Article August 20, 1927 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Douglas White, John Grier Hibben, Percy G. Kammerer

[From the Kansas City Times, Missouri]

"Humility is the greatest virtue as pride, its opposite, is the greatest vice," said the Rev. Walter E. Bentley in his Mission sermon at St. Paul's Church, Kansas City, Kansas. "The first quality in a great man is humility, and that is the reason great men are so rare. For everything is against it in this bustling, self-assertive age. ... Yet the truth is all the other way. Everything we have has been given by the Father of all, and He is the only 'I Am,' the eternally self-existent One on whom we and all else depend. Humility is but the recognition of truth. ... Every man is stronger for knowing the worst of himself and acting on the knowledge. ... Humility is the height of wisdom, as it is the keynote of Christianity. Christ [Jesus] left the highest greatness and became poor and lowly, and he already has inherited the earth for his name stands at the head of the world's list of the greatest and the best." [From an article by Douglas White, M.A., M. D., in the Modern Churchman, Oxford, England]

What do we mean by an atonement? We mean one of two things. The word has come to represent ... a transaction of some sort between God and Jesus, by which something within God's nature has been satisfied so that He is able to forgive men. That is one meaning. The other is at-one-ment or reconciliation, a reconciliation which requires no satisfaction, since God is Love. Is the atonement a satisfaction of God's justice or a revelation of His love? Which is the true interpretation? They cannot both be true. It is not possible ... to accept and assimilate mutually contradictory hypotheses. ... What do we think, then, of this doctrine, that God, on account of the other elements than love in His character, required some sort of satisfaction (to His justice or righteousness) before He could forgive? For my part I do not believe a word of it. ... It runs counter to the whole life, words, and as far as we can see, thought of Jesus himself. "Thy sins are forgiven;" "Her sins ... are forgiven; for she loved much;" "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive;" "When they had nothing to pay, he frankly for gave them both," ... no sign that the passion to come had any "objective" effect on the forgiveness which he proclaimed free to everyone who brought penitence and love. The idea of procuring forgiveness was clearly foreign to his mind. The kingdom of God was a kingdom of free forgiveness. Repetance and forgiveness go hand in hand. Look at the prodigal son coming home; it was the elder brother not the father, who claimed that some justice or satisfaction was required. The church has sympathized with the elder brother, whose plea Jesus gently but firmly set aside. "There is joy in the heart of God over one sinner that repenteth." Penitence, not sacrifice, is the rule of the road. Ah, then, you may say, something is required after all. Why penitence? Simply that only the man who is sorry is capable of receiving the proffered gift. Receptiveness is the condition of all giving—not arbitrary, but in the nature of things. The doctrine of prior satisfaction is utterly subversive of all that Jesus came to teach. ...

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