The Faith of the Later Church

The years between 60 and 70 mark a turning point in the life of the first-century church. The three greatest leaders were taken away, Paul, Peter, and James. Paul suffered martyrdom in Rome between 64 and 68. Peter met the same fate, according to ancient tradition, at about the same time. James, the brother of Jesus, had been put to death by the Jews just before this, despite his faithful observance of the law. The Jewish war began in 66, and in 70 the city was taken and the temple destroyed; thus the link was broken had joined the Gentile churches to the mother church at Jerusalem.

When we move past this year 70 into the second generation of the Christian Church, we find no books to guide us like the Gospels and the Acts and the letters of Paul. We have a good many New Testament writings from this period, but they do not give us history. We do not know the leaders who took the place of Paul and Peter and James. The author of the letter to the Hebrews must have been a man of learning and ability, but not even his name is preserved. The many workers mentioned by Paul all pass from our sight. We hear no more of the gifted and eloquent Apollos. On this account the treatment of this period in a New Testament history may be brief. There is a second reason for brevity. Deeply interesting though the story would be if we could read it, it could not compare in importance with that already considered. The vital history of the beginnings of Christianity is forever linked to two names. The first is its Founder, whose message and spirit and life and death were the creative fact that brought forth all that followed. The second is the great apostle, who saw the meaning of that life, who proclaimed the good news throughout the world, who set forth for all time the great truths of the faith, and who established the fellowship which we call the church.

While we have little in the way of historical events, there are other matters of interest to consider in this closing period of New Testament history. These will be taken up under three heads: the faith of the later church, the life of the later church, and its writings.

In taking up the faith of this second period, we turn first to Jewish Christianity. The great controversy within the church of the first generation was that concerning the law: Was the Christian bound to keep the Jewish law? In the second generation this question entirely disappears. One reason for this was the great and steady advance of Gentile Christianity. The other was the lessening importance of Jewish Christianity. The Jerusalem Christians left the city before its capture and so escaped destruction; by so doing they gained, however, the bitter enmity of their fellow Jews and had to suffer a great deal of persecution.

The epistle of James gives us a good picture of the faith of these Jewish Christians. It was formerly held by many scholars that this letter was an attack upon Paul and his doctrine that man was saved by faith: "Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" (James 2:24). But there is no thought of opposition to Paul here. The writer has not really grasped Paul's great doctrine. To him religion is essentially a law according to which men are to live. True, it is a higher law; he calls it "the perfect law, the law of liberty." But Paul's great words of grace and the Spirit are wanting here. Religion is something to be done. Within these limits it is full of fine maxims and practical truth, with many echoes of the Sermon on the Mount and other gospel passages; but it is not the good news that conquered the world. In later years this idea of Christianity as a new law gained an increasing place in the whole church. At this time it seems especially characteristic of Jewish Christianity.

Turning to the Gentile churches, the first question is, Did Paul's influence last? Did the great doctrines for which he stood remain as the church's conception of Christianity? In large measure, yes. (1) Christianity remained the universal religion for which Paul fought, not a mere variety of the Jewish faith. (2) Paul established once for all the conception of Christ as being on the one hand truly nian, born of woman, and on the other the eternal Son of God and the Saviour of men. (3) Paul's doctrine of the Spirit as ethical remained. He saved Christianity from the danger of fanaticism by insisting that the Spirit was the Spirit of Christ, that it meant love and righteousness and not emotional ecstasy and physical excitement. (4) The Gentile church remained as Paul had founded it; Christianity stood, not simply for individual faith and experience, but for an ordered and organized fellowship, embracing all believers in its unity, and joined in a life of mutual love and service.

