Dr. Cox and the Apostles’ Creed.

By Rev. D. A. MACFARLANE, M.A., Dingwall.
* Mr. Macfarlane has written this article by request.—Sub-Editor.

DR. James T Cox, of the Church of Scotland, was for many years principal Clerk to the General Assembly. He is eighty-three years of age. He recently retired from the Clerks’hip of the Synod of Aberdeen, which he occupied for thirty-six years. He was ordained to the ministry sixty years ago. Recently, in Aberdeen, he was entertained by his colleagues.†

The following is from the Press report:—”Dr. Cox cited the Apostles’ Creed which, he said, was repeated every ‘Sunday’ in some of their churches, and in all Episcopal Churches. Congregations, when reciting it, affirm their belief in the resurrection of the body, in which not a single member believes, not even the minister himself. It is no use saying that by the body we understand the spiritual body is meant. It was not so understood by the compilers, nor is it so understood by ordinary folk to-day. Moreover, good Christians do not believe in the descent into Hell (Hades), nor in the Virgin Birth.”

In the above, Dr. Cox referred to the Apostles’ Creed, and then particularly, (1), to the doctrine of the resurrection of the body; (2), to the clause, “He descended into Hell (Hades); and (3), to the fundamental doctrine of the Virgin Birth, all of which “good Christians do not believe,” or at least, they may be good Christians and yet not believe them.

1. First, we briefly refer to the “Apostles’ Creed.” Schaff states that the Apostles’ Creed cannot be traced as a whole, in its present form, beyond the sixth century. The gradual forming of it is too great a subject to be traced here. The history of its rise and content is given by Curtis, History of Creeds, pp. 48-64. The English, Latin and Greek texts of the Creed are supplied in parallel columns. Calvin, Institutes, II., 54-73, give his exposition of it, which is scriptural, but at variance with the explanation of the “descensus” clause as given by Rufinus, who was a presbyter of the Church of Aquileia.

The Creed was added to the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, not as though it was composed by the Apostles, but “because it is a brief sum of Christian faith, agreeable to the Word of God, and anciently received in the Churches of Christ.”

1. The resurrection of the body. Whatever the “compilers” of the Apostles’ Creed believed, or disbelieved, there is no doubt as to what Scripture teaches on this high subject. This is, that all that are in the graves shall hear Christ’s voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. “Whoso eateth the flesh” and “drinketh the blood” of the Saviour has already eternal life, and Christ will raise up such at the last day. Such as deny Christ and His words in an adulterous generation, Christ will deny before the Father and the holy angels at the last day. Christ is the first-fruits—afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming. If the body is not to rise, we may legitimately conclude that the body of Christ in the tomb did not rise. “If Christ be not risen, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins.” Dr. A. A. Hodge points out that human identity is a mystery, but yet a fact. It does not consist in having the same bodily particles all our days, yet each person is identically the same at seventy years as at seven years or seven days. The body of a believer is to be raised up adapted to its spiritual state of existence. It will be a transformed body, recognised by himself and others. “Ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God.” What God reveals, what Christ taught personally, and by His promised Spirit through the Apostles, will stand to the confusion of Dr. Cox at an Aberdeen function.

2. The “descent into Hell (Hades).” We readily admit that it is doubtful if the English form of the Latin and Greek expressions should ever have been employed. It is perhaps doubtful whether the Latin and Greek expressions should have been employed at all as they were.

Rufinus, a presbyter of the Church of Aquileia, stated that the words, “was crucified, dead, and buried,” were omitted by the Aquileian Church, and the clause, “He descended into Hades” (descendit in inferna) substituted for the other words. This means that the expression was used to explain the old clause and not to introduce a new one. Rufinus should have known why it was used. Calvin’s exposition is too long to give here. He, however, interprets the words in a scriptural way. Shedd points out that the Descensus clause was not held by the great Councils as being one of the articles of the Catholic faith at all. The words did not appear until the latter half of the 4th century in the Church of Aquileia. The Episcopal Church does not regard the words as a necessary part of the Christian faith. Any churches of her communion may omit them. (Shedd, Dogm: Theol., II., 606.)

1. The denial of the Virgin Birth. People may be “good Christians,” and deny the Virgin Birth—the supernatural conception of the human nature of the Saviour. Dr. Cox, we may justly believe, regards Joseph as the natural father of the Saviour, and likely views all that we read of the conception and birth of the Redeemer as a kind of religious halo which, through emotionalism, gathered around the child Jesus. It is difficult, or impossible, to state in brief, what the implications of such a view are. The union of the human nature to His Divine Person is a thing by itself in the faith delivered to the saints. It is utterly different from the gracious mystical sanctifying indwelling of the Holy Spirit sealing believers. Believers are not “united” to the Holy Spirit, as the human nature of Christ is to His divine Self. So if Joseph is the natural parent of Christ, and if, consequently, Christ is a mere man, although “led of the Spirit of God,” as believers are, how are we to view Him? Is he sinless or contaminated? If He is void of divine personality which gives infinite dignity to His substitutionary work, then what is the propitiatory value of His work? If you evacuate, in effect, His priesthood, do you not evacuate His kingship and prophetic function, in some sense? How has the Holy Spirit come, or what does He do, or can He do? The maze into which one gets is interminable.

Dr. Cox is the editor of a book entitled, Practice and Procedure in the Church of Scotland. On pp. 326-328, there are the Articles Declaratory of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland in matters Spiritual. Under Art. I., it is declared that “Christ is the Eternal Son, made very man for our salvation,” and all subscribers to the formula of the Church “glory in His Cross and Resurrection.” We do no injustice, we trust, to Dr. Cox in averring that, during his sixty years ministry, he professed to believe unfeignedly and to preach what is set forth in Art. I. Can he say at the close of his long ministry, and as one who cannot now be far from the end of his journey, that by the demonstration of the Spirit, and in power, he believed, and with lowliness of heart, preached the Eternal Sonship of Him who became dead, and is alive again, and has the keys of hell and of death? He has to go to a tribunal where there is no levity—where God is not mocked even by the best equipped modern scholarship. Is it therefore seemly to give utterance as he does to views which are not according to the “wisdom which is from above,” on the conception, death and burial of the Lord of glory, and on the rising again of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust, at Christ’s appearing and His kingdom? “Them that honour me, I will honour,” says a higher One than mere man, “and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.”

We close these remarks—which scarcely form more than a nibbling at the subject, owing to the implications—by pointing out that if ever there is a revival of true godliness in Scotland, it must be along the lines of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Ch. I., 5, the essence of which is that no common knowledge of the Scriptures, or regard for them, can convert the soul in sin that lies, but only “the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.” Where this sealing work is, there is the new birth, and the life which shall never end.