3rd ed.
(Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975), vii.
201. “Life Before Birth,” Life, April 30, 1965, 57.
202. Landrum B. Shettles, “Questions and Answers: When Does Life Begin?” Journal
of the American Medical Association (December 7, 1970): 1895.
203. Bart T. Heffernan, “The Early Biography of Everyman,” in Hilgers and Horan,
Abortion and Social Justice, 4.
I believe that in abortion human life is indeed killed.... Each life {127}
biologically begins at conception.... Biologically, all species are identi-
fied by their genetic composition and the fetus is human from concep-
tion. In brief it is a biological human being.
In brief, I would hold that the human, including the fetus, should be
assessed genetically rather than sociologically, economically, or rela-
tionally. The analysis is objective, rather than subjective.204
In the fall of 1967, the First International Congress on Abortion, held
in Washington, D.C., was attended by sixty prominent medical
authorities. This Congress adopted the following statement: “We can
find no point in time between the union of sperm and egg and the
birth of an infant at which point we can say that this is not a human
life.”
Such data as that above has led theologian Harold O. J. Brown to
seriously ask: “... if a fetus is not a human being, what, then, is it? Cer-
tainly it is not a vegetable or mineral, nor is it a fish or fowl.”205 Delving
somewhat more deeply into the reasons for making such scientific pro-
nouncements as previously cited, and demonstrating the reasonable-
ness of Brown’s query, Gordon Bourne has written:
The newly fertilized egg has twenty-three pairs of chromosomes of
which half come from the mother and half from the father, thus creat-
ing a new individual with its own particular blueprint of genes which
every cell in his body will contain the whole of his life.206
French medical researcher Jules Carles has made some additional
important observations in light of such genetic data:
The first cell [formed by sperm-and-egg union] is already the embryo
of an autonomous living being with individual hereditary patrimony,
such that if we knew the nature of the spermatozoid and the chromo-
somes involved, we could already at that point predict the characteris-
tics of the child, the future color of his hair, and the illnesses to which
he would be subject. In his mother’s womb, where he will grow, he will
not accept everything she brings to him: thereby he will realize his
hereditary patrimony. In that first cell the profound dynamism and
204. Andre E. Hellegers, “Abortion: ‘Another Form of Birth Control’?” Human Life
Review (n.d.), 23–24.
205. Brown, Death Before Birth, 34.
206. Gordon Bourne, Pregnancy (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 55.

the precise direction of life appears.... In spite of its fragility and its
immense needs, an autonomous and genuinely living being has come
into existence.... It is rather surprising to see certain physicians speak
here of “potential life” as if the fertilized egg began its real life when it
nests in the uterus. Modern biology does not deny the importance of
nidation, but it sees it only as a condition—indispensable, to be sure—
for the development of the embryo and the continuation of a life
already in existence.207 {128}
Eric Bleschmidt’s technical medical research explains the issue even
more clearly and in greater detail. His words bear lengthy consider-
ation:
A one-celled human ovum has a mass of about 0.0004 mg. After about
two weeks growth the gradually visible anlage of the embryo measures
only about 0.2 mm. And yet in these small dimensions something
characteristically human may already be discovered. The knowledge
of the physical changes of the tiny primitive organs gives us insight
into the beginnings of individual human performances and the funda-
mental functions of organs.208
He adds later that:
The cells which we know in the adult are undoubtedly the descen-
dents of a human ovum cell. He who has the rare opportunity to see a
fertilized human ovum cell and compare it with, say, monkey ova, rec-
ognizes that even in these early stages they differ significantly. The
early peculiarity of the human ovum is a prerequisite for the later
peculiarity of the human embryo, of the child, and of the adult.209
The question why a human ovum develops into a man while another
ovum becomes another organism... has often been discussed. There is
today a clear answer: because the human ovum is a human being and
the chicken egg is something essentially different, namely the egg of a
chicken.
A human ovum possesses human chromosomes as genetic carriers,
not chicken or fish. This is now manifest; the evidence no longer
allows a discussion as to if and when and in what month of
207. Jules Caries, La f’econdation, 5th ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1967), 81–82. Translated and cited by John W. Montgomery in Journal of the American
Medical Association (December 7, 1970), 1893–94.
208. Eric Bleschmidt, The Beginnings of Human Life (New York: Springer-Verlag,
1977), 2–3.
209. Ibid., 15.
ontogenesis a human being is formed. To be a human being is decided

at the moment of fertilization of the ovum. For this reason we have to
regard the intrinsic quality of the fertilized ovum as an essential prere-
quisite, decisive for all subsequent ontogenesis.
... The often-repeated question of why the human ovum produces a
man is therefore wrongly put. Man does not become man; he is man
and behaves as such from the very commencement and in each phase
of development from fertilization onward.
... The young germ develops as a human germ and not as an undefined
something from which later—perhaps by accident—a man can arise.
A human germ is not a product to which, later on, the attribute of
humanity can be added.210
In dealing with abortion as a moral issue, conclusions of scientific
research do have a significant bearing and should not be discounted
altogether—and certainly they should not be wholly overlooked. Many
works on ethics recognize such data. For example, Professor Alan Don-
agan of the University of Chicago has written in his The Theory of
Morality: “The question of when the life of a human being begins is a
biological one, {129} since human beings are rational animals: and
biology answers it simply and unequivocally: a human life begins at
conception when the new being conceives the genetic code.”211 Paul
Ramsey, Christian ethicist and Professor of Religion at Princeton, like-
wise employs the scientific data in his ethical argumentation:
Thus it might be said that in all essential respects the individual is
whoever he is going to become from the moment of impregnation. He
already is this while not knowing this or anything else. Thereafter, his
subsequent development cannot be described as becoming something
he is not now. It can only be described as a process of achieving, a pro-
cess of becoming the one he already is. Genetics teaches us that we
were from the beginning what we essentially still are in every cell and
in every generally human attribute and in every individual
attribute.212
210. Ibid., 15–16. Cf. also his discussion on 25, 29–30.

211. Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1977), 183.
212. Paul Ramsey, “Points in Deciding About Abortion,” in The Morality of Abortion:
Legal and Historical Perspectives, ed. John T. Noonan Jr. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1970), 66–67.
Interestingly, the scientific data are so strongly supportive of the

position that human life begins at conception that an editorial in
California Medicine noted:
The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to
rationalize abortion as anything but the taking of human life would be
ludicrous if not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices.
It further stated:
Since the old ethic has not been fully displaced it has been necessary
to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which contin-
ues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance
of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life
beings at conception and is continuous, whether intra- or extra-uter-
ine, until death.213
It would seem, then, that in terms of “objective science” the issue of
the genesis of individual human life is clearly demonstrated to be at the
point of conception. It is lamentable that modern society—which so
prides itself in being scientific—refuses to maintain laws that protect
the unborn in spite of the scientific data.
B. The Biblical Data

Having pointed out that the best scientific research is indicative of
the existence of human life in utero, it still must be recognized that the
issue cannot properly be conceived of as a purely scientific one. It is
crucial that science be not mistakenly construed to be a final court of
appeal. It is necessarily {130} the case that scientific endeavor must be
conducted within and scientific data must be interpreted in terms of a
fundamental philosophy of science. Not being an independent disci-
pline, science therefore cannot be a final authority. Furthermore, by the
very nature of the case science has strict limitations necessarily inher-
ent within it. The scientist can only investigate the objective-material
realm; he can make no final pronouncements regarding other realms,
such as the spiritual or ethical, which are just as much a part of reality.
Consequently, Frame’s warning to pro-lifers must be taken to heart:
213. “A New Ethic for Medicine and Society,” California Medicine (September 1970):
68.
At the outset it must be seriously asked whether any narrowly scien-

tific argument could possibly, even in principle, establish whether the
unborn child is or is not a human person. The question of whether the
unborn child is a human person is essentially the question of whether,
from God’s point of view, the child has an ontological status entitling
him to a full human right to life. The question is religious, meta-
physical, and ethical.214
Thus, even though the conclusions of scientific research are important,
nevertheless, the question of personal status of embryonic life must be
investigated in terms of a discipline better suited for metaphysical
discourse. Scientific evidence cannot stand alone. For the Christian
this will mean that a consideration of the biblical data will be required.
The question at this point becomes: what saith the Scriptures? The
following survey of scriptural data will be limited to a consideration of
the arguments drawn from three key passages.
1. The Argument from Psalm 139
The 139th Psalm has long been recognized as one of the loftiest in
the entire Psalter.215 Most commentators agree with Aben Ezra’s desig-
nation of this Psalm as the “crown of all Psalms.” Its lofty theological
content and stylistic beauty are not all that bids our attention. It has
also received considerable attention of late in regard to the abortion
debate.
Presently the primary employment of Psalm 139 is twofold: (1) to
demonstrate the intimacy of God’s involvement and concern with
human life during fetal development, and (2) to demonstrate embry-
onic personhood by means of pronominal inference. Doubtless, its pri-
mary utility is its relevance in establishing the fact of embryonic
personhood. However, despite its frequent citation in the latter connec-
tion, Frame has discounted its usefulness in providing argumentative
demonstration of the personal status of the fetus. He warns that a reli-
ance on mere pronominal inference reads too much into the Psalm:
{131}
As we have seen, in these passages personal pronouns are used to refer
to life in the womb—“me,” “my,” “thou,” “thee.” From this premise it
has been argued that these passages regard the unborn children in
214. Frame, “Abortion,” 57.

215. W. S. Plummer, Psalms (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, [1867] 1975), 1161.

question as human persons, and that personhood goes back to con-

ception. Such an argument, however, reads too much into these pas-
sages. In the first place, if the fetus were not a person from conception,
it is not clear that the writers would have avoided the personal pro-
nouns.... In the second place, we have seen that according to Jeremiah
1:5 and other passages the “personal continuity” of a man’s life extends
in a sense not only back to conception, but even before his concep-
tion.216
Frame’s hesitancy in using Psalm 139 thus deserves careful consider-
ation. It is true that the simple employment of a personal pronoun does
not establish the existence of personhood. For instance, Job 10:10 refers
pronominally to the sperm that led to Job’s conception: “Didst Thou
not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese?”217 But I do not
believe that the personhood argument has been fully pursued in
research heretofore. There is a wealth of exegetical evidences support-
ive of fetal personhood within Psalm 139 that has simply been over-
looked. These evidences need to be explicated in terms of this vital
question. At this point lengthy consideration will be given this Psalm in
demonstration of its supreme usefulness in the debate. In light of the
following considerations, I believe Psalm 139 to be the locus classicus
for the personhood debate, in contrast to Frame’s indication that Psalm
51:5 probably is.218
To begin with, it is imperative that the thematic thrust of the Psalm
be duly grasped. This Psalm has been widely used in terms of its mate-
rial for theology proper, i.e., its references to the divine attributes of
omniscience and omnipresence. Despite its valuable material in this
regard, the ethical purpose of the Psalm seems to be its overriding
theme. The theological material concerning the divine attributes is
mentioned and developed in order to heighten its ethical purpose. And
this dominating ethical purpose is relevant to the issue at hand.

217. For a discussion of the issue regarding the “milk” here as being the sperm, see:
Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1, Job, ed. C. F. Keil and G. B.
Gray; A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job, of The International
Critical Commentary, ed. S. R. Driver, A. Plummer, and C. A. Briggs (Edinburgh: T. and
T. Clark, reprinted 1977), 100.
J. A. Alexander has well-noted that the theme of the Psalm is “to be

regarded as a confession and profession made not merely for himself
[King David] but for his successors on the throne of Israel, and
intended both to warn them and console them by this grand view of
Jehovah’s constant and {132} infallible inspection.”219 It is about God’s
perfect knowledge of man as a free moral agent living before a holy
God. The main point of the Psalm is not merely that God is everywhere
present and all-knowing; but that God is everywhere that David the
free moral agent can go, that God knows everything that David the
responsible person knows or thinks. God’s presence and knowledge are
His presence and knowledge as they relate to free moral agency and
moral accountability. Along these lines Kidner has commented that
This divine knowledge is not merely comprehensive, like that of some
receptor that misses nothing, capturing everything alike. It is personal
and active: discerning us (2b); sifting us (3a)... ; knowing our minds ...
(2b, 4); surrounding us ... , handling us (5).220
Consequently, the first verse is understood to contain “the sum of the
whole Psalm.”221 “O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me.” The
divine inspection of this personal moral agent is prominently
expressed in the opening words.
The word for “search” in verse 1 is the Hebrew haqar, which means
to dig in search of something, as for precious metals (e.g., Job 28:3). It
is employed here “metaphorically to a moral inquisition into guilt.... It
is here used in the intermediate sense of full investigation.”222 This
awareness gives birth to a sense of fear in David in light of his own sin-
ful condition and conduct. Thus, David, as it were, attempts to flee the
holy presence of the Lord in the first stanzas. The Psalmist’s attempt at
flight herein is so prominent that one biblical scholar, Father Sanchez,
attributed its authorship to Jonah in light of Jonah’s flight in Jonah 1:3.
Interestingly, the Gelineau version gives this Psalm the heading “The
219. J. A. Alexander, The Psalms, Translated and Explained (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker,
[1873] 1977), 538.
220. Derek Kidner, Psalms 73–150 (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1975), 464.
221. E. W. Hengstenberg, The Psalms, in The Works of Hengstenberg, vol. 7 (Cherry
Hill, NJ: Mack, n.d.), 494.
222. Alexander, Psalms.
Hound of Heaven,” as in Francis Thompsons’s famous poem.223 The

desire for escape from God’s searching presence clearly dominates
most of the first two stanzas.224
And no wonder! Consider the extent of God’s exhaustive knowledge
of the Psalmist’s every word, thought, and deed: verses 2 through 4
read: “Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up; Thou dost
understand my thought from afar. Thou dost scrutinize my path and
my lying down, and art intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even
before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, Thou dost know
it all.” The actions {133} here listed are representative of the totality of
the various motions of human life and conduct, as in Psalms 1:1 and
27:2. Delitzsch has noted that rea (“thought”) expressed “the totality or
sum of the life of the spirit and soul of man” and derek (“ways,” v. 3b)
“the sum of human action.”225 God scrutinizes (3a) man’s life and fully
knows its every aspect. He is not too far away to prohibit the knowl-
edge of man’s innermost thoughts (2a, cf. Job 22:12–14; Jer. 23:23–24)
or to consider his every word (v. 4, cf. 2 Cor. 5:10; Matt. 12:36–37).
Consequently, this realization prompts his desire to escape, as related
in verses 5 and following. Verse 5 reads: “Thou hast enclosed me
behind and before, and laid Thy hand upon me.” Here, according to
Cohen, he feels that “God has, as it were, besieged him so that there is
no escape,”226 just as Job felt in his own situation (cf. Job 3:23; 13:27;
14:5, 13, 16; 19:8). And, as Weiser has noted, “this is a perception which
at first is not so much cheering as depressing.”227 Such a perception on
God’s part is incomprehensible to David (v. 6).
With verse 7, the Psalmist begins the second stanza (vv. 7–12) which
poetically searches all possible avenues of escape from God—but to no
223. Kidner, Psalms 73–150, 464.

224. See for example: Kidner, Ibid., and Edward J. Young, Psalm 139: A Devotional
and Expository Study (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 56, 66.
225. Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 3, The Psalms, 345. See
also: Hengstenberg, The Psalms, 495.
226. A. Cohen, The Psalms (London: Soncino Press, 1950), 452. See also: Delitzsch,
The Psalms, 347, and J. J. Stewart Perowne, The Book of Psalms, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan, [1878] 1976), 439.
227. Arthur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1962), 803.
avail: “Where can I go from Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy
presence? If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there; If I make my bed in
Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell
in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Thy hand will lead me, and
Thy right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, Surely the darkness will
overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night, Even the dark-
ness is not dark to Thee, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness
and light are alike to Thee.”
Whether or not the talk of flight is a “literary device to dramatize
God’s ubiquity,”228 the point is clear: “the uncanny and overwhelming
impression which the divine presence produces on him afflicts him.”229
Clearly, the ethical thrust of this passage is quite powerful. Calvin has
emphasized this point:
They misapply this passage who adduce it as a proof of the immensity
of God’s essence; for though it be an undoubted truth that the glory of
God fills heaven and earth, this was not at present in the view of the
Psalmist, but the truth that God’s eye penetrates heaven and hell, so
{134} that, hide in what obscure corner of the world he might, he
must be discovered by him.230
With this in mind we arrive at the third stanza (vv. 13–18) which
deals expressly with the point at issue. The foregoing study emphasiz-
ing the ethical thrust of the Psalm was vital to the following argument,
as will be shown. It demonstrated that man’s responsibility as a morally
accountable person is inescapable. Stanza three, rather than dropping
this ethical intent, intensifies it. Stanza three reads: “For Thou didst
form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb. I
will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame
was not hidden from Thee, When I was made in secret, And skillfully
wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed
substance; And in Thy book they were all written, The days that were
ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. How precious
228. Kidner, Psalms 73–150, 464.

229. Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary, 803.
230. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of Joshua and Psalms, in Calvin’s
Commentaries, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: A. and A., n.d.), 1103.
also are Thy thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I
should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I
am still with Thee.”
Kidner,231 M’Caw,232 and others see this stanza as a shifting of its
ethical concern from the realm of space to the realm of time in terms of
David’s perpetual openness before God. Yet, still David is unable to
avoid accountability unto God. The “for” shows that what precedes
(i.e., the holy searching of God and the fleeing of David) is continued
in what follows; it ties the two stanzas together. M’Caw’s comments are
revealing:
In his search for a way of escape from God it almost seems as though
the psalmist is saying: “All my life I have been within thy view, thy
reach and thy knowledge. My only hope lies in my unconscious life. I
cannot trace its present extent but I can go back to that initial period
when, within my mother’s womb, I had no knowledge of my own
existence and maybe then thou also wast unaware of me....”233
His flight from ethical responsibility before the Most Holy takes him
back in time to his antenatal development. But, alas, he finds the
darkness of the womb is no hindrance to God’s searching eye, just as
the preceding mention of darkness in verses 11 and 12 was not. As a
matter of fact, God was actively at work in the darkness of his mother’s
womb (v. 13). David was not “hidden” (v. 15) in his earliest beginning
(which poetically compares the dark womb to the “depths of the earth,”
cf. v. 15 with v. 8).234 That from {135} which the Psalmist desires
escape—i.e., accountability to God—stretches back to his personal
beginning in time and history in his mother’s womb, just as it reaches
forward throughout all the days of his life (v. 16). David considered
himself as a morally accountable person under the scrutiny of God even
while in the womb. Only persons are morally accountable beings.
231. Kidner, Psalms 73–150, 465.

