Christian Apologetics Past and Present by William Edgar K. Scott Oliphint

Author:William Edgar, K. Scott Oliphint [Feedbooks]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4335-3169-9
Publisher: Crossway

Appendix to Lecture I: Sketch of the Christian View

It may conduce to clearness if, having indicated the general scope and purport of these Lectures, I now give in this Appendix a brief statement, in propositional form, of what I consider the Christian view of the world to be, and sketch on the basis of this the course to be pursued in the succeeding Lectures.

I. First, then, the Christian view affirms the existence of a Personal, Ethical, Self-Revealing God. It is thus at the outset a system of Theism, and as such is opposed to all systems of Atheism, Agnosticism, Pantheism, or mere Deism.

II. The Christian view affirms the creation of the world by God, His immanent presence in it, His transcendence over it, and His holy and wise government of it for moral ends.

III. The Christian view affirms the spiritual nature and dignity of man—his creation in the Divine image, and destination to bear the likeness of God in a perfected relation of sonship.

IV. The Christian view affirms the fact of the sin and disorder of the world, not as something belonging to the Divine idea of it, and inhering in it by necessity, but as something which has entered it by the voluntary turning aside of man from his allegiance to his Creator, and from the path of his normal development. The Christian view of the world, in other words, involves a Fall as the presupposition of its doctrine of Redemption; whereas the “modern” view of the world affirms that the so-called Fall was in reality a rise, and denies by consequence the need of Redemption in the scriptural sense.

V. The Christian view affirms the historical Self-Revelation of God to the patriarchs and in the line of Israel, and, as brought to light by this, a gracious purpose of God for the salvation of the world, centring in Jesus Christ, His Son, and the new Head of humanity.

VI. The Christian view affirms that Jesus Christ was not mere man, but the eternal Son of God—a truly Divine Person—who in the fulness of time took upon Him our humanity, and who, on the ground that in Him as man there dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily, is to be honoured, worshipped, and trusted, even as God is. This is the transcendent “mystery of godliness”55—the central and amazing assertion of the Christian view—by reference to which our relation is determined to every thing else which it contains.

Pausing for a moment on this truth of the Incarnation, we have to notice its central place in the Christian system, and through its light every other doctrine is illuminated and transformed.

1. The Incarnation sheds new light on the nature of God, and, in conjunction with the work of the Spirit, reveals Him as triune—Father, Son, and Spirit—one God.

2. The Incarnation sheds new light on the doctrine of creation—all things being now seen to be created by Christ as well as for Him.

3. The Incarnation sheds new light on the nature of man, alike

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