DIVINE REVELATION

Will such a God as reason demands reveal himself in any special way to man? All who accept Theism must believe in the ( possibility of such revelation as we need to have. A God of infinite wisdom and power surely can reveal himself in some way that will be satisfactory to us.

By divine revelation we mean a supernatural communication of truth from God to man. By supernatural is meant beyond the flight of nature or reason. Men who oppose the Bible and reject Christianity, oppose the doctrine of a revelation from God as unnecessary, and improbable and impossible. All true theists to be consistent must take the other side.

I. Revelation is necessary.

Modern infidels have been loud in their assertions that the light of nature is sufficient to conduct mankind to truth and virtue and happiness. But it is infidels in Christian lands who say this,infidels who have always dwelt in the light of the Bible they reject, and in the moral environment made by the Christianity which they despise. It is easy to test this by considering what has been the life of those ages and nations where the truths of revelation had not come, and the light of the gospel did not shine.

Very fair systems of Natural Theology can be, and have been framed in Christian lands by opponents of Christianity; but some of their best views have been derived not from their own unassisted reasons, but, as Rousseau himself confesses, from those very Scriptures which they despise and revile, from their early education, and from living in a country where, in spite of themselves, everybody's thinking, their own with the rest, is leavened by the Gospel.

Let it be understood, we are not considering now what views of God seem reasonable to Christian men in a Christian land. We are considering what depraved and fallen men needed in this world before God made His revelation to it, and what is needed now where it has never come.

Bear in mind also that, though man is fallen, he still retains a nature inclined to religion, and a distinct capacity for it. "Indeed," says President Mark Hopkins, "no fact can be better established, both by philosophy and history, than that mankind are so constituted that they must have some religion. Man has a religious nature, which is a fundamental and necessary and elementary constituent of his being. This nature will manifest itself. Let the true religion be removed, and a false one will come in its place."

Now as a historical fact, this rational being, this child of God, with his capacity for religion, lost this moral image, and consequently the true knowledge of God. As "he did not like to retain the knowledge of God," under the influence of his depravity, his "foolish heart was darkened," and he went off into Pantheism and , every form of degrading idolatry. Now can such a being, lost in sin, get back to God without a direct revelation? He has never done it.

This is confirmed by an appeal to facts. "An impartial survey of the condition of those portions of the earth that have been without the light of revelation, shows conclusively that the reformation of man was hopeless without it. A full and fair experiement has been made. It has been extended through thousands of years, and ample time has been given to test every principle, to follow out every tendency to its results, to call forth every inherent energy of man. It has been made in every climate, under every form of government, in all circumstances of barbarism and refinement, by individuals who, for intellectual endowments, have been the pride of the race, and by nations who have made the greatest advancement in science, in literature, and in the arts. What unassisted man has done therefore, to disperse the religious darkness, and to remedy the moral maladies of the world, may be regarded as a fair exemplification of what he would do. After so long and fair a trial, it is extremely probable that the race would have continued to be hopelessly benighted and degraded without a direct revelation from God."1 1. Mark Hopkins, "Evidences of Christianity," p. 49

That such an authoritative revelation was necessary will appear from the following considerations.

1. Human reason was insufficient to speak with due authority to men. "Amoung those who professed to be guided by it, some worshiped the true God, some His works, some their own works, and some no God at all, though all ages had the same book of nature, and the same reason from which to derive moral rules." Reason, once fallen into sin, did not speak with authority, but only speculated.

2. Knowledge of Divine Unity was lost. The mass of men became worshipers of natural objects, or of the powers of nature personified, or of idols, or of deified men and women. If a few philosophers saw the folly of this, and really held to the Divine Unity, it was rather to ridicule and despise than to help the multitude. It does not appear, however, that they held to the doctrine, except as a matter of speculation, or that they had any habit of worshiping one infinite God, or taught that He ought to be worshiped. What must have been the practical blindness and uncertainty of the common mind, on this all-important subject, when Socrates one of the clearest minded of all the ancient philosophers, could make a dying request of a friend, that he sacrifice a cock for him to Esculapius? If that noble and immortal man had reached no firmer ground of faith in God, where must the common herd have been?

3. The heathen nations lost the knowledge of God, as a holy God. Somehow reason failed to bring them back to the simple conception of the Divine Being as a perfect moral character, exercising a righteous moral government over the entire universe, and taking notice even of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Without such a knowledge of God there can be no pure and spiritual religion.

Generally, the ancients transferred to God the moral character, the affections, the passions and even the lusts, of men.

Whether their reasons might not have attained to a better knowledge of God we will not positively affirm. We think they might, Paul seemed to think so. But the fact is, they did not; and God acted upon the fact.