232. Leslie S. M’Caw, “The Psalms,” in The New Bible Commentary, ed. Francis
Davidson (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, reprinted 1968), 507.
233. Ibid.
234. Hengstenberg has noted that the “depths of the earth” “has to do here only with
what took place in his mother’s womb.” It is “an abbreviated comparison, in a place, as
dark and concealed as the depths of the earth.” The Psalms, 501.
This point of personal moral accountability in the womb is not just

suggested by the thematic drift of the Psalm, but also by the order and
content of the subject matter treated of in verses 13 and following.
Notice that man’s “inward parts” (NASV) or “reins” (AV) receive initial
mention in this discussion of his embryonic formation: “For Thou
didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother’s
womb....” (v. 13). This is significant to the discussion. The Hebrew
word kilyah (“inward parts, reins, kidneys”) here employed is com-
monly used in poetry to designate the “seat of emotion and affection ...
hence, as involving character, the obj[ect] of God’s examination.”235
Preisker notes, “The ‘reins’ are the hidden parts, Ps. 138:13 [sic], where
a. grief is most bitter (Job 16:13), b. conscience sits (Ps. 15:7), and c.
there is the deepest spiritual distress, cf. Ps. 72:21....”236 The signifi-
cance of kilyah here is widely noted by commentators as indicative of
personal moral status. Note the following citations regarding the term’s
meaning. J. J. Stewart Perowne has written: “It seems to denote the sen-
sational and emotional part of the human being, as afterwards ‘the
bones’ denote the framework of the body”237 S. R. Driver interprets it
as “the inward man.”238 E. W. Hengstenberg commented that “the reins
are known as the seat of the desires and feelings, the region where sin-
ful passion boils, and where pain also plants its seat.”239 J. A. Alexander
noted in his discussion of this verse:
The meaning of his first clause seems to be: thou hast in thy power
and at thy control the very seat of my strongest sensibilities, my pains
and pleasures; and this subjection is coeval with my being, for even
before birth I was under thy protection and command, as I am now.240
Edward J. Young likewise observes:
235. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English
Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, reprint 1972), 480, see at klh II–
2.
236. H. Preisker, “Nephros,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 4, ed.
Gerhard Kittel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), 911.
237. Perowne, The Book of Psalms, 441.
238. Driver et al., Commentary of the Book of Psalms, in The International Critical
Commentary, 496.
239. Hengstenberg, The Psalms, 499.
240. Alexander, The Psalms, 539–40.

To use the expression “kidneys” seems so strange. Yet by this expres-

sion David is simply referring to what may be called the seat of his
pains and pleasures, of his strongest sensibilities. If God has created
the reins, then God has control of David in such a way that the control
{136} reaches to the innermost part of his being.241
Franz Delitzsch’s comment is especially clear: “The reins are made
specially prominent in order to mark them, the seat of the tenderest,
most secret emotions, as the work of Him who trieth the hearts and the
reins.”242 This special prominence afforded the creation of the reins is
again emphasized by Rotherham as highlighting God’s creation of a
true person in the womb. His translation of verse 13 reads: “For thou
thyself didst originate the first rudiments of my being, didst weave me
together in the womb of my mother.”243 A few pages later he observes:
“[God’s creatorship] is expressed by almost every form of language by
which the idea could be conveyed: He originated the first rudiments of
my being. Then he carried on the formative work so begun: He wove me
together....” Thus, “He knows me thoroughly because he made me. He
made, not only my spirit, but my body also.”244 Indeed, “he made the
whole man, the entire compound psychic individual.”245 As Clarke has
noted: “As the Hebrews believed that the reins were the first part of the
human fetus that is formed, it may here mean, that thou hast laid the
foundation of my being.”246
In the second line of verse 13 the parallel to the “reins” is the pro-
nominal suffix “me.” Thus it would seem that the pronoun “me” is not
really being pushed “too far” (as Frame fears) when it is in this particu-
lar place pointed to as a demonstration of personhood. Despite obvious
points of similarity, this verse does not employ the pronoun “me” in the
same manner in which Job 10:11 (mentioned earlier) does. There the
“me” designated merely the material body of Job which was in the pro-
cess of formation. Here the “me” synonymously parallels the reins, i.e.,
241. Young, Psalm 139, 66–67.

242. Delitzsch, The Psalms, 349.
243. Joseph Bryant Rotherham, Studies in the Psalms (London: H. R. Allenson, 1911),
561.
244. Ibid., 564.
245. Ibid., 565.
246. Adam Clarke, Clarke’s Commentary, vol. 3 (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, n.d.), 664.

the “compound psychic individual.”247 This dissimilarity seems to be

the case on the basis of at least two considerations: (1) Job 10 makes no
reference to the “reins” as does Psalm 139, and (2) the Psalm mentions
the formation of the bones and the material body separately in verse
15.
Another aspect of verse 13 which merits consideration is the refer-
ence to embryonic formation in terms of the weaving process. This will
be developed in connection with verse 16. At this point the following
conclusions can be drawn from the exegetical analysis of verse 13: (1)
God creates the reins first in the womb, (2) the reins are the fundamen-
tal aspect of human personality, and thus personal status is properly
attributed to the embryo. {137}
Such a realization as this causes the fleeing David to cease his flight.
He turns instead in verse 14 to praise of God for His special concern
for him in his creation in his mother’s womb.248 The attitude within the
Psalm shifts from fearful desire for escape to exalted praise of God’s
omnificence. God’s thoughts toward David are seen to be, at last, very
previous (cf. vv. 17–18). Following upon this “conversion” in his
thought he then raises up in warning to the wicked regarding God’s
judgment of evil men. He expresses an invigorated desire, not to flee,
but to disassociate himself from the wicked (vv. 19–22). God’s search-
ing then is held as something desirable (vv. 23–24).
Verse 15 resumes his treatment of his formation in utero: “My frame
was not hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, and skilfully
wrought in the depths of the earth.” His reference to his bodily forma-
tion is here limited. He specifically mentions the making of his osem,
here translated “frame.” Hengstenberg noted that it “undoubtedly sig-
nifies strength in the two other places where it occurs,” and he further
commented that “my strength is a poetical expression” for “my bones
or skeleton....”249 Apparently the miraculous formation of the bones
247. See Delitzsch, The Psalms, 349 for a discussion of the proper meaning of sakak.
248. For an intriguing treatment of this verse which may have some additional
bearing on our interpretation, see: Young, Psalm 139, 71ff. Here Young suggests that this
verse teaches that David is referring to himself as set apart from the lower beings that
God created in that he as man is “distinguished.”
249. Hengstenberg, The Psalms, 500. See also: Alexander, The Psalms, 540.
within the womb were a cause for much curiosity and amazement to
the Hebrews, for it receives special mention in several other places, e.g.,
Job 10:11 and Ecclesiastes 11:5. He also speaks of his being “skillfully
wrought” in his mother’s womb. Here he seems to refer to the mystify-
ing system of veins which colorfully ramify the body in that he uses the
word ruqam which signifies “to embroider.”250
Verse 16a reads: “Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance.”
The word here translated “unformed substance” is golem. This hapaxle-
gomenon indisputably refers to the “unformed embryonic mass.”251
Alexander emphasizes that it refers to the embryo “before assuming
recognizable form,”252 i.e., very early in antenatal development. It
should be recalled that the “reins” were initially created and were
embodied in this early embryo.
The remainder of verse 16 is noted for its difficulty of interpretation.
The Authorized Version seems to have greatly missed the point in its
rendering: “and in thy book all my members were written, which in
continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” Del-
itzsch argued well for the following translation: “And in thy book were
they all written: days which were {138} already stretched out, and for it
one among them.”253
In referring to God’s “book,” David draws upon a familiar Old Testa-
ment concept: God’s preestablished will for man spoken of in terms of a
prewritten book (see Ex. 32:32; Ps. 56:8; 69:28; Mal. 3:16). Almost all
commentators, whether Reformed, liberal, or Jewish, agree as to the
basic idea back of the concept of “God’s book.”254 Witness the following
references. Von Rad calls the book “a book of destiny in heaven.”255
Schrenck says it is “the book in which God has laid down in advance all
human destinies, sorrows and joys.”256 Kidner interprets the idea here
as meaning: in the book “the days of my life were mapped out in
250. See: Delitzsch, The Psalms, 349 and Clarke, Clarke’s Commentary, 665.
252. Alexander, The Psalms, 540.
253. Delitzsch, The Psalms, 343. See also: Cohen, The Psalms, 453–54. Note that the
negative “not” is properly to be excluded. However, even if it were translated as a
negative the sense would not be radically altered. The idea then would be that his
days—even of embryonic development—were assigned to him long before any of them
existed in history.
advance.”257 Young has written: “The thought here is that the entirety
of the Psalmist’s being, even including the days of his life, are inscribed
in the book that belongs to God.”258 Hengstenberg noted that the writ-
ing in the book “is often used of the divine predetermination....”259
In this book are written all the days of the Psalmist’s life. By the refer-
ence to the “days” which are predetermined, Alexander notes that we
are to “understand not merely the length but the events and vicissi-
tudes of life.”260 Bultmann has noticed that “ ‘Life’ and ‘days’ (of life)
can be used synonymously, and the seeking, desiring or promising of
life applies primarily to the continuation of existence.”261
All of this has a bearing on the issue of embryonic personhood. The
days of the Psalmist’s personal life, which were inscribed in God’s book,
include those days of his earliest embryonic development. Lines 16b, c,
and d are vitally connected with line 16a—and, hence, with verses 13
through 15. Delitzsch made an important observation when he inter-
preted the lines under consideration thusly: “Among the days which
were performed in the idea of God ... there was also one, says the poet,
for the embryonic beginning of my life.”262 Cohen agrees: “... we have
here the doctrine of {139} predestination. God has a book in which is
recorded against each person, from the embryonic stage, the number
of days which would be lived.”263
Consequently, David specifically included his embryonic existence in
the allotted “days of his life”—days allotted to him as an ethical being.
254. The “almost” in this sentence is necessary in light of some specious positions
held by certain scholars. For instance, Leupold understands this as a reference to “the
book of divine foreknowledge, where as it were, the days are known as to their number,
and a blank page is provided for each.” H. C. Leupold, Exposition of the Psalms (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker, [1959], 1969), 947.
255. G. von Rad, “Zao,” in Kittel, Theological Dictionary, 2:845.
256. Gottlab Schrench, “Biblion” in Kittel, Ibid., 1:620.
257. Kidner, Psalms 73–150, 466.
258. Young, Psalm 139, 80.
260. Alexander, The Psalms, 541. Young agrees with this emphasis, Psalm 139, 80.
261. Rudolf Bultmann, “Zao” in Kittel, Theological Dictionary, 2:849.
263. Cohen, The Psalms, 454.

There is an express continuity of person from embryo through adult-

hood: it is an ethical-personal continuity that is unbreakable by arbi-
trary definitions of when life begins. Doubtless, David’s sinful status at
conception (Ps. 51:5) is listed, as it were, on his first “day” in God’s
book.
Before closing the exposition of Psalm 139, it should be pointed out
that there is possibly another allusion to the continuity of human life
and personhood from embryo to adult. This one can be developed in
tracing out the “weaver-theme” touched upon in verse 13. There David
speaks poetically of God’s forming him in his mother’s womb in terms
of the weaving process.264 The necessary continuity between the initial
weaving of a thread and the finished woven product is quite obvious in
the natural weaving process.
Interestingly, this weaver-theme is alluded to on several occasions in
Scripture in terms of man’s life. Job refers to it on at least three occa-
sions of significance. In Job 7:6a, he laments to his friends that his days
(the days of his personal, human existence) seem to pass too quickly;
“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.” In Job 6:9 he bemoans his
miserable condition by saying: “Would that God were willing to crush
me; that He would loose His hand and cut me off!” Here he dreads con-
tinuance in such a lamentable existence. Driver’s exegetical notations
on this verse are helpful. He translates ybs’ny as “snip me off ” and com-
ments that it implies “cut off the thread of my life.”265 Later, in Job 27:8,
he returns to the weaver-theme when he says, “For what is the hope of
the godless who is cut off, when God requires his life?” Again, the idea
here is “to cut off the thread of life.”266
In another passage, Isaiah records Hezekiah’s words regarding his
own personal existence employing such imagery. Isaiah 38:10, 12 says,
“I said, ‘In the middle of my life [literally: “days”] I am to enter the gates
of Sheol; I am to be deprived of the rest of my years’.... Like a shepherd’s
tent my dwelling is pulled up and removed from me; as a weaver I
264. The AV has “covered” as the translation for sakak. This is clearly erroneous. See:
Brown et al., Hebrew and English Lexicon, 697 (at sakak, 2) and Delitzsch, The Psalms,
349.
265. Driver et al., Commentary on the Book of Job, 61.
266. Delitzsch, Job, 70. Cf. Driver, ad loc.

rolled up my life. He cuts me off from the loom; from day until night
Thou dost make an end of me.” Hezekiah sees his imminent death at
this time—in the prime of life—as a death in the midst of his expected
life span. Again, Delitzsch’s commentary (on verse 12) is of interest:
I rolled or wound up my life, as the weaver rolls up the finished piece
{140} of cloth: i.e. I was sure of my death, namely, because God was
about to give me up to death; He was about to cut me off from the
thrum.... Dallah is the thurm, licium, the threads of the warp upon a
loom, which becomes shorter and shorter the further the weft pro-
ceeds, until at length the piece is finished, and the weaver cuts through
the short threads, and so sets it free....267
Considering the implications of the recurring weaver-theme in
terms of its poetic expression of human life, we can deduce the follow-
ing conclusions: (1) Each individual human life is a continuum, just as
the thread is a continuous element in the material that comes from the
weaver’s loom. (2) Thus, death can be poetically expressed as a “cutting
off ” of the thread from the weaver’s loom. (3) According to Psalm
139:13 the continuum of an individual’s life is initiated in utero.
In conclusion, the arguments to be drawn from Psalm 139 which are
argumentatively demonstrative of antenatal personhood may be sum-
marily stated as follows:
First, the ethical thrust of the Psalm suggests that David was consid-
ering his guilt and moral accountability to God even back through the
period of his embryonic development. His search for escape from
God’s scrutinizing presence exhausted both geographic and temporal
possibilities: even in utero he was a free moral agent open to God’s holy
eye. David was morally accountable as a person en ventre sa mare.
Second, the initial creative activity of God in the womb is that of the
reins of man, i.e., the creation of the “compound psychic individual.”
The reins represent the very center of man qua man; man as a morally
accountable person. The reins (13a), significantly, are paralleled to
“me” (13b) in the poetic structure of the Psalm. Only later—in verse
15—is the formation of the body per se mentioned.
Third, in God’s book, which predetermines the entire course of
human life and includes all the vicissitudes of life’s experiences, there is
267. Franz Delitzsch, Isaiah, in Keil and Gray, Commentary on the Old Testament,
2:117.

included an entry for man’s embryonic beginning, thus strongly suggest-

ing that personhood begins at conception. In scriptural terminology
“day” is virtually equivalent to “life.” The Psalm includes in man’s allot-
ted days his antenatal existence.
Fourth, the weaver-theme in Scripture, when speaking of human
existence, demands a continuity of life, just as the thread of material is a
continuous element in a piece of woven cloth. To arbitrarily choose a
point for personhood’s beginning along this continuum would be
totally contradictory to the express symbolism involved.
Though Psalm 139 is certainly the locus classicus for arguing for
embryonic personhood, there are at least two other significant passages
that {141} deserve consideration. These will be treated somewhat more
briefly in the following paragraphs.
2. The Argument from Psalm 51
Psalm 51:5 reads: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin
my mother conceived me.” This verse is generally recognized as the
locus classicus in the Old Testament for formulating the doctrine of
inherent sin. And since it attributes a sinful status to the conceptus, it
would seem to strongly teach the conceptus’s full moral status and,
therefore, its personhood. Again, however, Frame expresses hesitancy
in appealing to this argument:
This is perhaps the strongest scriptural argument in favor of the per-
son-from-conception thesis, and can be very persuasive. Yet a closer
look reveals inadequacies. David, after all, is not reflecting upon the
origin of his humanity, but upon the origin of his sin. And all
Reformed theologians have maintained (on the basis of this very
verse, along with others!) that in some senses the origin of our sin
antedates the origin of our existence as persons. Ultimately, sin has its
mysterious origin in the eternal plan of God; proximately, our sin
begins with Adam.... Thus “my” sin, my personal sin, the sin for which
I am guilty, exists before I do....268
Frame’s point here does not appear to be well established. It is true
that our sin ultimately has its “mysterious origin in the eternal plan of
God” and that proximately it originated with Adam, but these issues
are well-beyond the scope of David’s concern. Consider the following:
268. Frame, “Abortion,” 61–62.

