IN DEFENCE OF THE FAITH
‘Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.’
It has become the fashion to deprecate controversy, but this Epistle shows us that there may be occasions when not merely controversy but earnest contention is necessary.
I. It must be positive witness.—‘For the faith’: too much of present-day discussion is concerned with cold negations.
II. To the old faith—the faith of the Catholic Church. Every age has its own special ‘New Theology.’ But we keep to the Truth as it has come down to us through the ages from Jesus Christ—‘the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.’ When that faith is attacked we must bear witness, even to the point of ‘earnest contention,’ to its vitality, its power, its unchangeableness.
III. By word and life.—Such contention through pen and paper or by word of mouth is good, but it is powerless unless the life goes with it. Let men see that the old faith has power over our lives, power for restraint, power for edification, power for holiness. May it be ours to hold in our own experience the true faith of Christ and His Church, and to guard and defend it as a sacred deposit.
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‘St. Jude had two surnames—Lebbæus and Thaddæus—names somewhat uncertain, but, derived from the Hebrew, are generally interpreted as “one that praises” and “a man of heart.” He was brother of James the Less, son of Mary—sister to the Virgin Mary, and therefore of our Lord’s kindred. He was called to the Apostolate with the eleven others; and is specially mentioned in St. John’s Gospel as asking Jesus, “Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?” Evidently, he not only saw and knew Jesus, but He was formed in his heart as “the hope of glory.” How precious, therefore, must those words have been to him, “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” No wonder that when “the truth as it is in Jesus” was assailed by the Gnostics, St. Jude wrote his Epistle to exhort and encourage Christian believers to avoid their grievous heresies, and “contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints,” and also to “keep themselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” All this he did himself; until, after labouring in Judæa and Galilee, and in Samaria and Idumæa, his end came, and he entered into “the joy of his Lord.” ’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
ESTABLISHED FACTS
It is our duty to keep an open mind to the discoveries of theologians and scholars; but this does not mean that we should consent to regard all the articles of the Christian faith as open questions.
I. On the great subjects our mind is made up.—The facts we know, and under God we have to transmit the knowledge of them to coming generations.
(a) We are willing, if necessary, to revise definitions, but can accept no definition which obscures the Divine glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man, Creator, Brother, Lord, Redeemer of the human race.
(b) We are prepared to discuss theories of the Atonement, but can accept no theory which would dislodge our hearts from their sure confidence in Christ, in Whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins according to the riches of God’s grace. Theories of justification may be reconstructed, but we can receive no theory which does not rest on the fact that we are in Christ, and that His relations to the Father determine our own.
(c) We are not irrevocably committed to any theory of what theologians have called the depravity or corruption of human nature; but any theory which does not explicitly and fully acknowledge the awful reality of sin, and maintain that only in the power of the supernatural life can man escape from spiritual ruin, is for us an impossible theory, we know that the facts are against it.
(d) We confess that the mystery of the eternal life of God transcends our science; that the terms of the Creeds must be inexact; that they point towards august truths, but do not reach them; and yet, with reverence and awe we worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one God, blessed for evermore; and in the knowledge of God we have eternal life.
(c) We are ready to revise and correct, when adequate cause is shown, the traditional belief of the Church concerning the dates at which the books of the Old Testament and the New were written, concerning the kind of relation between the books and the authors to whom they are attributed; we are ready to revise theories of inspiration; but in these books we ourselves have found the record of the supreme revelation to mankind of the righteousness, the mercy, the grace, and the will of God; what we ourselves have found in them has been found by millions of men of many races, many tongues, and many forms of civilisation; by simple and unlearned men; by men of noble genius; by humble penitents; by glorious saints; and whatever conclusions and theories assume that this discovery is an illusion we vehemently reject.
II. The substance of the faith delivered once for all to the saints of the first age has been verified in the experience of the saints of every succeeding generation, and has, in these last days, been verified in our own. Theologians have not to create new heavens and a new earth, but to give a more exact account of that spiritual universe whose mysteries and glories have environed the saints from the beginning. A theology which quenches the fires of the sun and the splendour of the stars—whatever temporary triumphs it may win—is destined to failure. It is an account of another universe than that in which the saints are living, and the faith of the Church has authority to reject it.
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‘While men were still living who had received the gospel from Apostles, the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints was in peril. Even in those early days, as St. Jude tells us, there were some who turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Nor was it their creed only that was corrupt. They were guilty of the foulest sensual sins, and sheltered their immoralities under perverted conceptions of the gospel of Christ, and perhaps under such theories of the relations of the flesh and the spirit as assumed a more definite and elaborate form during the first fifty years of the second century.’