And yet the church did not keep the level of Paul's highest thought. That was Paul's answer to the question, How shall a man be saved? Paul said: (1) A man is saved by God's grace. God is the Father. He is not a master whose help men must first earn. He is not an unwilling power whom men must compel by sacrifice. He is the God of mercy, loving the world, giving his Son, forgiving the sins of men. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." (2) A man is saved through faith; we might say trust instead. God's part is graciously to give; man's part is with love and trust to receive. Religion is not a proud and self-satisfied doing. It is a loving, self-surrendering trust of the soul. (3) All this means a new spirit in a man. It is the man made over, the "new creation," Paul says; but not made over from without by effort or knowledge. The new spirit which makes the man is God's Spirit in him. You may also call it the spirit of Christ. That is what it is: the love and purity and obedience and kindness which were the spirit of Jesus upon earth. (4) And this spirit which is God's gift, is our task at the same time. The Christian must live it out day by day: "If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk." It means obedience, but not to an outer rule. The law is within us, and the life is one of freedom.

In three respects the church moved down to a lower level: (1) Faith instead of being a personal trust came to be a belief in the doctrines of the church. Faith as a personal deed gives place to "the faith," which is a sum of doctrines. First Timothy shows the beginnings of this. (2) There appear, as has been noted in James, the beginners of a new legalism. It is not a falling back into the Jewish law, but it is an overemphasis upon Christianity as a new law, and a failure to see clearly that the right doing must spring from an inner spirit. (3) The freedom of the spirit gives place more and more to the authority of the church as an external and legal institution, whose officers are to rule and govern in all things. In the period which we are studying only the beginnings of this movement are apparent. In part it was inevitable. Indeed, Paul himself helped prepare the way. The church had to move forward on these three lines: to define its faith in creeds, to emphasize rules of conduct and require obedience, and to perfect and establish its organization. Paul himself, however, was not lost from the church. Though the church fell below his standards, yet he remained as a leaven within her life, even in the Roman Catholic Church. His religion of the spirit has always been a protest against the overemphasis of creed and rules and organization, and has broken forth successfully again and again in the great reformation movements.

The New Testament contains two monuments which witness to the abiding influence of Paul in this period. The first is the writing called "The Epistle to the Hebrews." The title, which is not a part of the book itself, is hardly correct. It is a treatise rather than an epistle, and it was probably for Christians in general rather than for Jewish Christians. It was not written by Paul, but it shows his spirit and influence. Christianity is set forth as the world-religion, existing from the beginning. Judaism was simply its stage of preparation; after the prophets comes the Son. And all the ceremony of Judaism is only the symbol of the spiritual and eternal which is in the Son. Christianity is the religion of redemption, and Christ is the final sacrifice which puts an end to all others. Paul wrote merely letters; this is a literary and theological product, but it has not the freshness or life or power that Paul's letters possess.

Far greater than the letter to the Hebrews is the group of writings which includes the Gospel and the three epistles of John. These four writings belong together, and they too bear eloquent witness to Paul's influence. Ancient tradition ascribes them to the apostle John. Many scholars think that while they represent the tradition of John's teaching, the writings themselves were composed by one of his disciples, or by another John than the apostle. We know but little of John's life. One tradition states that he suffered early death as martyr like his brother James. The more common tradition holds that he spent his last years in Ephesus, beloved by all and of great influence; that he wrote the Gospel and epistles at Ephesus and the Revelation while in exile at Patmos; and that he died an aged man at the close of the century.

Why was the Gospel of John written? For twenty or thirty years the church had had three accounts of the words and deeds of Jesus, our present synoptic Gospels. Though the fourth Gospel gives us mainly incidents from Jerusalem, instead of from Galilee, it does not add enough to the knowledge of Jesus' life to have been written simply as a supplement to the other three. The author himself gives us his purpose. Out of the many wonders which Jesus wrought he has selected certain "signs"; and "these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name" (John 20:30, 31). This is the double purpose—to set forth Christ and to show the life that men have through him. As we read this Gospel carefully we see that it is quite a different work from the synoptics. It is still in the form of a story of Jesus' words and deeds; but it is far more of a sermon than a biography. Each sign or saying of Jesus is like a text from which John preaches his sermon and proclaims his faith in Christ and his conception of Christ. For that reason he does not concern himself to distinguish sharply between his own words and those of Jesus. This can be seen, for example, in the third chapter, where one cannot separate definitely the words of Jesus, of John the Baptist, and of the evangelist. The Gospel is a great confession of faith, a great sermon like one of Paul's. The words and deeds of Jesus are like a window, through which the evangelist seeks to show us his vision of the eternal. He is neither biographer nor theologian; he is a preacher. Whatever he writes he sets forth that we "may believe," and that we "may have life in his name."