First, David seems concerned to trace his own personal, existential

involvement with sin, i.e., he is confessing his sin as experienced in the
course of his own existence. He feels an inescapable sense of personal
accountability for his involvement with sin, as is evident with the fre-
quency of his references to my transgression (vv. 1, 3), my iniquity (vv.
2, 3, 9) and my sins (vv. 3, 9). He pushes the confession back only as far
as his purpose merits: from his sinful misconduct with (apparently)
Bathsheeba, to his sinful status at birth, and ending with a statement
regarding his sinful state at conception—and no further. He is confessing
personal sin, not giving a theological treatment of the origin of sin per
se.
Second, the fact that he does mention his conception and its
entanglement with sin is significant in that sin cannot be predicated of
things material. Sin is an ethical question and is characteristic only of a
responsible moral agent, a person—not a nonpersonal conceptus (if it
were nonpersonal). What would be the purpose of mentioning his con-
ception if it did not involve him as a person? {142}
Third, as is generally the case with Old Testament statements, there
is little concern with searching out secret things. Delitzsch’s comments
on this verse are worth noting:
…the fact of hereditary sin is here more distinctly expressed than in
any other passage in the Old Testament, since the Old Testament
conception, according to its special character, which always fastens
upon the phenomenal, outward side rather than penetrates to the
secret roots of a matter, is directed almost entirely to the outward
manifestation only of sin, and leaves its natural foundation, its issue in
relation to primeval history, and its demonic background undis-
closed.269
Thus, in keeping with this general tendency, the Psalmist focuses on his
sinful status as he comes into being at conception.
Fourth, many commentators understand this verse in such a way as
to suggest its proper concern with the beginning of David’s earthly
moral existence. Calvin, for instance, says:
The expression intimates that we are cherished in sin from the first
moment that we are in the womb. David, then, is here brought, by
reflecting on one particular transgression, to cast a retrospective

glance upon his whole past life, and to discover nothing but sin in it....
David does not charge it upon his parents, nor trace his crime to them,
but sits himself before the divine tribunal, confesses that he was
formed in sin, and that he was a transgressor ere he saw the light of this
world.270
Delitzsch writes similarly that
The declaration moves backward from his birth to conception, it con-
sequently penetrates even to the most remote point of life’s
beginning....271
And:
That from his first beginning onwards, and that this beginning itself,
is tainted with sin....272
Anderson follows suit when he writes: “The Psalmist confesses his total
involvement in human sinfulness from the very beginning of his
existence.”273
Fifth, though tentative and not to be pushed too far, it should be
noted that some commentators see a close grammatical connection
between verses 5 and 6 that suggests verse 6 is actually to be under-
stood as referring to the fetus. An”erson comments on verse 6 thusly:
Dalgish (123f) suggests that “the inward being” (tuhot) and “my secret
heart” (satum) may refer to the womb, and that there the {143} Psalm-
ist had been taught wisdom by God.... so that he has sinned knowingly
and has no excuse. The Talmud (Niddah 30b) states that already the
embryo is taught the whole Torah, although at birth he forgets com-
pletely.274
Perhaps John 9:1–3 could be brought into the discussion at this point.
Whether or not the fifth consideration is accepted in the debate, it
can be properly argued on the other four considerations that Psalm
51:5 does teach personal moral status at conception. Consequently, this
verse is quite useful in the embryonic personhood debate.
3. The Argument from Job 3
270. Calvin, Commentaries, 515, 520; emphasis mine.

271. Delitzsch, Psalms,136.
272. Ibid., 137.
273. A. A. Anderson, The Book of Psalms (London: Oliphants, 1972), 1: 395–96.
274. Ibid., 396.

Job 3 is an interesting passage which contains several factors rivaling

those from Psalm 139 in terms of the personhood debate. To assess
properly the significance of these factors, again, it is necessary that the
general structure of the passage be understood.
In the closing verses of chapter 2 is presented a scene wherein Job’s
three friends arrive and sit sadly and quietly with their anguished
friend. Chapter 3 opens after seven days of solemn silence with Job
beginning to curse “his day” (literally). According to Job 3:3, he curses
not only the day of his birth but also the night of his conception: “Let
the day perish on which I was born, and the night which said, ‘A boy is
conceived.’ ” These words open an extended curse which continues
through verse 10.
It is crucial that the curse be properly applied to both his birth and
his conception. There is a quite broad consensus—though by no means
unanimous—among commentators that the curse is two-pronged and
is not simply an exercise in poetic license whereby Job curses only his
birth, under two figures. The day of his birth is cursed in verses 4 and 5
and the night of his conception is cursed in verses 6 through 10.275
Peake notes that “it is fitting that Job should curse not only the day of
his birth, but the night of his conception.”276 Anderson explains that
“That day is cursed in verses 4 and 5; that night is cursed in verses 6
and 10.”277 Reichert further notes some of the Jewish traditions that
grew up around the idea of conception: “Behind {144} the day of birth
lay the night of conception. The rabbis remarked: ‘The angel appointed
over conception was named Layelah’ [the Hebrew word for
“night”].”278 Though Driver disagrees with the necessity of distinguish-
275. That v. 10 refers to the prevention of ingress rather than egress is evident in that
the “closing of the doors of the womb” is frequently used in reference to the prevention
of conception. See: Gen. 16:2; 20:18; 1 Sam. 1:5. See also related ideas in Gen. 29:3 and
30:22. For fuller commentary note: H. H. Rowley, Job, in The Century Bible, ed. H. H.
Rowley and Matthew Black (Ontario: Thomas Nelson, 1970), 45. A. S. Peake, Job, in The
Century Bible: A Modern Commentary, ed. Walter F. Adeney (London: Caxton Pub. Co.,
1904), 73. Victor E. Reichert, Job, in Soncino Books of the Bible, ed. A. Cohen (Hindhead,
Surrey: Soncino Press, 1946), 11.
276. Peake, Job, 70.
277. Anderson, The Book of Psalms, 102. However, he does not see much point in
emphasizing the fact.
ing the two events, he cites Bickell and Duhm as proponents of the dis-
tinction in light of “the fact that it was the night of conception which
properly gave Job being.”279
Having recognized that Job did in fact curse his conception, cogni-
zance needs to be taken of the specifics of the curse. In verse 3 that
which is cursed is called a geber, a “man.” This term is elsewhere used
of an adult male and possesses a “connotation of health and vigor.”280
Here it is applied to the conceptus on the very night in which it was
conceived. Certainly Peake is correct in commenting that such lan-
guage properly looks at Job in terms of “what he essentially is, not at
the stage of development he has reached.”281 Nevertheless, it is most
significant that Job went out of the way, as it were, to call his conceptus
by a term expressly used of adult human beings.
Some have suggested that this is purely a poetical device in that no
one could possible have known the moment of conception in order to
report it, much less the very sex of the child conceived. But the text
does not attribute such knowledge to human understanding; rather it is
attributed to the night. As Driver notes:
The night is personified, and so able to bear witness to what had hap-
pened in it: the poet ... endows it with the faculty of knowing what no
human being could know, the sex of the child at the moment of con-
ception. 282
Delitzsch further elaborates that
the night alone was witness of this beginning of the development of a
man-child, and made report of it to the High One, to whom it is sub-
ordinate.283
After sifting through the poetic expressions, it becomes apparent that
God knows the sex of the child at conception (or rather, the child at
278. Reichert, Job, 9. See Isaiah Sonne, Kiryath Sepher, vol. 11, 500, citing Chesek
Shelomah.
279. Cited in Driver et al., Commentary on the Book of Job, 30.
280. Robert Cordis, The Book of Job: Commentary, Translation, and Special Studies
(New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978), 35.
281. Peake, Job, 70.
282. Driver et al., Commentary on the Book of Job, 31. See also Rowley, Job, 42.
283. Delitzsch, Job, 77.

conception has a particular sex) and would even have the conceptus
designated as a human male.
The next paragraph (vv. 11–19) opens with a statement that bears
especial consideration. Having just cursed both the night of his con-
ception and the {145} day of his birth, in verses 11 and 12 Job contin-
ues his lament by asking why it would not have been better had he died
either in utero, or at birth, or just after birth, or in early infancy. The
American Standard Version translates verses 11 and 12 thusly: “Why
did I not die from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when my
mother bare me? Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts,
that I should suck?”
Regarding these four queries, Delitzsch makes an important obser-
vation:
The four questions, ver. 11 sqq., form a climax: he follows the course
of his life from its commencement in embryo [11a] ... to the birth
[11b], and from the joy of the father who took the newborn child
upon his knees [12a] ... to the first development of the infant [12b],
and curses this growing life in four phases....284
He notes that the first phrase in verse 11a deals with the “first period
of his conception and birth,”285 i.e., his existence in utero. Several trans-
lations and commentators have wrongly understood verse 11a to mean
“at birth” (cf. the NASV and the RSV). That it does, in fact, refer to his
antenatal existence is evident upon the following considerations: (1)
The grammatical structure of merehem (“from womb”) uses m as the
“mem of condition” which properly means “while in the womb,” rather
than “coming from the womb.”286 Thus the period mentioned is coex-
tensive with the entire period of pregnancy. The Septuagint properly
translates it as “in the womb.” Death at any stage of antenatal develop-
ment would have satisfied this death wish. (2) The general idea reap-
pears in abbreviated form in verse 16. Verse 11a speaks of antenatal
death by use of the common term for death (mut), whereas the figure is
changed to a miscarriage (nepel) in verse 16. The death of verse 11 is
the miscarriage of verse 16; miscarriages are premature expulsions of
284. Ibid., 80.

285. Ibid.
286. Cordis, The Book of Job, 36. Cf. Delitzsch, ad loc.

the fetus from the uterus during its antenatal development. (3) There is
obvious development in Job’s questionings in verses 11 and 12 which
would necessitate verse 11a as referring to anetnatal death rather than
death during the delivery process (11b), neonatal death (12a), or early
infant death (12b).
Job lamented that he had not died at some very early stage in his life
because of his great affliction. And there was a reason for this: so that
he could have entered the peace of Sheol with the departed dead. This
fact is elaborated on in verses 12 through 19. Witness, for example,
verses 12 and 13a (which immediately follow his death wish, a part of
which desired death at conception): “For now would I have lain down
and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest, with
kings and counselors of the earth....” Sheol is a place, not of non-being,
but of departed beings who {146} had existence in time. Had Job died at
any stage of his antenatal development he would have departed thence.
Several significant conclusions can be drawn from this brief study of
Job 3. First, at the moment of conception God knows the sex of the per-
son conceived and that conceptus can properly be referred to as a man
(if a male). Second, at any stage of antenatal development death (mut)
can occur. For death to occur in utero life must have been resident in
utero. Third, and most importantly, upon the death of this nascent life
the person dying enters into Sheol with deceased adults, i.e. he enters
the realm of death, the after-life. (Some have feared the overpopulation
of Heaven if this were the case, but this is carrying the overpopulation
myth a little too far! Christian pro-abortionist William Hasker
expresses this fear in sincerity.)287 This interpretation of death in the
womb must be understood as referring to any point between concep-
tion and birth because: (1) conception is expressly included in the con-
text of Job’s lament and curse (v. 3), (2) the expression “in the womb” is
a broad term equivalent to “during the course of pregnancy” (v. 11a),
and (3) a “miscarriage” is the failure of a pregnancy at any given stage
(v. 16).
Before leaving this study, a brief word needs be given in anticipation
of a possible rejoinder to the forgoing exposition. The possible rejoin-
287. William Hasker, “Abortion and the Definition of a Person,” Human Life Review
5:2 (n.d.): 31.
der could employ verse 16 to teach that a miscarried fetus is a non-

being; the verse reads: “Or like a miscarriage which is discarded, I
would not be, as infants that never saw light.” Here it might seem that
Job considered a miscarried conceptus as a nonbeing. That this is not
his intention is apparent in that the surrounding context (vv. 13–19)
implies that the critical phrase—“I would not be”—is to be understood
solely in terms of the phenomenal realm. Those in Sheol are separated
from the land of the living and, for all practical purposes, “are not.”
Furthermore, it would contradict the connection between verses 11
and 12—which expressly say he longed to die in the womb—and verses
13 through 19—which teach that he would then have entered the after-
life existence. In addition, commentators such as Delitzsch,288 Heave-
nor,289 and others point out that he is thinking of “his company in the
dormitory of death” (Heavenor) in the entire section from verses 14
through 19. This company would include himself (had his miscarriage
wish been granted) and others who gained entrance via intrauterine
death.
3. THE VALUE OF HUMAN ANTENATAL LIFE

The foregoing study was essential to setting the abortion question in
the {147} proper discernment of the value of that human life which
exists in utero. Christians must be careful to not assume secular
humanists will naturally have the same attitude in regard to all human
life as they themselves do. Such would be gross presumption. Because
of the totality of man’s depravity and the intensity of his rebellious
attempt to suppress the image of God within, it is dangerous to assume
the abortion question revolves around only the one issue. We cannot sim-
ply appeal to men as if the abortion issue is merely an intellectual prob-
lem that will be resolved when all the facts are straight. It is not an
intellectual problem, but an ethical and spiritual problem.
In an article entitled “Controlled Reaction,” Ellen Wilson argues well
that antiabortionists are sadly mistaken if they assume the entire abor-
tion debate rests upon the question of the humanity of the fetus. She
288. Delitzsch, Job, 81.

289. E. S. Heavenor, “Job,” in Davidson, The New Bible Commentary, 390.

notes that many pro-abortionists are “strangely unmoved” by the argu-

ments.290 Thus, Paul Feinberg is surely wrong when he writes:
Clearly, the central point of contention between pro-abortionists and
anti-abortionists has to do with the status of the fetus. If this issue
could be decisively resolved, the controversy over abortion would be
well on the way to settlement.291
Consequently, before surveying the biblical data in terms of the value
God has bestowed upon the fetus, it would serve well as healthful
“shock therapy” to briefly demonstrate the impossibility of refuting
abortionist argumentation from a lone base.
In an editorial in the (aptly titled) New Republic, the following state-
ment was made:
There clearly is no logical or moral distinction between a fetus and a
young baby; free availability of abortion cannot be reasonably distin-
guished from euthanasia. Nevertheless we are for it. It is too facile to
say that human life always is sacred; obviously it is not, and the social
cost of preserving against the mother’s will the lives of fetuses who are
not yet self-conscious is simply too great.292
Magda Denes, a psychologist, pro-abortionist, and aborted mother, has
written: “I do think abortion is murder—of a very special and
necessary sort. And no physician ever involved with the procedure ever
kids himself about that.”293 Yet she insists on the “rights” to abortion-
on-demand and asserts that every abortion is an “absolute necessity.”294
Philosopher Judith Thomson concedes the argument of human
personhood to pro-lifers, but continues to argue against the fetus’s
absolute right to life, averring {148} that it is an insignificant right when
weighed against other possible rights it would void: “I am inclined to
think ... that we shall probably have to agree that the fetus has already
become a human person well before birth.” Yet, she argues on, “having
a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the
290. Ellen W. Wilson, “Controlled Reactions,” Human Life Review, 5:2 (1979): 49ff.
291. Paul Feinberg, “The Morality of Abortion,” in Ganz, Thou Shalt Not Kill, 128.
292. “The Unborn and the Born Again,” an editorial in the New Republic, July 2, 1977,
6.
293. Magda Denes, “The Question of Abortion,” Commentary 62 (December 1976): 6.
294. Magda Denes, In Necessity and Sorrow (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 247.

use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person’s

body—even if one needs it for life itself.”295 Her argument boils down
to this: the mother’s few months of inconvenience are to be more
highly valued than the child’s very life.
Philosopher Michael Tooley has presented arguments “justifying”
infanticide, pure and simple.296 World-renowned geneticist James Wat-
son, too, argued for infanticide when he said in an interview in 1973:
Perhaps as my former colleague Francis Crick suggested, no one
should be thought of as alive until about three days after birth ...
If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all
persons could be allowed the choice that only a few are given under
the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the par-
ents so chose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view
is the only rational and compassionate attitude to have.297
Medical journals are replete with cases of infanticide under the label of
“benign neglect” of defective infants.298 Even Christian gynecologist R.
F. R. Gardner has argued for the “compassionate” employment of
abortion in the case of potentially defective children.299 Thus it is
patently obvious that due consideration need be given the issue of the
value of antenatal human life. Since ethical valuation is totally beyond
the pale of science, this question shall be considered solely from the
Bible.
295. Judith Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1971):
141, 148.
296. Michael Tooley, “Abortion and Infanticide,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 2
(1972): 37–65.
297. James D. Watson, “Children From the Laboratory,” Prism 1:2 (May 1973): 13.
298. For example, see: Anthony Shaw, “Dilemmas of ‘Informed Consent’ in Children,”
New England Journal of Medicine 289:17 (October 25, 1973): 885–90; Raymond S. Duff
and A. G. Campbell, “Moral and Ethical Dilemmas in the Special-Care Nursery,” Ibid.:
890–94; John Lorber, “Results of Treatment of Myelomenian gocele: An Analysis of 524
Unselected Cases with Special Reference to Possible Selection for Treatment,”
Developmental Child Neurology 13 (1971): 279–303; “Criteria for Selection of Patients
for Treatment,” Abstract, Fourth International Conference on Birth Defects, Vienna,
Austria, 1973.
299. R. F. R. Gardner, Abortion: The Personal Dilemma (Old Tappan, NJ: Spire, 1972),
60 and elsewhere.
To begin with, the question which requires initial consideration is:

“What is man that we should be mindful of him?” Even at this early
stage of the argument the Christian finds himself at odds with the non-
Christian. Evolutionary thought—the pseudoscientific basis of secular
humanism—necessarily devalues man by conceiving of him as an
absurd {149} accident in space and time. Man is nothing more than a
chance collusion of meaningless molecules. In such a conception of
things man can have neither meaning, value, nor purpose.
Christianity, however, conceives of man in radically different terms.
Although God was actively involved in the entire creative process by
which He created all things from nothing by successive divine fiats,
when we come to the revelation in Genesis which deals with man’s cre-
ation we notice a significant difference of treatment. When God cre-
ated man, the creational activity engaged in was far more intimate than
that for the rest of the created order. We discover not simply a creative
fiat in the formation of Adam, but (1) a special, personal formation of
Adam’s body from the dust by the very hands of God (Gen. 2:7a) and
(2) a unique, divine, spiritual inbreathing causing Adam to spring to
life (Gen. 2:7b). All of this occurs as the climax of the creative week.
But there is more. Man is distinguished from all other forms of life
on earth by alone being created in the “image of God” (Gen. 1:26–27).
This imago dei is the fundamental attribute of man qua man. It imme-
diately and forever distinguished man from all the rest of creation and
granted him special status in the universe—a derivative, created status,
to be sure, but still a status of high regard. Though man is finite, he is
inhered with infinite worth. Having created man uniquely in His own
image, the Lord God blessed him and gave him dominion as His own
vice-regent over all of creation (Gen. 1:28–30; Ps. 8).
Thus, man’s unique, supreme value is found to be due to divine pur-
pose. Only the Lord God can diminish or void that value placed on
man. As Francis Schaeffer has said in his abortion seminars: “There is
an unbreakable link between the infinite personal God and the unique-
ness of human life.”
Furthermore, not only did God create man imago dei, and thus with
infinite worth, but He specifically safeguarded the sanctity of human
life by prohibiting its wanton destruction. By divine decree the only
suitable punishment for the intentional destruction of innocent human

life is capital punishment. This punishment is specifically instituted in

light of the fact that man is, in fact, in God’s image: “Whoever sheds
man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God
He made man” (Gen. 9:6). In exacting just and equitable retribution for
murder the only payment commensurate with the crime is the extin-
guishing of the life of the murderer himself.300
Having noted that Adam—who, in keeping with the concept of a
mature creation, was created as an adult—was created imago dei, the
question arising at this point concerns the status of the fetus: does it
partake of imago dei so as to possess the same sanctity of life? In
researching relevant {150} Scriptures there are strong indications that
the fetus is considered imago dei (whether expressly stated or not) and
that it inheres with the same value as adult life. Basically, these indica-
tions fall into two distinct classes: one discernible in terms of creational
design and the other evident in legal protections granted fetal life.
A. The Argument from Creational Design