4. The loss of the conception of God's holiness induced a separation of religion and morality. There was an abundance of religion in the ancient heathen world, as there is in the modern; but it did not lead to purity of life.

Paul's Epistle to the Romans bears awful testimony to the fact. "Heathen writers themselves also confirm the charge. They testify that the greatest crimes were countenanced by the arguments and examples of their moralists and philosophers. Infanticide, theft, and crimes against nature, the detail of which modesty forbids, were not only tolerated but even enjoined by their legislators and praised by their poets. This would not have been, had not public opinion consented to, and in some measure, invited them.

"Even their religions sanctioned gross vices. In Corinth was a temple of Venus with a thousand female votaries bringing to her treasury the gains of their impurity. The Babylonians had a temple to which every virgin was religiously taught to resort for unchaste purposes. Plato taught that to lie was honorable. Cicero pleads for fornication and commends, and at length practices, suicide. Cato, extolled as a model of virtue, was guilty of prostitution and drunkenness, and advocated and finally practiced, self murder."1 1. Binney and Steele's Theological Compend., pp. IS, 16.

Is the modern heathen world any better? Bishop Heber said of the Modern Hindus, "I have never met with a race of men whose standard of morality is so low,-who feel so little apparent shame in being detected in a falsehood, or so little interest in the sufferings of a neighbor not being of their own caste or family,-whose ordinary and familiar conversation is so licentious, or in the wilder and more lawless districts, who shed blood with so little repugnance."

Says Mark Hopkins: "The tendency to this separation of morals and religion is strong everywhere, and nothing can be more destructive both of true religion and morality, or more fatal to every interest of man. . . How much more must this be the case, when the character of the object worshiped is such as to excite and encourage every form of iniquity, and drunkenness and obscenity, instead of being forbidden, become a part of religious rites! 'When the light that is in men becomes darkness, how great is that darkness!' This is a point of the greatest moment, since no false religion ever did, or ever can, teach, and adequately sanction, anything like a perfect system of morality."2 2. Hopkins, "Evidences of Christianity," pp. SI, 52.

5. Men had lost all sure and certain knowledge of the immortality of the soul. Philosophers threw across the grave the frail bridge of speculation, but left the question debatable and doubtful. Some regarded this belief as only a vulgar prejudice. Even Cicero, who had carefully studied the arguments of Socrates, and added others of his own, said, "Which of these is true, God alone knows; and which is most probable, a very great question." As a practical power in human lives, it may be truthfully said, that "Christ brought life and immortality to light through His gospel."

Now it is barely possible that reason, put to its utmost stretch of power, might have reached these truths-the unity of God, His holiness, the duty of morality, and, the immortality of the Soul, just as Newton and Euclid might have reached unaided the highest mathematical truths; but they never would have been known by the great mass of mankind.

There are, however, still other truths greatly needed, that nature does not teach, and reason could not discover.

1. The truth that God can pardon sin. The unaided mind of man never would have been clear about it. Natural religion teaches that God is sternly just. How a just God could possibly pardon sin was a problem that the greatest minds wrestled with in vain. The difficulty seemed so great to Socrates that he said to his disciple, "Crito, I do not see how God can possibly forgive sin, for I do not see that He ought to." Even modern theologians, who get befogged about the atonement, begin to deny that sin is ever forgiven. Many Universalists tell us that the due punishment of every sin must be borne, and there is no escape. Now to a race of sinners, it was indispensable that this fact should be known before any rational system of religion could be framed. Conjectures here would not lead to practical salvation.

2. On what grounds could God forgive sin? Even if somehow the impression became lodged in the mind that the Divine Being would forgive sin, we would still need to know the conditions of the pardon.

Modern deists tell us, especially Lord Herbert, that it is a dictate of natural religion that God will pardon sin on repentance. Nothing is farther from the truth. No heathen religion ever taught any thing of the kind. "Having the light of the Bible, we see distinctly that God can not properly pardon the guilty without repentance, meaning a thorough forsaking of sin even in the secret feelings of the heart; but who ever heard of such a repentance in other religions? And who ever heard of a deist exercising such a repentance and remaining a deist? . . . The truth is, deists have borrowed this partial truth from the Bible, and then used it to show that we do not need the book from which they borrowed it."1 1. Hopkins, "Evidences of Christianity, pp. 54, SS.

3. Furthermore, if a man should endeavor to reclaim himself from the dominion of sin he could not know by himself whether God would encourage him or put obstacles in his way. The foreboding of conscience would deter reason from conjecturing that there was gracious help, divine aid for the sinful and the tempted, so sustaining to the weakness, and so consoling to the wretchedness, of man, coming directly from a personal God. The grace in Christ Jesus, that we hear so much about in Christendom, is utterly unthought of in heathen lands.

