“Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth.” Psalm 60:3.
The meeting of our Synod later in the month reminds us of our position as a denomination, separate from the other churches in our land. It would be very foolish to take for granted the continued maintenance of the testimony of our Church. If, for instance, we lose sight of what we stand for as a Church we will very soon lose that testimony altogether. The first essential matter, then, in maintaining a testimony is to know what that testimony is and to be convinced that it is worth maintaining.
What then does the Free Presbyterian Church stand for in the 1970’s? Is its testimony really relevant to the sophisticated age in which we live or should it be abandoned as antiquated and out of touch with present realities?
First—What is our testimony?
(1) It is a testimony for the truth. Our testimony is nothing if it is not an unequivocal testimony for the truth of God’s Word; that is, an infallible Bible. We maintain the inviolability of Scripture. We hold to an inspired, infallible and inerrant Bible. We most sincerely believe and maintain that “holy men of God spake as they were moved or borne along by the Holy Ghost” and that what they wrote under Divine inspiration is the very Word of God. True religion must be founded on the revelation which God has given of Himself in the Scriptures of the truth. It is there that we find an account of man’s fall in Adam and of God’s provision of salvation through the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Holding to the Word of God, we maintain the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, the doctrine of man’s fall and consequent total depravity and inability, the doctrine of the New Birth, the doctrine of justification by faith, the doctrine of the perseverance and atonement and atoning death on Calvary of the Divine Redeemer, the doctrine of justification by faith, the doctrine of the perseverance and final eternal glorification of the saints and final everlasting condemnation of the wicked, and all the other doctrines which are demonstrably four-square with God’s Word. It was the desire to maintain these doctrines inviolate for the benefit of future generations which motivated the Fathers of our Church in their uncompromising stand almost 80 years ago.
(2) It is a testimony for the whole truth. We take our stand on the whole Bible. Of necessity we must do so for the whole of Scripture is equally the Word of God. The attack which the Higher Critics launched against the Bible, particularly in the last half of the nineteenth century, which in the old Free Church resulted in the passing of the Declaratory Act to modify the doctrinal standards of that Church, left our forefathers with no alternative but to contend earnestly for the maintenance of an unvitiated testimony and a whole, not a fragmented Bible. The attack upon the inspiration, infallibility and inerrancy of God’s Word could only be met by the most strenuous opposition even at the expense of separation from the body which sanctioned views incompatible with Scripture teaching.
(3) It is a testimony for nothing but the truth. The testimony of our Church is equally intolerant of the deletions and dilutions of the higher critical and modernistic schools of theologians and of the accretions of Romanist dogma which would equate tradition and the voice of the Church with the voice of God. We take our stand on the Bible alone, as containing the whole revelation of God’s mind for man and, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, the only instrument for the salvation of sinners, the sanctification of believers and the establishment and advancement of Christ’s cause and kingdom in this world.
Now, secondly, what about its relevance for the 1970’s.
What do we need today? What Scotland needs, what the world needs is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Men and women, young and old, need the Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible as the source of their religious beliefs and practices. The very fact of the wisdom and omniscience of God should convince us that this is so. When God gave His Word to man it was not for those generations but for all ages. The Word of God was not intended merely for 70 B.C. or 70 A.D. but for the 1970’s and 2070’s. The authority of God’s Word must be recognised and restored in the minds and lives of men and women.
Does the sinner in 1971 not need the light which the Word of God casts on his sinful and sensual life? Does he not need to know himself as a sinner now? Has he some other means by which he may come to know himself as a vile, lost, ruined, helpless and hell-deserving sinner? Surely he has no other means of knowing this but by the Word of God. And does he not need the light which God’s Word sheds upon the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Surely the 1971 sinner is as much in need of Christ in His saving work as the sinner of yesteryear. And does he not need the light which God’s Word sheds on the work and operations of the Spirit of God? Surely he needs it, for apart from the Holy Scriptures how will he ever know whether there be any Holy Spirit, apart altogether from knowing the particular work assigned to the Holy Spirit in the scheme of redemption.
We must conclude therefore that the testimony of our Church, being a testimony for the Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible, has the most up-to-date message for modern man which is available, a message eminently practical and absolutely relevant to his needs. We must, on the other hand, regard the testimonies of those churches which have forsaken an infallible Bible as their standard as having fallen away to a sub-Christian, antiquated system of doctrine utterly irrelevant to the needs of modern man, and fitted only to rob him of his Christian heritage and subject him once again to a pre-Christian culture and system of belief.
May we then earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. Let us, through an awareness of the value of the testimony we possess, earnestly endeavour to hand down unimpaired to the generation following the testimony which we have inherited. May we have grace so to do.