In reviewing the creation week it is discovered that the divinely insti-
tuted order is for life to reproduce “after its kind” (Gen. 1:21, 24–25)—
even in its seed (Gen. 1:11). The begetting of life is truly reproductive: it
reproduces the same “kind” in the seed as that which exists in the par-
ent. There is an unbreakable continuity between parent and offspring.
Now it is true that the same language (“after its kind”) is not directly
employed in speaking of man’s reproduction. Yet it is proper to assume
begetting-in-kind within the human race. This is due to a variety of
reasons: (1) The created orderliness of the world suggests that man
reproduces in kind just as does the rest of the animate creation. (2) Man
is specifically commanded to “be fruitful and multiply” just as the ani-
mals are (cf. Gen. 1:22 with 1:28). Certainly for him to multiply himself
he would have to multiply in kind.
Genesis 5:1ff. substantiates these assumptions: “This is the book of
the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made
him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He
blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created.
300. Cf. my “The Church and Capital Punishment,” Presbyterian Journal 38:27
(October 31, 1979): 8ff.
When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the
father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named
him Seth.” Note here that the concept of Adam’s creation imago dei is
made prominent by direct reference and in repetition of that which was
already stated just a few chapters earlier in Genesis 1:26–27. Then it is
immediately pointed out that Adam, the image of God, fathered a son
in his image. So at birth a child is clearly the image of God.
In light of the continuity of human personhood from conception
onward, and in light of the intimacy of God’s involvement in the for-
mation of man in utero (Job 10:3, 8–11; Ps. 139:13–16) and ex utero
(Jer. 18:1–6), and in light of the direct statement demonstrating that
man is in the image of God not only in adulthood but as a neonate,
what logical argument can be urged to sever this continuity from ante-
nantal development? It is of more than just passing interest that persons
in utero are designated by terms identical with those expressive of born
persons.
In Genesis 25:22, the occupants of Rebekah’s womb are called “chil-
dren” by use of the plural of the Hebrew word ben (“son”). This word
occurs over 4,800 times in the Old Testament and speaks of already
born sons of all ages in hundreds of these occurrences. In Job 3:3, the
conceptus301 is called a “man” but the term used in the Hebrew is geber
(“mighty man”). In this term’s {151} sixty-six occurrences it always
refers to grown men, never to animals or anything else—except here. In
Exodus 21:22, the pregnant woman in this case law (to be studied later)
is said to have “children” within who are delivered into the world after
an unintentional striking of the mother. The word here used is the plu-
ral form of the Hebrew yeled (“child”), which occurs in the Old Testa-
ment of born persons almost always.
In the New Testament, Elizabeth is said to have conceived a huios
(“son”) in Luke 1:36. This common term is found in over 300 refer-
ences in the New Testament and is almost always employed of sons
already born and of various ages. In Luke 1:41 and 44, Elizabeth is said
to possess a “baby” at six months gestation. The Greek here is brephos,
which occurs eight times and is used of already born babies (e.g., 2
Tim. 3:15 and Luke 18:15).
301.[Conceptus refers to the entire process of conception until birth.]

Such employment of these terms commonly applied to persons

already born bears out the notion that the personal status of the unborn
is equivalent to that of the born and is to be equally valued. Rather than
referring to the “products of conception” solely by words of a more
neutral connotation—e.g., “embryo” (as in Ps. 139:16), “substance” (as
in Ps. 139:15), “seed” (as in Gen. 4:25), or “body” (as in Deut. 28:4)—
the inspired Scriptures can and often do employ these more personal
words; words that in other connections refer to human life definitely
considered imago dei.
B. The Argument from Legal Protection

The next argument in support of the infinite value of the fetus is
even of a stronger nature than the forgoing. In a nutshell, the argument
is that biblical law has instituted specific penal sanctions against those
who would destroy fetal life; those penal sanctions are identical to
those protecting adult life. The location of the case law protection of
the fetus is the well-known legislation found in Exodus 21:22–23. The
Authorized Version of the text reads: “If men strive, and hurt a woman
with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow:
he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay
upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mis-
chief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
hand for hand, foot for foot.” Hebrew linguist Umbreto Cassuto gives
the following expansive translation of the relevant portions of the law:
“When men strive together and they hurt unintentionally a woman
with child, and her children come forth but no mischief happens—that
is, the woman and the children do not die—the one who hurt her shall
surely be punished by a fine. But if any mischief happens, that is, if the
women dies or the children die, then you shall give life for life.”302
{152}
An excellent exposition of this important case law has been given
elsewhere by Frame.303 The details of his fine exposition need not be
302. Umbreto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. Israel Abrahams
(Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967), 275. Cf. C. F. Keil, The Pentateuch, in Keil and Gray,
Commentary on the Old Testament, 2:135–36.
303. Frame, “Abortion,” 51–56. Cf. also: Keil, The Pentateuch, 2:135ff.

exhaustively rehearsed here, but it is imperative that a summary of the

exegetical observations on the passage be given and that some of
Frame’s faulty observations be corrected.
In terms of the particular case-setting presented, two men are
engaged in a struggle and somehow (unspecified) a pregnant woman is
struck in the process. The case as presented seems to indicate that the
woman is only accidentally struck, for it is the men who are “striving
together.” Upon being struck, the woman goes into labor and delivers a
child prematurely. The Revised Standard Version, New American Stan-
dard Version, and some other versions erroneously translate the result-
ant action here as a miscarrying. The phrase “her fruit depart from
her” is literally to be translated: “her children go out.” The noun trans-
lated “fruit” here is yeled, which is almost always translated “child” else-
where. (It occurs here in the plural, which is of no particular
significance to the present discussion.) More importantly it is impera-
tive to note that the verb yasa’ (“go out”) does not in any way necessi-
tate the death of the child, as would be the case if the Hebrew word for
“miscarry” were used here. It simply means that the unborn child
comes out into the world from within the womb. The term is com-
monly used for normal deliveries, as in Genesis 25:26; 38:28–30; Jere-
miah 20:18; etc. Only in one lone instance does it refer to a stillbirth
(Num. 12:12). Thus, what is being described here is a premature deliv-
ery, irrespective (at this point) of whether the action produces a living
or a dead child.
The terms of the case law then turn to give consideration to the
potential damage caused in the unfortunate event. Two possibilities are
considered. In the first it is said that if no harm (“mischief ” in the AV)
follows, there shall only be a pecuniary fine levied against the man who
struck the pregnant woman. Significantly, the terms of the case law do
not specify to whom the harm happens. Were it the case that only the
possible harm to the mother were to be considered, the text would
doubtless have specified this by use of lah, “to her.” Cassuto,304 Keil,305
and other eminent linguists mention the exegetical significance of the
omission of lah. So, if neither child or the mother is hurt then only a
304. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, 275.

305. Keil, The Pentateuch, 2:135n.

fine is levied, possibly in compensation for either the emotional stress,

potential danger, or economic costs incurred in terms of caring for a
premature baby.
The law continues in verses 23 and 24 to consider a second possibil-
ity: “But if harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life,” etc. (ASV
translation). Again, this harm is also left unspecified as to its victim.
Thus it necessarily {153} includes harm either to the mother or to the
child subsequently delivered. At this point the law of retaliation comes
to bear on the situation. If either person involved—mother or child—is
harmed, then the punishment shall be equitable to the loss: if either life
is lost, then the life of the assailant shall be forfeited.
Before drawing final conclusions, a couple of errors in Frame’s
exposition need to be rectified. The first has to do with the assumed
gestational stage of the yeled who is delivered. Frame, following such
exegetes as Keil306 and some others, makes the following observation:
“the term yeled in verse 22 never refers elsewhere to a child lacking rec-
ognizable human form, or to one incapable of exiting outside the
womb.”307 The implication drawn from this is that the case law deals
only with the late gestational fetus. Such an implication is patently false
on a variety of considerations.
First, the point cannot be pushed to such a conclusion due to the
paucity of the evidence undergirding it. The Hebrew word yeled in
Scripture normally does not refer to an unborn child at any gestational
stage. In its eighty-nine occurrences in the Hebrew Old Testament, this
is the only instance of its reference to a child in utero.308 Consequently,
there are no grounds for demanding its reference be to “recognizable”
human form solely. Consider this: it could be argued that geber can
only mean an adult upon lexical considerations and in terms of its
usage in every occurrence in the Old Testament—every occurrence,
that is, except for Job 3:3. There it is applied to the zygote formed at
conception.
306. Ibid., 134n.

308. The verbal form of the term means literally “to give birth.” Thus, strictly
speaking, it etymologically refers to a person already born.

Second, it is significant that the case law is given to protect both the
mother and the child. In verse 22 the setting mentions that the woman
is “with child.” The unfortunate woman in this situation is designated
as “with child” or “pregnant.” The Hebrew word here translated thusly
is harah. In light of both its lexical signification and its various textual
functions, harah refers to a woman at any stage of pregnancy. In Gene-
sis 16:11, Hagar is said to be “with child” (harah) as soon as it was
noticed that she was pregnant (cf. preceding story, 16:1–10). In Genesis
38:24, it is noted that at three months gestation Tamar is said to be
“with child.” Undoubtedly, if technology had allowed, even in the earli-
est stages of pregnancy the maternal condition would still have been
designated harah. This term covers the maternal condition during the
entire course of antenatal development of the child, i.e., from conception
to birth. Thus, the case law specifies only that if a pregnant woman is
struck and labor is thereby induced, then the terms of the law must be
applied. If the delivery produced a {154} dead child or miscarriage at
any stage, “harm” was done, retaliation was called for.309
Third, the use of the term yeled was not given to limit the range of
concern for the developing child. Frame argues that golem (“embryo”)
should have been employed as a more suitable term if early embryonic
life were included in the law’s consideration. Consequently, he avers
that early embryonic life is excluded from consideration by employ-
ment of the term yeled.310 Upon closer consideration, however, it
appears that this observation is in error. For if golem had been used,
then the twofold situation would have been impossible. That is, if
golem had been mentioned, then there would have been no alternative
possibility to the outcome of the induced labor: an embryo could not
have been delivered alive, so that “no harm” could be said to have even-
tuated.
309. Certainly extremely early miscarriages might have escaped the notice of the
mother, but this does not invalidate the terms of the law. The terms are to be applied
where the proper conditions calling for them are discovered. That is, the fact that it
would be difficult to apply this law at the loss of the conceptus, say, during the blastocyst
stage, does not make the law null and void altogether.
One final observation regarding Frame’s exposition needs to be

made. He comments on the punishment meted out for the harm
caused to the child thusly:
Since mother and child are under the same protection, some would
argue, the child must be there regarded as a human person. We must
however reject this inference. The passage does not specify how the
law of retaliation is to be applied.311
Frame seems to be involved in a contradiction with his own previous
exegesis here. Earlier he noted that the lack of lah in both verses 22 and
23 is exegetically significant. He commented that
The expression lah (“to her”), which would restrict the harm to the
woman as opposed to the child, is missing. Thus the most natural
interpretation would regard the “harm” as pertaining either to the
woman or to the child.312
Yet, only a few sentences later he argues that the protection afforded
the child is not the same protection given the mother despite the lack
of lah in verse 23, which reads: “And if any mischief follow, thou shalt
give life for life.” A natural reading of the verse (understanding the
significance of the omitted lah) suggests strongly that if the mother or
the child dies then thou shalt give life for life. This is the law of
retaliation spelled out equally for the loss of the mother’s or the child’s
life. The punishment meted out is “indefinite in its reference”—capital
punishment ensues in either eventuality. {155}
One final note on this text is in order. It should be observed that the
case law gives an a fortiori argument regarding the value of fetal life.
This is the only case in the Law of God wherein an accidental death mer-
its capital punishment. If God considers the accidental destruction of
fetal life as deserving capital punishment, it is obvious he holds that life
in highest esteem and would certainly so punish intentional abortions.
IV. CONCLUSION
The Christian case against abortion derived from Scripture may be
summarily stated as follows:
311. Ibid., 62.

312. Ibid., 55.

1. Human life begins at the moment of conception, rather than at

some later gestational stage, or at birth, or after a certain degree of
socialization. The life initiated at conception is on a continuum with
adult life.
2. Human life possesses infinite worth by right of divine creation in
the image of God. Worth is not predicated of human existence at some
advanced stage of development, but is that which inheres in man at the
very beginning of his existence.
3. God safeguards innocent human life by the institution of the
strictest punishment for its destruction: capital punishment.
4. Abortion is proscribed both by inference based on the nature of
man (even in antenatal development) and by direct statement in Exo-
dus 21.
5. Abortion is both immoral and criminal. It requires both the Chris-
tian’s disapprobation and the state’s equitable punishment, i.e., capital
punishment.
EDITOR’S NOTE
We hope this article against abortion will make you want to do
something to stop this holocaust. The truth of the matter is, you can
help a great deal in turning the tide. The Pro-Life Movement is gaining
ground throughout the country, but it needs the assistance of the read-
ership of this Journal to carry out its high mission. If many of you will
make some phone calls, write a few letters to legislators, and give regu-
lar support to some of the organizations leading the battle, a surprising
amount could be accomplished within the next several months.
Burke was right when he said: “For the triumph of evil, it is only
necessary for good men to do nothing.” Let us do something: even if it
is only a little, and He who multiplied the few loaves and fishes to feed
thousands, will multiply our influence beyond all we could imagine.
Here are some addresses (and introductions) of Right to Life Organi-
zations. At very least get involved with one or more of these. (These
addresses and introductions are reprinted with kind permission from
the booklet Abortion in America, by Gary Bergel, with remarks by C.
Everett Koop, M.D., Intercessors for America: P.O. Box D, Elyria, OH
44036, 1980.) {156}

National Organizations
AMERICANS UNITED FOR LIFE
230 N. Michigan Avenue #515, Chicago, IL 60601
312/263–5385
AUL does research for scholarly publications, involves itself in litigation of abor-
tion cases, and maintains a national nonprofit public interest law firm, the AUL
Legal Defense Fund. A periodic newsletter, Lex Vitae, focuses on the legal
aspects of life issues.
BETHANY CHRISTIAN SERVICES
901 Eastern Avenue NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503
616/459–6273
A network of adoption and related service agencies with branch offices in Colo-
rado, Iowa, Missouri, and New Jersey.
CITIZENS FOR INFORMED CONSENT
286 Hollywood Avenue, Akron, OH 44313
216/864–1865
An effective research and consultation service for fully informed consent and
citizen advocacy headed by Mr. Marvin Weinberger. The group helps sponsor
and author late-abortion legislation like the “Akron Ordinance” to oversee and
restrict abortion clinics and practices. Such legislation has now been success-
fully passed in more than twelve states and scores of U. S. cities.
NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE COMMITTEE INC.
529 14th Street NW, #341, Washington, D.C. 20045
202/638–4396
NRLC seeks the eventual passage of a federal human life amendment. This orga-
nization provides national leadership in the right to life movement and they have
almost 2,000 local chapters. They maintain a lobbyist on Capitol Hill and are in
constant communication with all the states through legislative alerts mentioned-
above. NRL News is available bimonthly at $12 per year. NRL-PAC is the group’s
Federal Political Action Committee.
NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR A HUMAN LIFE AMENDMENT
1707 “L” Street NW, Rm. 400, Washington, D.C. 20036
202/785–8061
The NCHLA is organized along congressional district lines with a specific goal of
the passage of a human life amendment. They provide technical assistance in

terms of personnel and are organizing congressional districts.