4. Without revelation man could not know either his origin or his destiny. How we came to be, or why we are here, or what is the purpose of our existence, or the end of our journey,-what mists of darkness hang over it all, apart from the blessed light of revelation!

"Now, when we consider the passions of men, the collisions of interests, the obtrusiveness of the objects of sense, the pressure of animal wants, the vices of society, and the shortness of life, who can believe, with this total darkness resting upon others, that one man in a million would sit down calmly to solve these great questions respecting God and His government, and human destiny?"1 And who can believe for a moment that any merely speculative solution of these questions would have sufficient power to control the passions and predominate over the senses, and produce a religion that could save men? No; it is exceedingly clear that, if anything was to be done to enlighten man, it must be by a voice from heaven, a voice that could speak with the authority of Eternal Truth. 1. Hopkins, "Evidences of Christianity," p. 56.

Moral darkness, voluntarily incurred, always and necessarily involves practical wickedness. Falsehood, cruelty, selfishness and nameless licentiousness enveloped humanity like an all pervading atmosphere. Men found themselves, therefore, in this dilemma. They had lost the true knowledge of God. But they could not annihilate their religious faculty; they must still have a religion. Therefore superstition, fanaticism, pantheism and idolatry, united with every gross form of sin, came in to make still darker their darkened hearts, and still more depraved their wicked lives. Manifestly a voice from heaven must speak or humanity is lost forever.

II. Is a revelation probable?

Here is the issue: Granted a Personal God in the universe, and a race of moral beings created in His image and lost in sin, will He take steps for their recovery?'

1. Yes; if He has the heart ot a Father, He will be concerned about the fate of His children. Any true father would seek a lost child. Surely the Infinite Father will seek billions of His lost children, will break the awful silence that surrounds them, and speak with a voice of love the message that is necessary for their present and eternal wellbeing.

2. Yes; if He is a God of infinite goodness, He who cares for all the sentient beings he has made, and "openeth His hand and satisfieth the wants of every living thing," who notes the sparrow's fall, and ministers to all life, will surely care for the souls of His immortal children. He will not feed and clothe the bodies of men, and ignore the dire needs of that part of their nature that endures forever.

3. Yes; if God is a holy God. He must hate sin with an infinite hatred. All the impulses of His infinite heart must be against it. The forces of His government must be arrayed in opposition to it. Whatever His wisdom can suggest and His love prompt, and His power execute will be put in operation to counteract sin. It is the nature of holiness to desire in every other moral being a resemblance to itself, .and to hold sinfulness, wherever it exists, in utter abhorrence. So we may conclude that God wishes us to be holy like Himself, and, to that end, will be impelled by His own nature, to give us every proper assistance. It is inconceivable that a being of infinite wisdom and power should will a moral end, and then not put forth all proper moral means essential to that end.

4. Yes; if our race is as important as we suppose it to be. We are a race of sentient beings capable of bliss or woe, and that forever. No finite mind in all the universe can remotely comprehend the possible aggregate of the blessedness or misery of one single soul in a career of endless duration. But multiply, this by the uncounted billions of immortals who have lived, and will live in this world, and there will be an amount that staggers reason to even contemplate. Only the Infinite Mind can comprehend this problem.

Surely, if a case ever could occur in the universe, in which we might infer from the wisdom and holiness and benevolence of an infinite Heavenly Father, that he would make a special revelation of himself, this is that case. On the fact of such an interposition hung the destiny of our race; and to one who could conceive of the possibility of mercy in God, it could not appear improbable that such an interposition would be made.

This probability is, also, greatly strengthened by the fact that the race has generally expected such a revelation, and the readiness which they have shown to receive it, and the natural tendency of man to crave and welcome divine help.

III. Is a Divine Supernatural Revelation Possible?

Many infidels say "no." But even Bolingbroke admitted that, "An extraordinary action of God upon the human mind is not more inconceivable than the ordinary action of mind on body, or of body on mind."

What is the nature of the impossibility of a revelation? Does it lie in God? Cannot the Creator, who had power enough to create moral beings in his own image, discover or invent some way of revealing himself to them? If a father can invent a telephone and speak to his child hundreds of miles away and even his voice be recognized, can not the Infinite Father somehow send a message and make his voice known to man? Surely by signs, miracles, audible voice, visions, inspiration, or something of the kind, a message can be sent which shall get through to the soul and be understood. If President Hoover can send a message by radio to the people of the United States, cannot God speak to the people of the world?

Is the impossibility in man? Has He not, with all His wonderful complement of faculties, spiritual perception and moral discernment enough to know when God is near, and apprehend what He is trying to reveal? To doubt it is to cast reflections upon man, and to degrade Him to the level of the brute.