THE CHRISTIAN ACTION COUNCIL
788 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
202/638–5441
The Christian Action Council promotes proper Christian involvement in {157}
constitutional and political discussion and works to bring biblical truth before
legislators. The CAC newsletter, Action Line, is available upon request.
AD HOC COMMITTEE IN DEFENSE OF LIFE INC.
8810 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 29945
202/347–8686
This group supports congressional or constitutional convention groups, in order
to produce a human life amendment. Their periodic newsletter is very informa-
tive and presents up-to-the-minute news in staccato style.
AMERICAN LIFE LOBBY INC.
P. O. Box 490, Stafford, VA 22554
703/659–6556, 202/783–4328
This group lobbies Congress, educates the public and supports only those legis-
lative activities which will outlaw all abortion. A.L.L. About Issues, their monthly
newsletter, is available upon request.
U.S. COALITION FOR LIFE
Export, PA 15632, 412/327–7379
This group focuses primarily on federal tax supported antilife policies and pro-
grams and is engaged in legislative research, lobbying, and congressional testi-
mony. Their publication is a periodic newsletter, Pro-Life Reporter.
Independent Political Action Committees

NATIONAL PRO-LIFEPAC
4848 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60640, 312/728–2844
LAPAC—LIFE AMENDMENT POLITICAL ACTION
COMMITTEE INC.
National Press Building, Suite 357, 529 Fourteenth St. NW,
Washington, D.C. 20045, 202/638–3961
LIFE-PAC
1735 DeSales St. NW, Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20036
202/543-0153

4.
DEFENDERS OF
THE FAITH

LESTER ROLOFF:
AN EXTENDED REVIEW OF
HIS RECENT BIOGRAPHY
Caroline S. Kelly
With an Appendix by R. J. Rushdoony
Lester Roloff is the ultimate enigma to the liberal humanist: on the one
hand a traveling evangelist, preaching with urgency the saving grace of
God and the need for personal repentance, and yet on the other, the
director of what must be the country’s largest group of homes for social
outcasts and delinquents with a success rate that puts the statist homes
to shame.
His biography, written three years ago by his wife, is a personal guide
through his career, and is instructive both as an example of a man
determined to walk in God’s ways at all costs, and as a sad evidence of
the increasing resistance to uncompromising obedience to God. This
he met first in the denominational church, and finally in society at
large as the State of Texas passed legislation to close the homes, result-
ing in jail sentences on Brother Roloff.
Mrs. Roloff ’s approach to his story does not dwell on the principles
we should draw from his life: rather, like her, we follow in amazement
as his deep commitment to “living by faith”—and not by sight—has led
him out in directions he never imagined beforehand. His determina-
tion to preach and follow the whole Word, meant that compassion on
the whole lives of the lost, and the call to genuine action and holy living
on the part of the converted, is not an optional matter.
In retrospect we can see that the “social action” was inevitable, given
his love for lost souls and faithfulness to the Word. Perhaps it is not
coincidence, either, that his own godly and loving but highly disci-
plined upbringing should bear fruit in later years in providing the sav-
ing atmosphere for so many who had never known anything of the love
or truth of God.
His first step beyond “ordinary” pastoral duties was in 1944, when
the “Family Altar” radio program was started—at which time he met
his first resistance from outside the church, for his preaching against
definite sins. In fact, although that radio station eventually forced him
out, the door opened to go onto a far larger station. However in 1954
he was also removed from this station for being “too controversial.”
Though deeply hurt by this, funded by friends of the ministry, he
pressed on using other stations until in the providence of God, within
months the owners of the very station that {159} had dropped him
needed to sell. As in so many of his later enormous purchases, he went
ahead in assurance from God, and the money was all donated before
the deadline.
His growing nationwide radio audience, and those he met through
his immense traveling ministry, can be seen to provide a reservoir of
prayer, encouragement, and financial resources that have made the
other developments possible. Though he had ended his highly success-
ful pastorate of Second Baptist Church, Corpus Christi, in 1951 for
full-time traveling evangelism, he yearned for the support of a loving
church family. Thus in 1954 he organized with a few friends the
Alameda Baptist Church in Corpus Christi. Within six months it had
grown to 372 members, of whom he testified, “these people have the
sweetest spirit and the greatest vision for missions and service of any
church we’ve served” (63).
It was at this point that the portentous step was made when the
church took over the Good Samaritan rescue mission in the town—but
Brother Roloff found he could not stop with temporary help for “spiri-
tual lepers and those crippled by sin” (83). Thus in February 1957, on
eighty acres of donated land, the “City of Refuge” was started. With
characteristic compassion and colorfulness, he reminded his radio
audience “[God] said if we stop our ears to the cry of the poor, it will
stop the answer to our prayers. The City of Refuge is not a flop farm for
bums and ne’er do wells, but for angels off the rail” (85).
This home, with its strict regimen of discipline, work, and Bible
study, resulted in many, many remarkable conversions and utterly
transformed lives. It was followed in 1958 by the “Lighthouse”—an
inaccessible haven on the Inland Waterway for delinquent boys. Some
at first were as young as nine, many literally rescued from lives of drugs

Lester Roloff: An Extended Review of His Recent Biography 207
and crime, while others more recently have been sent by judges across
the country in place of serving prison sentences. In 1961 the Boys
Ranch opened, and then in 1965 the Enterprises added a new “City of
Refuge” in Culloden, Georgia, in an almost miraculously acquired
beautiful old Southern plantation.
The year 1967 saw the beginning of a work for girls when a desperate
hopeless girl approached Brother Roloff for help at an evangelistic
meeting. A year later, his appeals for help to build up the rapidly grow-
ing “Rebekah Home” in Corpus Christi reveal both the theological and
practical basis: “There is not a drifting wayward daughter anywhere
who we could not make whole through the finished work of Christ on
the cross...”; and then—“There is no way for us to keep on keeping on
or to minister to the poor pieces of wrecked humanity that come as
delinquents, narcotic agents, alcoholics (both men and women), poor
little girls in trouble—apart from the love that Jesus gives ... love, the
only motive for acceptable service to the Lord,” and the only way to
press on without bitterness in the face of vicious condemnation and
cruel press reports (124–26). {160}
The Anchor Home for Boys began in 1972 in Zapata, Texas, followed
by the Bethesda Home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, for unwed girls and
other girls in trouble. Also in that year, the Rebekah Christian School
was built—consistent with principles of full obedience to the Word of
God—and to Brother Roloff ’s own convictions on the matter, reaching
back to 1946 when he had started a school during his pastorate of Sec-
ond Baptist Church.
Interestingly, his compassion for God’s people coupled with requests
from supporters led to the opening of another home: this time for the
elderly—“Peaceful Valley Home” near Mission, Texas, in 1969—“a
haven where the rescuers can rest, pray, and sing together. It has
become the house of prayer” (131).
The cost of the work has in every sense been enormous. In the prov-
idence of God, Roloff ’s stepping beyond the bounds of a regular pas-
torate into a radio ministry provided a link to thousands nationwide
who wanted to hear uncompromising preaching, and who became
active supporters financially and through prayer. In addition, from the
time Brother Roloff began his traveling ministry, he has met thousands
more with whom he can share his burden for the work.

This writer feels that some of the strength of his preaching is found
precisely in the fact that he exhorts no one to do what he has not done:
he is not preaching theory but practice. And his appeals for funds
always have a specific goal in view, one which his own track record tes-
tifies is worthy. While we have all met those who will talk at length
about their personal dealings with the Lord—and seem very little
affected by Him—Lester Roloff restores our faith that man can know
God genuinely and be led step by step by Him.
Mrs. Roloff is in a position to share with us some of the deep strug-
gles of the soul her husband has endured at crisis points in the work,
and the heartbreak caused by unjust criticism or attacks on the homes.
At times the financial needs alone have been almost unbearable, as he
refuses debt: as he put it, “I’d feel like a backslider if I begged a banker
to loan us what God’s people ought to have the privilege of giving”;
thus he has to be clear that expansion to meet the needs of those beg-
ging for help is of the Lord, before going to his supporters with plans
and requests for funds. “Readers did not know about the agonizing
hours he spent in prayer asking the Lord for direction...” (127). How-
ever, the burden of where to secure funds was relieved when, in his
own words in 1967: “... God told me our friends and His friends would
be our bankers, [and] a new day dawned. Since that day, the clouds
have rifted and the burdens passed” (133).
Several evidences are given of his personal commitment to serious
discipleship. He often talks of the “three F’s”: the first is that faith is the
key to a dynamic Christian life; the second, fasting, is a discipline he
{161} thoroughly believes in and regularly practices, for “it will clear
the channel between God and us” (73), and increase the power and
quality of our Christian living. The third “F” he practices is the disci-
pline of sound nutritional principles—“food.” Having been of a rather
unhealthy disposition in early years, this conviction grew out of his
desire to be as healthy as possible so as to be able to serve the Lord as
long and as well as he could. His testimony is that his change to natural
foods has remarkably improved his health. Once the deliberate change
was made, he finds he “enjoys eating more than [he] ever did before,
because of the simple truths the Lord has taught [him]...” (79).
One rather remarkable accomplishment is that of being a licensed
pilot—more so given the fact of his initial hearty dislike of flying and

the very hard time he had learning the necessary skills. But for the sake
of gaining “the most time to preach and keep up the growing work” he
disciplined himself at this point too. And the occasional close calls
have only been (afterwards!) more cause for praise to and faith in the
Almighty God!
His faith is simple, clear-cut, deep, and honest. He resorts to the
Word and prayer at all times. His preaching is always fresh and grip-
ping, fed by being constantly in the Scriptures. Interestingly, his
premillennial views have been the motivation for him to do battle with
the world to rescue those sucked under by what he sees as the growing
influence of sin. Yet far from retreating from society, he has ended up
literally affecting the laws of the State of Texas and the thinking of
many throughout the country on the issue of church of state. Is not this
a challenge to action to those of us who hold more optimistic views
concerning the impact of godly living on society?
The amount and range of the work achieved has been enormous.
“We work with tomorrow’s criminals today, but by God’s grace, we
have seen victory in the lives of thousands of them, even rapists and
murderers. We know that Christ is the Answer,” Brother Roloff is
quoted as saying. His wife describes the girls coming to the Bethesda
Home as “disillusioned, bewildered, embittered and sad. They will
leave transformed—reborn, self-confident, and able to take their place
in society.” Many, many residents from all the homes have gone on to
higher education to Bob Jones University and Tennessee Temple
Schools, often to become preachers themselves, Christian School
teachers, or missionaries; or even to return as dedicated workers in the
Roloff Homes. The quality and power of the Work of God in the lives
of those reached by his ministries is testified to by many outside the
fundamentalist or even church sphere, as in this article from the Hous-
ton Chronicle:
Upon graduation from the Lighthouse and the “City of Refuge,” many
of the boys set out to “make a preacher,” living by the Bible and
eschewing tobacco, alcohol, narcotics, dancing, and mixed swimming,
even the very appearance of sin. {162}
The simple morality, often couched largely in negative terms, is
warmed, sweetened, and ennobled by a compassion for others who
stagger and stumble under the burden of a broken home, parents who

love alcohol more than their children, and the terrifying loneliness
which is the lot of the unloved.
These “preacher boys” were turned aside from the reform school and a
life of crime by this view which looks at good and evil in black and
white. Their conviction that they had something to share will put
evangelistic fervor into pulpits across the nation for many years to
come. (94, Roloff Biography)
And here precisely is the rub. Though Mrs. Roloff refrains from
discussing the motives of the Welfare Department of Texas, it seems
clear to many that the nationwide interest in this remarkable and (to
the Department of Social Services) unorthodox work challenges the
very basic presuppositions of what the humanist state can offer the
needy in society: thus such an embarrassing challenge could not be
allowed to continue.
The last part of the story, to this date, is still not settled, though the
majority of the homes are currently open. At issue is the question of the
state claiming the right to license—and ultimately regulate—this
Christian work. The first step the State of Texas made was to demand
compliance with the rules and regulations under which the Welfare
Department operated their institutions. The absurdity of such require-
ments could easily be demonstrated not only by the exceptionally high
standards and cleanliness of the physical plant, but also the wonderful
success rate of the ministries. Furthermore, not only had it operated
without one cent of tax funds, it had saved thousands of dollars by
keeping criminals and delinquents out of state institutions by giving
the homeless a livelihood other than crime, drugs, or welfare.
Since 1971, the life of the Homes (especially those for juveniles) has
rocked from one legal wrangle, court judgment, appeal, and stay of
execution to another. Fines have been imposed on several occasions,
amounting to thousands of dollars. But the culmination has been two
jail sentences on Brother Roloff himself. In addition to this, different
homes were totally or partially closed down at different times. The
Texas Senate even passed a bill in 1975 to forbid unlicensed homes
from caring for children under eighteen—adding further pressure on
Roloff to submit to licensing.
These stressful years were greatly aggravated by an extremely
unsympathetic local press: so bad indeed, that in mid–1974, Roloff ’s

lawyers “filed libel suits against those publishers and the media who
had slandered the Roloff Enterprise’s name and had viciously attacked
them” (168). On the other hand, as the issue has become known and
understood throughout the country, Christians have rallied round in
even greater numbers, continuing to support the work and to put
themselves on record as doing so. On two or three occasions thousands
from all over the country have gathered in {163} Texas for pro-Roloff
rallies. Well over one thousand preachers have pledged to stand
together to keep the Homes open.
Roloff has maintained his unrelenting determination to keep his
homes open, to lay his life on the altar for the Lord and for those in
such desperate need: “if loving and living for others is a crime, I will
have to rejoice as a criminal and be exceeding glad” (153). He speaks
constantly of the need for Christians to see his difficulties as not merely
an event that could happen in only one part of the country.
It could truly be said that the Roloff Enterprises are suffering to edu-
cate the rest of the church. They express the key issue this way:
We Christians must recognize there are legitimate fields of govern-
mental regulations ... God ordained government and he intended it to
reign over men within certain boundaries. But the issue we faced ...
went much deeper than merely applying for a license from the State of
Texas. The issue definitely is separation of church and state. If the state
takes upon itself licensing of Christian charity, then it also takes upon
itself other powers that do not belong to it. (153)
While Brother Roloff agrees that any home receiving government
funds should be licensed, he maintains that “the state was never trained
and never will be trained to run our churches and our church homes
and schools.”
Lester Roloff ’s biography is instructive, therefore, not merely as a
look at the Christian commitment and zeal of one man, nor even the
remarkable ministries he has founded, but is of paramount importance
to the whole church in America today. For, to quote him in conclusion:
“When the chains go on the pulpit, the pen will lose its liberty. And
when the church loses its liberty, the nation will go into captivity and
final destruction” (163).

The Significance of the Roloff Case

A Note by R. J. Rushdoony
The Roloff trials have now extended into their eighth year or more,
and the end is not yet. Their significance is very great for all of us.
What is at stake is freedom for the faith, and the First Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution.
Anyone who has ever visited the various homes established by Dr.
Lester Roloff is sure of one thing: they are an intensely and passionately
missionary activity and an embodiment of Christian faith. They repre-
sent an aspect of the life of the faith and the church from very early
days.
Why then the challenge by the state to their legitimacy? Technical
legal questions are raised by the state, as they are by the Internal Reve-
nue Service and other agencies, both in this case and in others involv-
ing churches, {164} Christian Schools, and other arms of Christ’s
Kingdom.
In effect, the state and federal governments are claiming the right to
define the church and what constitutes a legitimate church or Christian
mission. This is, of course, contrary to the First Amendment, but the
power to define and control Christianity is a first step towards its
destruction.
In the early church, the activities of the church and its mission
included teaching the young, rescuing the unwanted and discarded
babies of the pagans and rearing them in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord, and much, much more. It included the care of the poor, the
sick, and the aged. The church not only preached the word but it
applied it to every area of life and thought. The church not only wor-
shipped the Savior, but it also manifested His merciful, saving power to
one and all.
Now, humanistic statists are telling us that the life of the church
means worship in a sanctuary. If the life of faith is reduced to “meet-
ings,” it is dead indeed.
What is at stake in the Roloff case is the life of the faith itself.

5.
BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS
The Atoning Death of Christ, by Ronald S. Wallace

Foundations For Faith, An Introduction to Christian Doctrine,
Peter Toon, Editor (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1981), xii + 147
pp.; $6.95
Reviewed by Douglas Kelly

Since this issue of the Journal is devoted to the Atonement, it seems
very appropriate to review a book that has just been published on this
subject by Dr. Ronald Wallace, who will be known to many of our read-
ers as the author of two excellent books on the theology of John Calvin
(which are soon to be reprinted in Tyler, Texas). Dr. Wallace holds a
Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, and has served as Pastor of
various Churches of Scotland, and also as Professor of Theology in
Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. He is currently
writing more books in his retirement than most scholars produce in a
lifetime.
The Atoning Death of Christ is largely written for theological students
and laymen as an introduction to the subject, but there will be few
ministers or professional scholars, for that matter, who will not learn
much from it. In the earlier part of the book, he surveys the Old and
New Testament evidence for the doctrine of atonement, and then in
parts two and three, he surveys the atonement in the history of Chris-
tian thought, and lays down guidelines for a fruitful understanding of it
today. This reviewer found the last two parts of the book (i.e., chapters
5–9) of most interest and help.
Methodologically, Professor Wallace wisely says:
We have to seek as wide a field of discussion as possible. We have to
avoid selecting one theory, or one aspect, and giving it undue impor-
tance. We cannot afford to neglect any avenue of thought. My own
experience of preaching twice a Sunday for many years in the ministry
before teaching theology to students has shown me that different bib-
lical texts and stories point us towards quite different aspects of the
cross in order to spotlight its significance.

Book Reviews 215
If we are to do full justice to the varying witnesses, and let them fully
illuminate the meaning of the Gospel, we shall require now one “the-
ory” of the atonement and now another to help us in our exposition....
We must allow our thinking to be dominated by the shape and
dynamic of the biblical text.... (93)
Perhaps this book’s greatest value lies in the rich suggestiveness of
Dr. Wallace’s clear insights into various biblical and theological
approaches to the meaning of the atonement. His overview of the
church’s increasing understanding of this doctrine is particularly help-
ful in this regard (63–82), as are the guidelines he gives us for “clarifica-
tion in diversity” of this multifaceted Christian doctrine (92–125).
The profound way in which he relates the doctrine of the incarnation
to that of the atonement will repay careful study by the evangelical
preacher. His remarks on Christ’s defeat of principalities and powers
(43–45; 118ff.) shed light on important psychological and historical
realities. Very few studies {166} of the atonement have so clearly and
fruitfully explained the inner connections between the active and pas-
sive obedience of Christ, showing how His holy obedience turns our
humanity back to God as well as gives value to His atoning death. What
he has to say about atonement and intercessory prayer, and about the
cross and sanctification, should serve as an impetus to a deeper Christ-
like-ness in every believer who considers these matters.
Having considered many different viewpoints, Wallace shows that
Christ’s atonement must always be understood as substitutionary: that
although Christ is indeed our representative, He is more than that: he is
the holy substitute for sinners (115ff.).
Dr. Wallace sees the New Testament teaching an atonement for all
men. (For an exegesis of the relevant passages from the perspective of
limited atonement, one should study John Owen’s Death of Death in the
Death of Christ [Banner of Truth Trust, reprint, n.d.] 214–309.)
Although he does deal with the wrath of God (e.g., 50, 78, 98), his work
at this point might be supplemented and strengthened by reference to a
study of objective wrath and retribution such as G. L. Bahnsen’s “Law
and Atonement in the Execution of Saul’s Seven Sons” (Journal of
Christian Reconstruction 2, no. 2 [Winter 1975–76]: 101–9). He gives
considerably more emphasis to expiation than to propitiation, and here
again the discussion could profitably be filled out by reference to other

works such as John Murray’s Commentary on Romans (116ff.). Along

these same lines, the interested student of atonement should read B. B.
Warfield on “Imputation” (Biblical and Theological Studies, chap. 10) to
compare it with Dr. Wallace’s viewpoint (that legal imputation is not a
helpful category—116).
The Atoning Death of Christ is written by one who obviously knows
the power of the atonement himself. Although in this reviewer’s opin-
ion, the book needs supplementation in the areas mentioned above, it
will repay reading because of the author’s commitment to present
effectually the substitutionary atonement to the needy twentieth cen-
tury.
Reformatio Perennis: Essays on Calvin and The Reformation

in Honor of Ford Lewis Battles,
edited by B. A. Gerrish in collaboration with Robert Benedetto
Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series #32
(Pittsburgh, PA: Pickwick Press, 1981), ix + 213 pp.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1979, Ford Lewis Battles, who had done the
splendid translation of John Calvin’s Institutes (1960, Library of Chris-
tian Classics edition), died at his home near Calvin College in Grand
Rapids, Michigan. Battles was one of the foremost Calvin scholars in
the entire world, and one of the very top Calvin translators of this cen-
tury. He had exceptional ability in the Classical languages, massive
knowledge (and discernment) of the whole range of church history and
theology, was widely and deeply read in English and American Litera-
ture, and was a thoroughly effective teacher as well as the profoundest
of scholars. With all his attainments, he was always a humble,
approachable person (who more than once was of much service to this
reviewer).
This book of essays was to have been a “Festschrift” in his honor, but
owing to his early death became a memorial volume. The volume
opens with an {167} excellent eight-page “appreciation” of Battles by
Donald G. Miller. It closes with an extensive bibliography of all Battle’s

Book Reviews 217
writings by Peter De Klerk. Reformatio Perennis would be well worth

its price to Calvin scholars if it contained only these two items. There
is, however, much more of value and interest in this series of essays.
The book contains nine essays by Calvin scholars of various back-
grounds, which deal with different aspects of the theology of Calvin, or
with some phase of the Reformation.
I. John Hesselink writes concerning Calvin’s devotion to the “third
use” of the Law (i.e., a positive guide to the Christian life). He shows
the centrality of the law for Calvin’s thought: that it is the way love can
be fulfilled; that it is the norm for sanctification—“The law of God
contains in itself that newness by which his image can be restored in
us” (Institutes, bk. 3, chap. 6, sec. 1). Hesselink shows the impossibility
of opposing law to Christ in Calvin: “He knows no either/or, i.e., either
the Old Testament or the New Testament, either the law or Christ”
(19). This emphasis on the “third use of the law” is never an external
legalism, but a life of love “in Christ, for Christ, and by his Spirit” (20).
Joseph N. Tylenda sheds new light on the young Calvin’s desire to
mediate in the sacramental dispute between Martin Luther and Ulrich
Zwingli by turning attention from the “curiosity” of how Christ’s body
and blood were present in the supper to the central meaning of the sac-
rament—the Lord feeding His faithful: “... Christ the food of the soul,
protects us, invigorates us, and grants whatever is necessary to live the
Christian life” (29). Tylenda shows the importance of Calvin’s use of
the Latin verb exhibere (to show forth) rather than adesse (to be
present): “Exhibere does not bring about a presence but presupposes a
presence and manifests it” (31). Calvin appears to have influenced
Melanchthon to change Article 10 of the Augsburg Confession in 1540
to a more Calvinist definition of Christ’s presence in the sacrament.
Later, however, the Lutherans changed Article 10 back to a more
explicitly bodily presence definition.
Calvin’s desire to unite Luther and Zwingli failed after Joachim West-
phal launched an aggressive pamphlet war against Calvin insisting on
Luther’s definition of Christ’s bodily presence in the Lord’s Supper as
opposed to Calvin’s view of Christ’s presence as spiritual.
John Leith gives a clear examination of the doctrine of the will in
Calvin’s Institutes, drawing the important distinction of Calvin between
the voluntary character of the will and compulsion of the will. He

shows that owing to the Fall, man is not compelled to sin by an outside
force, but rather due to internal corruption voluntarily chooses to sin.
“The will is free in the sense that the origin of its actions is in itself.
There is no other necessity for sin than that which exists in the corrup-
tion of the will. Hence, necessity and free assent exist together” (54).
Further, “The necessity of the will means that the will must be itself,
that the will cannot escape itself, and that in some deeply personal
areas of life such as the self ’s relation to God, the will through its own
power cannot change its direction or commitments.... What man can-
not do in changing his evil will into a good will, God does for him by
his Word and Spirit” (55–56). Finally, Leith compares Calvin’s doctrine
of the will with that of William Temple, showing both similarities and
great differences.
B. A. Gerrish compares and contrasts a rather unlikely couple:
Calvin and Schleiermacher. In particular he is interested in the way
they both felt true piety keeps the theologian from a speculative doc-
trine of God. Gerrish, quoting B. B. Warfield, holds that Calvin’s doc-
trine of God gives “the {168} commanding place...to the Divine
Fatherhood” (76). Schleiermacher is said to have given preeminence to
“God’s disposition of love” (77). Gerrish then raises the question
whether restricting one’s doctrine of God to pious nonspeculation
would not rule out asserting the (apparently speculative) Trinity. For
Calvin “pious experience itself shows us in the divine unity God the
Father, his Son, and the Spirit”; to state this is “not speculating further
than Scripture raises us but only giving its simple and genuine mean-
ing” (79). Schleiermacher, on the other hand, thought it was “a defect ...
of the Reformers that they made no attempt to revise the trinitarian
and christological dogmas ...” (80).
In “A Way to Win Them,” Robert Paul deals with the limitations
(briefly) and major contribution (at length) of the English Reforma-
tion. He shows that the Church of England was only partially
reformed, and was not rich in original theological treatises. Its major
contribution to modern church history was an altogether unintended
one: owing to political realities, it debated more thoroughly than any-
where else the doctrine of ecclesiology, and unwittingly led the way to
the rise of the modern denominations.

Book Reviews 219
James Cameron deals with “Scottish Calvinism and the Principle of

Intolerance.” There is much good sense in this article as he places six-
teenth and seventeenth-century intolerance in its intellectual and cul-
tural context. He shows the perhaps surprising extent to which John
Knox desired to see the Old Testament Law enacted into the civil legis-
lation of Scotland. “To live according to the Word of God entailed both
the upholding of the validity for Christians of the Old Testament law
and the responsibility of seeking from those who exercised the civil
sword their full cooperation and compliance” (117). Cameron shows
that although the Book of Discipline (1560) called for capital punish-
ment on blasphemers, it was not until 1661, a century later, that this
was enacted into civil legislation. No one actually received the supreme
penalty of this law until 1697, well on into the age of toleration and
“moderatism.”
George Hunston Williams gives a detailed account of Calvin’s
relationship to the Reformed Church in Poland during the “Superin-
tendency” of John Laski (1556–60). Unfortunately for the Reformed
Church there, Laski was (according to Williams) a better administrator
than theologian, whereas what the Reformed Poles most needed was
expert theological guidance through several (mostly inter-Protestant)
lacerating controversies, such as the mediatorial work of Christ in His
two natures, which involved other Christological and Trinitarian ques-
tions. Williams plausibly suggests that if Calvin had spent more time
and effort addressing the Polish situation, devastating schism might
have been averted.
From the standpoint of the growing struggle for Christian and civil
liberties that is now spreading throughout all of the so-called “three
worlds,” Robert Kingdon’s discussion of the political ideas of Peter
Martyr Vermigli on the Christian right of revolt is certainly the most
important part of the book. Vermigli (1500–62), one of the Italian
Reformers, who at one time taught at Oxford, seems to have said more
on the Christian’s relation to the secular state than any of the Reform-
ers of his generation. In addition to the Bible and the Aristotelian phi-
losophy, Vermigli was well acquainted with Roman civil law and with
the history of the Holy Roman Empire (especially in its late medieval
phase). Well before George Buchanan and Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos,
Peter Martyr sets forth a contractual theory of resistance to tyrants “if

led by duly created inferior magistrates” (164). He does not base this
right to revolt upon Scripture {169} (which he assumes requires obedi-
ence to an evil government—164), but rather upon historical covenan-
tal arrangements in some of the major governments of his day (which
he was undoubtedly aware were inspired by the covenantalism of
Scripture): “... if the prince perform not his covenants and promises, it
is lawful to constrain and bring him into order ... and that by war when
it cannot otherwise be done” (165). According to Kingdon, Vermigli
“concedes, like Luther, that the New Testament does not allow any sort
of armed resistance to a legitimate government. But he argues that this
prohibition does not apply in states whose laws, like those of the Holy
Roman Empire, permit resistance if led by duly constituted inferior
magistrates” (169). These arguments would be taken up by later theo-
logians and statesman, and would transform much of Europe and pre-
pare the way for the United States of America.
The final article by Markus Barth also deals with the question of the
Christian in the state. Barth endeavors to understand Romans 13:1–7
(which has been traditionally interpreted as requiring utter submission
even to an evil state) in light of Paul’s wider theological framework,
which stresses the liberty we have in Christ over defeated “principali-
ties and powers.” Barth very properly wishes to show that Romans 13 is
not actually inimical to the contemporary Christian struggle for free-
dom from evil powers in the state and elsewhere. One cannot fail to
appreciate his valiant efforts to interpret Romans 13 in this light. His
goal is a good one, but this reviewer has some problems with the way
he reaches this goal.
He questions whether Romans 13 should be erected into a “timeless
Pauline ‘philosophy of the state’ ” since it was “a pastoral letter with a
very particular Sitz im Leben” (176). That is, the Christians were not
under persecution by the Roman Empire at the time Romans was writ-
ten, and Barth speculates that Paul might have written differently had it
been otherwise. He may of course be right, but the point surely is that
in the providence of God Romans 13 was written just as it was. Fur-
thermore, if we fail to accept the teachings of passages of Scripture that
are addressed to particular historical situations as abiding principles,
then what will we have left?

Book Reviews 221
His study of the term “authority” is very useful, and his explanation
of “principalities and powers” contains much clear insight that should
be of help to preachers. What he says about Christianity humanizing
personal relationships within human government (and in every area) is
excellent. And his point that “submission” to proper authority has a
voluntary dignity at its basis, rather than “the attitude of a beaten dog”
(182), is well stated.
Again, however, the way he reaches the goal of the Christian’s volun-
tary dignity under authority rather than a beaten dog attitude is some-
what tenuous. The means by which the Christian becomes a man of
dignified submission, or, if necessary, of proper resistance, is, accord-
ing to Barth, the conscience. Much of what he says about the con-
science, indeed most, is right: one still wonders if conscience is a bridge
that will bear all the weight he puts on it.
He asserts (I think wrongly) that according to the New Testament,
conscience “... signifies a gift of God found only in elect people” (190).
Then he says that “conscience rejoices in knowing” that all human
beings are to be saved (191). He seems to give back with one hand what
he takes away with the other. Moreover, he admits that Paul in Romans
13:4, “presupposes capital punishment and war” (191). But then in a
totally gratuitous fashion, he adds: “But one of the consequences of his
appeal to conscience is in {170} escapable: in our time Christians can-
not stand up for the execution of criminals nor for a general theory of
“just wars” (192). Many of us would draw precisely the opposite con-
clusion: Christian conscience shows us that the only way out of the
disintegration of modern society is by returning to a definite applica-
tion of the principles of Scripture (which include capital punishment).
Barth’s remarks under point 5 (192–93) concerning the unques-
tionable propriety of the civil resistance of Zwingli, Calvin, John Knox,
Oliver Cromwell, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are excellent.

The Bible For Every Day: Abraham, Genesis 12–23,

by Ronald S. Wallace
(London: Triangle SPCK, 1981), xii + 145 pp.; £1.85.

For many years this reviewer has longed to see some evangelical
Bible commentator appear, who would have a good measure of the
remarkable communicative ability of the late William Barclay—his
clarity, simplicity, geniality, and interest, but who at the same time
would hold to a high view of Scripture. Professor Ronald S. Wallace
(whose credentials are mentioned in another review in this Journal—
on The Atoning Death of Christ) comes as close as anyone on the cur-
rent scene to meeting this need. He is presently preparing a series of
commentaries on Genesis (presumably to be followed by other books
of the Old Testament) which, “... instead of taking the form of textual
sermons or a series of lectures, have been arranged to take the reader
continuously through the printed biblical text, sometimes from chapter
to chapter, sometimes from oracle to oracle, sometimes from incident
and sometimes from verse to verse, following the order of the text, and
trying not to leave out what is important or what might be difficult.
They are arranged in easily readable units divided by carefully chosen
headings. This arrangement will enable those who customarily have a
daily Bible reading to use the book for such a purpose” (xi–xii).
Dr. Wallace brings to this series years of theological scholarship, pas-
toral and professorial experience, and a rich devotional life. In the line
of John Calvin he deals with the text in a sober, historical way, yet
always seeing its final focus in God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. Unlike
some devotional writings, he seriously wrestles with the historical, lit-
erary context, and deals honestly with varying interpretations, but
always comes out honoring the truth of the written Word. On the other
hand, unlike some academic antiquarians, he constantly and straight-
forwardly applies the truths of the text to the dealings of God with His
people today:
This story of the God-Abram relationship is told with such signifi-
cance and emphasis that we can never regard it as merely the example

Book Reviews 223
of a unique achievement in the history of God and man, a starting-

point to be cancelled out once the glorious world-embracing fellow-
ship is consummated. What God’s love expresses and achieves
between himself and Abram is meant to be taken as typical of what he
wants to achieve with each of his people. It is the real and joyful begin-
ning of the final harvest of the blessing—a firstfruit complete and glo-
rious in itself and the promise of a crop that will be universally the
same. (5) {171}
His interpretation of the relationship of Abraham and Lot, and of
Abraham’s descent into Egypt (when he lied about his relationship to
Sarah) contains helpful psychological insights of wide applicability in
the contemporary church. His explanations of Melchizedek and of the
sacrifice of Isaac are models of wisdom and devotion. His remarks on
sodomy and on the judgment of God are sober and faithful. He makes
frequent and compelling reference to parents’ need to pray for their
children (e.g., 91, 104, 121). A depth of spiritual experience is revealed
in Wallace’s discussion of the deepening stages of sacrifice in the Chris-
tian life (117–18). The believer’s connection to and influence over the
world is not neglected (as in his comments on Abraham’s relationship
to the Hittites). His reminder that individual believers are meant to be,
and can become, a delight to God (129) is an encouragement to closer
obedience to God.
This book will be very beneficial to laymen and students, and is par-
ticularly recommended to pastors as an excellent help in the prepara-
tion of sermons on Genesis 12–23.
Medicine Out of Control:

The Anatomy of a Malignant Technology, by Richard Taylor
(Melbourne: Sun Books Pty. Ltd., 1979), 278 pp.; $7.95.
Reviewed by Ian Hodge

In an age when man’s faith is in himself and his own ability to
improve the world, a book such as Richard Taylor’s Medicine Out of
Control is an important reminder that man is prone to self-deception
and will not realize the limits of his own endeavors. The author is a
qualified doctor who worked in England and the United States before

returning to Australia. Taylor’s subject is modern medical science, not

the medicine of the past, but the relatively new application of scientific
technology to the field of medicine.
We have seen, he says, the development of “science-fiction medi-
cine” because “industrialized society has been characterized by a pre-
occupation with tracing the progress and achievement of its
institutions, rather than their adequacy, their adverse effects, or their
social and economic cost” (1). In other words, there is so much preoc-
cupation with the fact that something has been done that the worth of
that something is never evaluated, hence the continued use of things
thatoften have little value.
The preoccupation of medicine with its newly acquired gadgetry and
flashy technology in the face of the meagre evidence as to the useful-
ness of many of these new methods in diagnosis and treatment, leads
to the conclusion that contemporary “medical science” would be bet-
ter labeled “science-fiction medicine.” (3)
Thus, “a technology is out of control when it is still used despite the
fact that it is counter-productive, ineffective in achieving desired goals,
wasteful of resources, inhumane, or socially destructive” (105). And
the problem is caused by the fact that new inventions in equipment and
medicine are not being adequately tested either before or after their
introduction. Theoretical grounds, rather than the results of painstak-
ing research, are quite often the only reasons for the introduction of a
new drug (57).
The “malignant technology” is {172} having its effect. No one is con-
sidered healthy unless they attend regular medical check-ups and pro-
duce “continued negative reports for hidden disease.... Health is thus
portrayed as a state of successive negative tests for hidden disease” (3,
196). Yet there is no evidence that regular check-ups do any more than
increase the size of the doctor’s bank account! “Screening has been
born in an era in which the medical establishment is engaged in a vast
overselling campaign of its importance in the ‘War against disease’ in
order to justify the ever increasing money that it plunders from the
national coffers” (189). According to Taylor the mortality rate is not
affected by periodic check-ups (186).
The over-selling of modern medicine has “resulted in a generation of
hypochondriacs, the undermining of the confidence of us all to be able

Book Reviews 225
to distinguish if we are healthy or not, and seem[s] to be part of a deter-

mined plot by the medical establishment to turn us all into nervous
wrecks” (197). “Instead of encouraging self-sufficiency, independence
and self-reliance in health and illness, doctors have persistently con-
trived to produce dependent hypochondriacs” (196). Little wonder,
considering that “one of the most fundamentally normal functions of
the human species: pregnancy and childbirth” (133) is now classed as a
disease. We are experiencing the “patientization of the population”
(173).
More importantly, from the continued use of medical science has
come an “epidemic” of iatrogenic diseases. Iatrogenic diseases are those
which originate from the doctor; they are the result of “medical inter-
vention” (42). These can be caused by adverse reactions to drugs, by
complications in surgery or diagnostic tests, or be a product of the
imagination. Says Taylor, “there is more than a little irony in the use of
screenings as treatment for a state of mind which is in fact iatrogenic”
(192). And the treatment of iatrogenic illness by further drugs thus
exposes “the patient to the possibility of yet another iatrogenic disease.”
This is called “Second Level Iatrogenesis.” In a hospital setting these sit-
uations are not uncommon. It is even possible for third and fourth level
iatrogenesis to occur (47). Specialization has contributed to this, as
each doctor prescribing medicines may not be aware that a colleague
had previously prescribed something which will adversely react to his
prescription.
Iatrogenic diseases may occur inside and outside hospitals. Taylor
lists suicide as one, with its relationship to barbiturate sedatives.
Another example occurred in Tasmania (Australia) when, during the
1960s, “the bread supply was supplemented by iodine in an effort to
prevent goitre.” The result was “an epidemic of thyroid overactivity”
which “started within four months of the iodine supplementation and
lasted for five years” (61).
Not only are there medicinal, but also surgical causes of iatrogenic
diseases, and these are particularly tragic when the surgery was unnec-
essary in the first place. “Unfortunately, there is much evidence to sug-
gest that a considerable amount of unnecessary surgery is performed
specially in fee-for-service medical systems” (63). An example of diag-
nostic iatrogenesis cited is mammography, which is advocated for the

detection of breast cancer even though it is known that this will even-
tually lead to some cases of iatrogenic radiation-induced cancer (64).
The problems of life, and the cures for them, are essentially religious,
as Taylor is aware. “The current excessive, and often capricious, medi-
cal intervention is a reflection of the inflated expectations that an
evolving technological society has in its ethos and its high priests” (64).
Thus, {173} rather than lining up at the local church (not just for “heal-
ing” but for total salvation!) people prefer to queue in the local casualty
ward to await “free” treatment, or join the procession on its way to the
newest diagnostic center in town.
Because science and technology have given us so much, there is a ten-
dency to assume that any human activity that involves these machines
is superior to those which do not. Thus there is a general feeling by the
public and doctors alike that diagnosis involving technological meth-
ods must be more accurate, and reveal conditions which are somehow
more relevant than diagnoses using simpler techniques—if for no
other reason than “science” itself is involved. (74)
But according to Taylor there is too much faith in “high technology
methods of diagnosis.... Anyone who has ever taken a medical history
will realize that a computer cannot yet detect the nuances in a patient’s
description of his or her symptoms which are often of such crucial
importance in diagnosis” (70). Diagnostic testing is becoming routine
rather than the specialized case it ought to be where it may successfully
“clarify the situation and lead to the institution of effective treatment”
(70).
In other words, the personalized service of the local G. P. is likely to
be far superior to that offered by the specialist with his technological
gadgets. Even admitting the “great problem” that exists for a doctor to
keep up with the growth of medical knowledge, Taylor says the “super-
specialists have solved this problem by placing limits on what they are
expected to know.”
This is a form of intellectual laziness. The superspecialists are thus
able to pose as extremely knowledgeable, because of their intimate
knowledge of their field, while remaining ignorant of the vast amount
of medical knowledge outside their specialty. Because of their
restricted knowledge they are apt to make the diagnosis which is the
instantly recognizable hallmark of the superspecialist—“not in my

Book Reviews 227
field.” Besides being intellectually easier, sub-specialization is also per-

sonally less demanding. (93)
The result is “a decline in the standards of medical practice and clinical
competence, escalating costs of medical care, patient mismanagement,
maldistribution of doctors within the community, and to a frightening
loss of perspective of life and death which was formerly the strong suit
of the medical profession” (95).
An important question arises, and that is whether modern medicine
has prolonged life, especially where “killer” diseases such as cancer are
involved, or is it just that there is earlier detection? In other words, the
time from diagnosis to death is not extended by medicine but by the
simple fact of earlier diagnosis. According to Taylor, the inadequate
studies conducted to date do not provide an answer. But statistics avail-
able point to the fact that modern medicine cannot support its claim.
For example, “statistics” show that there is a decline in mortality rates
from patients with coronary heart disease when admitted to Coronary
Care Units. However, initial studies indicate that what is actually hap-
pening is that a larger number of patients with only mild attacks are
being admitted and released and these numbers are “watering down”
the statistical findings. Conclusion: C.C.U.s are not necessarily pro-
longing life at all! In fact, “it is just conceivable the whole medical
technology of coronary care units designed to prevent deaths, may
actually cause {174} them” (115). You might well be better off to stay at
home where the peace and quiet needed is available, rather than risk
hospital and the anxiety that goes with separation from loved ones and
the drugs and devices used.
Taylor’s purpose is not to decry medicine altogether but to point out
that it is obviously on the wrong track.
The major part of the decline in mortality in the Western nations over
the last 150 years occurred prior to the advent of modern medicine
and in association with substantial improvements in nutrition,
hygiene, sanitation, water supply, housing, and general social condi-
tions. Unfortunately these factors have not received the attention they
deserve. Rather, medical science has been given the credit for spectac-
ular improvements in health which it could not possibly have influ-
enced. (14)
This “myth” (7) concerning the effectiveness of medical science is
having serious effects on underdeveloped countries that are blindly
buying medical technology when what is needed is basic improve-

ments in social conditions. These nations need doctors “trained in the
basic therapeutics of the common diseases which are present in their
own regions, a training best received in their own country.... The
underdeveloped countries do not need doctors trained in Western-
style technological medicine” (231). Medicine should thus be attempt-
ing to prevent diseases rather than simply finding cures. In Third
World countries this means the improvement of social factors; in
industrialized societies it may mean “the conversion of hospitals into
gymnasia” (22).
Taylor’s book is well-documented to support his thesis and is an
important study for three reasons. First, it causes each of us to carefully
evaluate our misplaced confidence in medicine and the medical profes-
sion. Secondly, it provides valuable information to assist us in answer-
ing a growing dilemma in our society: who is to have final say in
medical matters, the patient or his legal guardian, relatives, the medical
profession, or the state?
Thirdly, and most importantly, this book is a valuable tool in the
hands of the Christian Reconstructionist who is endeavoring to over-
come “philosophy and vain deceit” which is “after the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8).
“Reaganomics”: $upply $ide Economics in Action,

by Bruce Bartlett
(Westport, CT: Arlington House Publishers, 1981), 229 pp.;
$14.95 cloth
Reviewed by Tommy W. Rogers

Bruce Bartlett, the author, is a staff member of the Joint Economic
Committee of the U.S. Congress. He is a knowledgeable and able econ-
omist. His “Reaganomics” is a technical and practical exposition of sup-
ply-side economics. Supply-side economics is said to be classical
economics rediscovered in the recognition that it is productivity rather
than ability to consume which sets limits to the satisfaction of human
wants.

Book Reviews 229
By the end of World War II Keynesian economics had virtual total

allegiance of younger members of the economics profession. The inef-
ficacy of Keynesian economics was heuristically demonstrated during
the recession of 1974–75 when the unemployment rate hit its highest
mark since the depression {175} notwithstanding a $45 billion federal
budget deficit which, at that time, was the largest since World War II,
together with a soaring inflation rate. With the largest peacetime deficit
in history, Keynesians could hardly call for more deficit spending and,
according to Keynesian doctrine, reduction of the deficit to dampen
inflation would exacerbate the already critical unemployment problem.
Keynesian economics had demonstrated its effect in the long run.
Irving Kristol was one of the earlier observers to point to supply-side
economics as replacement for the demonstrated inadequacy of Keyne-
sianism. Increasingly, others have recognized the viability and promise
of supply-side economics.
Bartlett’s work is an explanation of the theory and impact of supply-
side economics, including discussion of such questions and relation-
ships as taxes and revenues, the cost of progressive tax rates, the
income-transfer wedge, taxation and regional growth and decline,
inflation and taxation, econometrics and politics, the Mellon tax cuts,
rediscovery of incentive, the Kemp-Roth revolution, the Kennedy tax
cuts, Proposition 13 and its aftermath, the balanced-budget question,
the high cost of Jimmy Carter, taxes in Great Britain, supply-side eco-
nomics abroad, and economic policies for the eighties and beyond.
Bartlett recognizes that although we cannot turn back the clock, it is
never too late to stop making mistakes and begin practicing sound eco-
nomic principles, the first step of which might usefully be an across-
the-board reduction in tax rates. Not only is there ample demonstra-
tion that high tax rates can be counterproductive in terms of raising
revenue, an even greater problem is that the nation loses far more than
mere tax revenue when so much of the time, effort, creativity, and inge-
nuity of the citizenry is occupied by efforts to shelter taxes. Further-
more, Bartlett writes, society unfortunately loses a great deal more than
revenue when high marginal tax rates prevent entrepreneurs from
accumulating wealth. He feels that the present tax climate severely
retards competition and creates monopolies and quasi monopolies by
making it so difficult for new enterprises to challenge the established

order. Suppression of competition and stifling of innovation caused by

the punitive tax system is, perhaps, the most detrimental effect on the
economy in the long run.
With respect to why people continually press for planning despite its
demonstrated inability to improve on the performance of a free econ-
omy, Bartlett suggests that a primary reason is that businessmen, par-
ticularly big businessmen, desire regulation in order to prevent
competition. Although most businessmen are said publicly to proclaim
their devotion to the free market (at least in the abstract), they do so
with a “but” usually followed by explanation about how their situation
is different and how the “national interest” or the specter of “unfair
competition” requires government intervention.
The author is convinced and makes persuasive argument for the
view that what American business desperately needs is not more gov-
ernment intervention in the economy to compensate for prior inter-
vention, but a radical reduction in the overall burden of government. He
proposes across-the-board tax-rate reductions instead of subsidies;
regulatory reform instead of tariffs; a cut in government’s share of the
GNP rather than loan guarantees. Bartlett further suggests that the tax
code needs to be adjusted to inflation since it is extraordinarily harm-
ful to the economy to have individuals pushed into higher and higher
tax brackets and corporations forced to pay taxes on nonexistent capi-
tal gains. Since the total burden of government must be reduced, cut-
ting {176} taxes is not enough; spending must be cut, too. Regulations,
government loan guarantees, veteran’s welfare emoluments unrelated
to any actual service deprivation and compensation, and government
loan programs must be cut back as well.
This is a tremendous explanation of the theory and promise of sup-
ply-side optimism, and persuasive credible argument for developments
which, if accomplished, would enable our economy to “take off on its
own. This is the essence of supply-side economics.”
This is a meritorious work and deserves careful evaluation by per-
sons interested in restoring economic health in the nation. The title
“Reaganomics” is an admitted afterthought (after the work was com-
pleted) and does not reflect the content except to the extent that the
President’s economic program focuses on economic restoration
through policies which are aligned with the reasoning expounded in

Book Reviews 231
this book, which is not a political treatise or exposition of the presi-

dent’s economic policies.
Social Security: The Inherent Contradiction,

by Peter J. Ferrara
(San Francisco: CATO Institute, 1980), 484 pp.; $20.00

Sophisticated econometric studies show that social security is cost-
ing Americans hundreds of billions of dollars annually because of its
negative impacts on the economy. Persons entering the labor force in
recent years, on the average, will not receive a reasonable return on the
taxes they pay into the system. The program is fundamentally coercive.
System inequities fall most heavily on some of the most vulnerable
groups—blacks, the aged, and women. The program is financed by a
regressive payroll tax that causes economic inefficiency and imposes a
hardship on the poor. It has been chicanerously marketed and pro-
moted.
The reason we have the program “even though there is no rational
justification for it, and all generations are made worse off by it” is
described as “social security’s dirty little secret.” “[I]t allows the initial
generation that adopts it to tax future generations to pay free benefits
to itself. These free benefits are simply a function of the pay-as-you-go
system. When such a system is begun, huge tax increases are generated
with nowhere to go because there are no accrued benefit obligations....
These tax payments, however, are not saved and invested to pay future
benefits to current taxpayers.... They are therefore paid out to the first
generation of retirees as free benefits. The fatal flaw of social security,
its operation on a pay-as-you-go basis, is the real reason for its creation
in the first place, as well as the reason why it must ultimately meet its
downfall” (305).
The individual taxpayer coercively caught in social security’s
increasingly burdensome tax extraction loses in contrast to what he
could obtain by investing a similar amount privately. Social security is
the world’s biggest welfare program. It is one of the federal govern-

ment’s largest sources of income. Total social security taxes, which

reached $8.9 billion in 1959, doubled by 1965 to $17.2 billion and dou-
bled again by 1970 to $39.7 billion. They reached $106.2 billion in
1978. Total social security taxes in 1979 were $124.6 billion, equal to all
federal taxes extracted in 1965. The tremendous explosion in taxes and
benefits in recent years has made the program so large that its impacts
on the economy and social life {177} are enormous.
The idea that social security has a “trust fund” exemplifies what Fer-
rara appropriately describes as “politics and the art of lying” (66–74).
Among the negative economic impacts are severe losses in savings and
capital investment, a reduction of national income and economic
growth, and decreased employment. Its coercive nature makes it mor-
ally questionable. As the program is shifting from its relatively worry
free start-up phase of about forty years to its mature stage, the focus
has shifted from passing out free benefits to the raising of taxes to meet
escalating obligations. Likely substantial recession in the early 1980s
along with continued inflation “will almost certainly throw the whole
system into bankruptcy in the mid–1980s unless there are additional
tax increases” which will take 25 to 33 percent of the taxable payroll.
... Paternalists contend that individuals are too stupid to take care of
themselves, and therefore the government must take care of them. But
none suggest that the government should not be run on a democratic
basis.... The paternalist position, therefore, is simply that individuals
are too stupid to run their own lives but not too stupid to run every-
one else’s. The very same people who are supposed to be incapable of
making intelligent choices on relatively simple issues in their own per-
sonal lives are supposed to be perfectly capable of making complex
public policy choices on how to resolve issues in the personal lives of
everyone in the entire society.... Somehow it seems hard to accept the
proposition that the very same people who are expected to make intel-
ligent choices on these issues are incapable of making a simple choice
concerning how much of their current income they want to save....
(281–82)
Buying an insurance policy (which may very well be fraudulently
marketed itself) is not a total answer. But, neither is government social
security. Ferrara has provided a comprehensive discussion of the pro-
gram and major reform proposals. Rationales for the current system
are analyzed and found wanting. The author also discusses important

Book Reviews 233
philosophical questions which the social security apparatus raises for a

free society.
The Future Under President Reagan,

Edited by Wayne Valis
(Westport, CT: Arlington House Publishers, 1981), 194 pp.;
$12.95 cloth

The election of President Reagan, and the accompanying Congress,
particularly the Senate, was a refreshing, resuscitating, uplifting breath
of hope, renewal, and optimism for the American Republic. This book,
written by persons who played key roles in Reagan’s California gover-
norship and/or in his presidential campaign, is not an official state-
ment of the new administration. It is an expression of views and
assessments from persons who have been in position to observe and
evaluate the new president’s style and philosophy of government. It
addresses issues which were central to the campaign and which will be
instrumental in gauging the success or failure of the new administra-
tion.
The first essay, by Aram Bakshian {178} Jr., “Introduction: The Once
and Future Reagan,” outlines the president’s “truly remarkable career,
one that has either defied the smart money or proved that it wasn’t all
that bright to begin with.” Truly, if Bakshian is right in only a fraction
of his predictions, “Americans and our friends abroad will have a lot
less to be embarrassed about and a lot more to feel good about when
they look at Washington....” John Lenczowski, “Moral Leadership: The
Foundation of Policy,” feels that Ronald Reagan “is a moral leader with
a philosophy marked by both intellectual and logical consistency”
wherein in each of the three realms of political economy, foreign pol-
icy, and the sociocultural realm, we may expect a reaffirmation of the
goodness of traditional American values and institutions and a defense
against those ideas and policies that threaten them. This moral defense
is said to signify above all a pride in these institutions that contrasts

with the guilt that has too often characterized a generation of liberal
leadership.
Wayne Valis, “Ronald Reagan: The Man, The President,” focuses on
the formidable task which faces the president following decades of lib-
eral steering of the ship of state. His task of untangling the web of
dilemmas is Herculean, perhaps insurmountable, and he will be given
precious little time. Valis feels that if the president is successful in con-
verting his voting coalition in the Congress into a governing one by
cementing his new coalition around a core of basic policy issues, he can
have profound effects on government and the political structure and
usher in the beginnings of a new American renaissance. Essay 4, also
by Valis, “A Reagan Presidency: The Congress and the Courts,” looks at
the significance of “style” and its importance in getting things done in
the nation’s capital.
Essay 5, “Economics, Inflation, Productivity—and Politics,” authored
by Rep. Jack Kemp, calls attention to the necessity to restore incentives
for productivity and jobs, to restrain the growth of federal spending,
and to reform monetary policy as necessary ingredients to setting the
country back on a course of full employment without inflation. David
Wheat Jr., author of the chapter “Energy: Security With Confidence,”
provides suggestions on avoiding and overcoming the previous policy
of surrender to bureaucracy. James C. Miller III and Jeffrey A. Eisen-
ach, “Regulatory Reform Under Ronald Reagan,” explore the nature of
the regulatory problem, previous attempts at reform, and clues to Mr.
Reagan’s views. They feel that Americans have every right for con-
fidence that the president will move for a decreased omnipotence of
the major social regulatory agencies.
Robert B. Carleson, “Taming the Welfare Monster,” sets forth some
desirable principles for welfare reform. These are: those who are not
physically able to support themselves should receive adequate benefits;
those who are not physically able should be assisted to receive treat-
ment and/or training leading to complete or partial self-sufficiency;
those who have children should support them, married or not; no hon-
est work is demeaning; for an able-bodied person to take something for
nothing is demeaning; the economy, and therefore the poor, cannot
survive in a system that pays able-bodied people for doing nothing;

Book Reviews 235
those who are able-bodied should work for their benefits; local and
state governments bear the brunt of welfare responsibility.
Chapter 9, “The Reagan Foreign Policy: An Overview,” by Gerald
Hyman and Wayne Valis, analyzes the task of reconstructing a more
realistic, consistent, and convincing foreign policy and restoring the
military and economic strength necessary to execute it. Lawrence J.
Kolb, “The Foreign and {179} Defense Policies of A Reagan Admin-
istration,” enumerates the obstacles and hurdles faced in achieving a
new course in national defense strategy and supportive programs.
“Middle East Changes,” written by Dale R. Tahtinen, sets forth the need
to regain respect for this country so that friends will be reassured in
their trust and potential friends need not fear the consequences of sup-
porting the United States.
Pedro A. Sanjaun, “Opportunities in the Western Hemisphere,” looks
at common economic problems shared with other nations of the hemi-
sphere, the issue of hemisphere defense, and the need for sending
appropriate and consistent signals to neighbors within the hemisphere.
The author sets forth some of the less publicized opportunities that he
feels are readily available for improvement of relations between the U.S.
and other nations of this hemisphere, including Cuba, if we recognize
that “Cuba” as a concept embodies the ultimate fulfillment of the will
of a people and not the continued imposition of the will of a totalitar-
ian government.
Cuba is an unfortunate reality of today, and represents a harrowing
possibility of which the United States must be aware. However, Castro,
rather than ten feet tall, is a dismal failure. Castro is described by the
author as not only a socialist, but as “an incompetent socialist even
when measured against socialism’s usual failures.” Castro, states the
author, “is neither a world leader nor a worthy antagonist of the United
States,” although U.S. actions have been so confused and easily
manipulated by the theatrical Cuban dictator that Castro’s miserable
failures inside Cuba in social, political, and economic terms have actu-
ally contributed to an increase in Castro’s international stature. Castro
is said to be
... capable only in the art of maintaining personal power in a country
he oppresses, in an economy he has caused to deteriorate rather than
improve, in a once-proud nation he has reduced to the status of a ser-

vile puppet of the Soviet Union.... A burdensome Soviet subsidy barely

bails out Fidel’s bankrupt economy.... In 1959 Cuba had the third larg-
est per capita income in the Hemisphere. Today it ranks eleventh, hav-
ing been surpassed by many countries that have not seen the need to
enslave their people in order to promote a program of development.
Twentieth-century socialism has proved to be an economic system
subordinated to a series of political objectives that guarantee the con-
tinued distribution of scarcity....
Cuban socialism provides no model for the other nations of the Car-
ibbean. The Cuban farmer still lives in squalor. Havana, once one of the
most beautiful and vibrant urban areas of the hemisphere, is said to
resemble an enormous urban slum. Cuba is said to have enormous
unemployment problems “principally evident in Castro’s ability and
willingness to export Cuban cannon fodder to Africa and other parts of
the world. In a country where the economy is underproductive, excess
labor, particularly from among youth, is conscripted and sent to fight
in foreign lands.... Another Cuban way of solving the embarrassing evi-
dence of unemployment is to assign the same task to several people so
that everyone ‘looks’ employed.”
In the new socialist order, countries with a history of sectoral pov-
erty will become economies of general disaster. Political liberty is abol-
ished; food rationing is instituted and institutionalized; and opposition
is eliminated by the use of summary justice and the expansion of the
criminal code to encompass broad new categories of political {180}
crimes. Signs derisively critical of Castro are said to have begun
appearing throughout Havana, and robberies and other forms of law-
lessness are said to have increased dramatically.
Unfortunately, for over two decades the U.S. has dealt with Castro
through a form of “respectful” antagonism which has “unwittingly pro-
vided him with stature in the third world. We have created a myth
about his ability to withstand the wrath of the U.S. colossus. The image
of Castro, which we are doing little or nothing to puncture, is that in
spite of the U.S. embargo, he has been capable of thriving economi-
cally.”
H. Joachim Maitre, in “Of Mice and Paper Tigers: Europe in Disar-
ray,” observes that “Europe in general believes that America needs to
restore a sound monetary policy, to balance the budget, and to bring
inflation under control.”
Book Reviews 237
The Future Under President Reagan is not an official statement of

promise or policy, but is an assessment of what persons who are posi-
tioned to know speculate we might expect from his presidency. At the
same time, it lifts out some of the more important policy questions
with which the new administration is dealing and will continue to face
through the rest of its tenure, and sheds valuable insights into some of
the directions toward which the country may greatly benefit from
appropriate and effective leadership.
The Government Against the Economy, by George Reisman,

Introduction by William E. Simon
(Ottawa, IL: Caroline House Publishers Inc., n.d.), 217 pp.;
$12.95 cloth.

The imposition of price controls to deal with inflation is as illogical
as would be an attempt to deal with expanding pressure in a boiler by
manipulating the needle in the boiler’s pressure gauge. Or so argues Dr.
George Reisman, professor of economics at St. John’s University, in his
book on the destructive effects of price controls. A government which
imposes price controls is in process of destroying the economic system
of its own country.
The author explains how the existence of a free market would have
enabled the United States to mitigate the hardships we have experi-
enced with price controls, including those associated with the Arab-led
oil cartel. Rising prices in the United States are said to be the result of
an increase of money in the economic system rather than the result of
falling supply. In the absence of rise in aggregate demand, price
increases would result in a reallocation that would put an end to such
increases. When new money enters the system, the rise in aggregate
demand enables price increases, whether initiated by labor unions,
wholesalers, or retailers, to take place as a generalized phenomenon.
The generalized rise in prices is the resulting symtomotology.
The Government Against the Economy is a positive exposition of the
free market as well as a devastating critique of price controls. After dis-

cussion of the free-market principles and applications, which occupy

the first two chapters, the author turns attention to the relationship
between price controls and shortages. He also proffers a rebuttal of the
conspiracy theory of shortages and of the charge that a free economy
lacks freedom of competition. The fourth chapter, which continues the
examination of the effects of price {181} controls and shortages, exam-
ines resulting chaos in the personal and geographic distribution of con-
sumer goods as well as the resultant administrative chaos, price
increases, and supply limitations.
Chapter 5, a discussion of universal price controls and their conse-
quences, looks at the tendency toward universal price controls, and
universal shortages, the destruction of production through shortages,
and socialism on the Nazi pattern. The following chapter further
details the consequences of socialism. Socialism brings about the same
chaotic effects as price controls for the same reason, destruction of the
one and only source of economic harmony in the world: private prop-
erty rights and the profit motive.
The essential fact to grasp about socialism ... is that it is simply an act
of destruction. Like price controls, it destroys private ownership and
the profit motive, and that is essentially all it does. It has nothing to
put in their place. Socialism ... is not actually an alternative economic
system to private ownership of the means of production. It is merely a
negation of the system based on private ownership.
In a capitalistic system, the author states, each individual engages in
economic planning through the price mechanism which coordinates
the plans of each individual with the plans of all other individuals.
Capitalism and the price system bring about a harmoniously integrated
planning of the entire economic system. Socialism, by destroying the
price system, destroys the possibility of economic calculation and the
coordination of the activities of separate, independent planners. It
therefore makes rational economic planning impossible and creates
chaos.
A fundamental feature of socialism is that government ownership of
the means of production constitutes an attempt to make intelligence
and initiative in production a monopoly of the state. Socialism prohib-
its the independent planning of millions of free, self-interested individ-
uals that is requisite to run an economic system in a rational and

Book Reviews 239
ordered way. Corollary consequences are the technological backward-

ness of socialism and the utter powerlessness of the plain citizen under
socialism. It follows from the powerlessness of the plain citizen that the
government of a socialist country is not and has no reason to be inter-
ested in anyone’s values but those of the rulers. The only kind of pro-
duction a socialist government is interested in is the production of
weapons, spectacles, and monuments which enhance the power and
prestige of the rulers, and of just enough consumer goods which would
prevent a revolt or mass starvation, either of which would weaken its
power. In the final chapter, Dr. Reisman turns attention to the tyranny
of socialism and its necessity for terror and forced labor.
Once the government assumes the power to determine the
individual’s job, it obtains the power to decide whether he must spend
his life working in a coal mine in a remote village somewhere, or in
the comparative comfort of one of its offices in the capital. It obtains
the power to decide whether he will pass his life as an obscure nobody
living in poverty, or enjoy a flourishing career ... living in comparative
opulence. This, of course, goes along with the government’s power
over the distribution of consumers’ goods.... In accordance with its
powers of distribution, a socialist government decides what kind of
house or apartment the individual is to occupy ... what kind of food he
is to eat, whether or not he is to own an automobile, and so on. {182}
The existence of a system of naked aristocratic privilege is said to be
the natural outgrowth rather than a contradiction of the principles of
socialism. This follows from the fundamental moral and political
premise that the individual does not exist as an end in himself, but as
means to the ends of “Society.” Since society is not an independent
entity with a will and voice of its own, the alleged ends of Society are
necessarily the ends determined by the elite of the socialist state. Under
socialism, an individual is a means to the ends of the rulers. It would be
difficult to imagine a system that is more aristocratic in nature. The
only values that actually count in a socialistic system are those of the
rulers.
The work is an excellent and impressive one of substance. As Mr.
Simon observes in the introduction, Dr. Reisman gives an excellent
explanation of what free-market prices actually accomplish, develops a
cohesive set of economic principles which explain major facets of how
the price system of the free market works and the coordination and

planning it achieves, and provides a systematic analysis of price con-

trols and the consequences to which they lead. It deserves to reach a
large audience.
Is Public Education Necessary?

by Samuel L. Blumenfeld
(Old Greenwich, CT: The Devin-Adair Company, 1981),
263 pp.; $12.95.

There is probably no more deeply ingrained religious belief in Amer-
ica than in the necessity for and ultimate desirability of public educa-
tion. Most considerations of public education are addressed to the
question of how government can do a better job in a task which is an
inherent, if not the highest, responsibility of collective enterprise. Some
voices, however, are being raised with respect to the appropriateness of
government engaging in the wholesale indoctrination process of for-
mal education. Blumenfeld is among them, and his message is worth
careful evaluation.
Is Public Education Necessary? is concerned more with eitiology than
with documentation of contemporary ills, though these results are not
ignored. Precisely, they represent the outworking of an idea which Blu-
menfeld feels was wrong in origin, and, given an understanding of the
historical roots of statist education, the long run effects were inevitable.
Blumenfeld answers the question which forms the title of his book by
examination of the historical movement for adoption of the doctrine
that government should assume the responsibility for educating the
children of the citizenry.
The framers of the Constitution made no mention of education.
Education, which was left to the parents, communities, churches,
school proprietors, and the states, was recognized to be of no rightful
concern of a central government. Apart from New England, where tax-
supported schools existed under state law, the United States, from 1789
to 1835, had a laissez-faire system of education. The public school
movement in the United States is seen as largely the accomplishment of

Book Reviews 241
a New England Unitarian elite, of which nineteenth-century Harvard

served as the fountainhead. Educational statism, modeled on the Prus-
sian design, was the method by which an intellectual and financial elite
could work out the higher purpose of promoting utopia.
Blumenfeld traces the selling of statist education with the arguments
set forth by the proponents of statist education as well as the spokes-
men of educational freedom. The Unitarians, {183} who made their
worship of God conditional on His being what they wanted Him to be,
felt that cultural uplift through education would provide salvation. The
idea of an intellectual elite formulating and promoting social policy
appealed to Unitarians because it gave a higher purpose to their lives
based on their superior or “enlightened” status. Moved by an exalted
vision of human perfectability, the Harvard-Unitarian elite gave pro-
motion of statist education top priority. Driven by the need to prove
that man was not the hopeless fallen creature portrayed by Calvin, the
Unitarians saw public education as the instrument of human redemp-
tion.
Socialists similarly recognized that the general Calvinist belief in the
innate depravity of human nature was a major obstacle to socialist uto-
pia. The competitive system, of which private education was a part, was
opposed by the Owenites in particular in their drive to do away with
the individual. Progressive statist education devoted to scientific and
technical instruction, based on observation of the material world, and
devoid of moral values or inferences, was expected to lead to the adop-
tion of a scientific, rational worldview free of religious dogma and
superstition.
Simultaneous with the socialist effort to make public education the
primary instrument of their efforts to reform the character of man pre-
liminary to their reform of society, American educators began to orga-
nize into substantial pressure groups in favor of public education. By
the early 1830s, public education was being promoted by socialists,
Unitarians, and religious conservatives—each for different reasons.
Horace Mann, rather than the father of American public education
(which existed early in the history of New England in the form of com-
mon schools), is more appropriately described as the progenitor “of
centralized, state-controlled public education, governed by a state
bureaucracy, and financed by taxes on property.” Mann’s unique contri-

bution was in changing American education from its libertarian, free-

market course to a statist one. Mann believed public education and the
creation of normal schools to be “a new instrumentality in the
advancement of the race.” And, writes Blumenfeld, “Once a nation’s
teachers’ colleges become the primary vehicle through which the phi-
losophy of statism is advanced, this philosophy will soon infect every
other quarter of society, for the most potent and significant expression
of statism is a state educational system. Without it, statism is impossi-
ble. With it, the state can and has become everything.”
Blumenfeld feels that the only bright spot in the whole picture is the
technological wonder that capitalism has brought to mankind through
the very individual competitive system that the socialists and New
England intellectual elite railed against. “Neither liberal altruism, nor
universal public education, nor socialism lifted the poor from their
lower depths. Capitalism did.”
Perhaps there will emerge a consciousness that educational
indoctrination is not a rightful province of government, and may, in
the long run, be incompatible with a concept of government as limited
agent rather than omnipotent and omnipresent actor. Government
education is inevitably an instrument of government policy. This does
not bode well for American freedom. But, as Blumenfeld observes, we
ought not be surprised since totalitarian governments have long con-
sidered public education as their most important tool for indoctrinat-
ing and controlling the young. Current widespread public belief to the
contrary notwithstanding, public education, the author asserts, is not
necessary. It is, in fact, misplaced.

PUBLICATION SCHEDULE
VOLUME 9
Volume 9 (1982) of the Journal of Christian Reconstruction will feature a sympo-
sium on “Immediate and Specific Christian Reconstruction.” Many highly
encouraging things are taking place in churches and other Christian institutions
across the land, where numbers of people are being won to Christ and the tide of
evil is slowly being turned in local situations. In this issue we concentrate not on
what God’s people expect to do after some hypothetical, future breakdown, or
after some major revival (which is a good subject in and of itself), but rather on
what is being done now to win victories for the Lord in this present time. Many
churches and institutions of various denominations across America and in Bri-
tain and Australia have awakened to new forms of biblical, Christ-honoring
ministries that are making a definite impact in their area. Other churches are
experiencing powerful renewal and outreach through more traditional channels
of service that have come to life in their midst.
We will feature articles on how Christians are reaching out to the poor in new
ways; on how Christian schools are changing communities; on how expository
preaching of the Word backed by intercessory prayer is both winning spiritual
victories and changing politics. There will be articles on what Christian lawyers
are doing to preserve liberty and bring reconciliation; on how blacks are being
reached; and on plans to spread the light of Christ through the media in surpris-
ing new ways.
These subjects and many more will give an overview of what the Lord is doing in
our time, and should give encouragement to Christ’s soldiers to march on in
faith, hope, and obedience.
Douglas F. Kelly, Editor
P. O. Box 1285
Murphys, CA 95247
(209) 728–2538

THE MINISTRY OF CHALCEDON
[Pr. 29:18]
Chalcedon [kalSEEdon] is a Christian educational organization devoted exclu-

sively to research, publishing, and cogent communication of a distinctly Chris-
tian scholarship to the world at large. It makes available a variety of services and
programs, all geared to the needs of interested laymen who understand the
propositions that Jesus Christ speaks to the mind as well as the heart, and that
His claims extend beyond the narrow confines of the various institutional
churches. We exist in order to support the efforts of all orthodox denominations
and churches.
Chalcedon derives its name from the great ecclesiastical Council of Chalcedon
(AD 451), which produced the crucial Christological definition: “Therefore, fol-
lowing the holy Fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one
and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and com-
plete in manhood, truly God and truly man....” This formula challenges directly
every false claim of divinity by any human institution: state, church, cult, school,
or human assembly. Christ alone is both God and man, the unique link between
heaven and earth. All human power is therefore derivative; Christ alone can
announce that “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew
28:18). Historically, the Chalcedonian creed is therefore the foundation of West-
ern liberty, for it sets limits on all authoritarian human institutions by acknowl-
edging the validity of the claims of the one who is the source of true human
freedom (Galatians 5:1).
Christians have generally given up two crucial features of theology that in the
past led to the creation of what we know as Western civilization. They no longer
have any real optimism concerning the possibility of an earthly victory of Chris-
tian principles and Christian institutions, and they have also abandoned the
means of such a victory in external human affairs: a distinctly biblical concept of
law. The testimony of the Bible and Western history should be clear: when God’s
people have been confident about the ultimate earthly success of their religion
and committed socially to God’s revealed system of external law, they have been
victorious. When either aspect of their faith has declined, they have lost ground.
Without optimism, they lose their zeal to exercise dominion over God’s creation
(Genesis 1:28); without revealed law, they are left without guidance and drift

The Ministry of Chalcedon 245
along with the standards of their day.

Once Christians invented the university; now they retreat into little Bible colleges
or sports factories. Once they built hospitals throughout Europe and America;
now the civil governments have taken them over. Once Christians were inspired
by “Onward, Christian Soldiers”; now they see themselves as “poor wayfaring
strangers” with “joy, joy, joy, joy down in their hearts” only on Sundays and per-
haps Wednesday evenings. They are, in a word, pathetic. Unquestionably, they
have become culturally impotent.
Chalcedon is committed to the idea of Christian reconstruction. It is premised
on the belief that ideas have consequences. It takes seriously the words of Profes-
sor F. A. Hayek: “It may well be true that we as scholars tend to overestimate the
influence which we can exercise on contemporary affairs. But I doubt whether it
is possible to overestimate the influence which ideas have in the long run.” If
Christians are to reconquer lost ground in preparation for ultimate victory (Isa-
iah 2, 65, 66), they must rediscover their intellectual heritage. They must come
to grips with the Bible’s warning and its promise: “Where there is no vision, the
people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he” (Proverbs 29:18). Chalce-
don’s resources are being used to remind Christians of this basic truth: what
men believe makes a difference. Therefore, men should not believe lies, for it is
the truth that sets them free (John 8:32).
Finis

JCR Vol. 08 No. 02: Symposium On The Atonement

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The Journal of Christian Reconstruction

A Chalcedon Publication [www.chalcedon.edu] 3/31/07

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4. DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH

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Isaiah 53:11 speaks prophetically of the glorious results of the finished

them back. American agriculture, which has fed a vast proportion of

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Leaving the mountain the streamlet grows,

ner in which he shows how the atonement is not to be used: to attempt

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mainstream-type Christians will soon be, unless something is done to

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Rousas John Rushdoony

1. Expiation and Atonement

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3. Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms, Translated and Explained (Grand

ments, and that which man, in spite of himself, renders as a means of

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2. Our Atonement by Jesus Christ

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3:9–20 stresses the total inability of man justify himself by self-righ-

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5. H. C. Leupold, Exposition of the Psalms (Columbus, OH: Wartburg Press, 1959),

6. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans,

8. U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, pt. 1 (Jerusalem, Israel:

It is clear thus that vicarious suffering and sacrifice is a part of the

9. See R. J. Rushdoony, Freud (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing

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Of fear. I love the Dark.

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faith and obedience. Without imputation, there is no redemption. The

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14. Alexander, The Psalms, 180.

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ents, the environment, capitalism, their teachers, or anything else.

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But the human condition outside of Christ involves total depravity,

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quence is self-righteousness and hypocrisy, and also social anarchy and

ineradicable. By denying the fixed and eternal law of God, it substitutes

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The atoned do not evaluate themselves in terms of either their pride or

24. John Calvin, Romans, 180.

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This is the logic of modern philosophy come to fruition. The

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Reading: Romans 1:18; 1 John 2:2; 4:10.

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That is why in the second portion of Romans which we read, while

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As the ark stands hidden in that unspeakably dark inner chamber

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