The faith that is here set forth is nothing more than Paul's teaching concerning Christ, but there was special reason for its declaration at this time. Almost all the later writings of the New Testament show us that with the last years of the first century many different forms of doctrine arose which claimed to be Christian teaching, but which differed from the earlier faith of the church. There were teachers who declared that because Jesus was divine he could not have suffered and died. These men made his life a mere show, and so denied the actual humanity of our Lord. This was called docetism. There were others, on the contrary, especially among the Jewish Christians, who denied his divinity. He was to them simply a great teacher, a prophet as others before him.

Over against these two, John sets forth his great message in his epistles and Gospel. Jesus is for him the eternal Son of God who was with the Father from the beginning, and who has come to be the life and light of men. This is the message of his prologue (1:1-18). This is his theme, whether he reports the words of Jesus or tells of his deeds. Thus the deeds which he reports are "signs." They are not thought of primarily as deeds of mercy wrought to help men, but as signs of the divine power and majesty of Jesus. There are seven such deeds, finding their climax in the raising of Lazarus. Similarly, the words of Jesus which he reports do not concern themselves so much with the duties of men, as in the sermon on the mount, but are, rather, a setting forth of the same theme of Jesus' own person and its meaning. In lofty speech and beautiful figure this is proclaimed again and again: "I am the living bread"; "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst"; "I am the light of the world"; "I am the door of the sheep"; "I am the good shepherd"; "I am the resurrection, and the life"; "I am the way, the truth, and the life"; "I am the true vine"; "I have overcome the world." At the same time John sets forth just as clearly the real humanity of Jesus. He shows him to us hungry and weary as he rests by the well, weeping by the grave of his friend, struggling in the garden, suffering and dying upon the cross. All this is but Paul's great message of the Christ "who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1:3, 4). But while Paul finds his theme in the resurrection and the living Christ, John turns back to the Jesus who walked on earth, and shows us his glory in that earthly life. That was John's great service, to join together the Jesus of Nazareth whom the Gospels set forth with the divine Christ whom Paul proclaimed, and to declare that these two were one.

John's other purpose was, as he states it, to set forth Christ so that men believing might have life. As we read these pages, we feel the same spirit that speaks to us in Paul's letters: this man writes of that which is his own life, and which he wishes us to have. Chapters 14 to 17 set this truth forth especially. No passages in the New Testament have been more cherished by Christians or have had a deeper influence. That is why this Gospel has been called from early days "the spiritual Gospel." It has been the great book of personal devotion. One need only begin with the fourteenth chapter and mark the familiar passages to realize the place that this book has filled: "Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many mansions. I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one cometh unto the Father, but by me. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do. I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth. If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit." And in all this, the question is not whether John is giving us the literal speech of Jesus, any more than Paul in his preaching. The message of John is essentially that of Paul, and the real question is whether they are setting forth the mind and spirit of Jesus. That such a book should come from the closing years of the first century is testimony, not only to the abiding influence of Paul's teaching, but even more to the abiding power of the spirit of Christ.

Directions for Reading and Study

Mention six dangers or faults against which the readers are warned in James. Here as elsewhere cite chapter and verse.

Make a list of the passages in First Timothy which refer to doctrine or teaching or the faith.

Read the prologue of the fourth Gospel, John 1:1-18, and make a list of John's various statements about Christ.

Make a list of the seven miracles, or "signs," recorded in John, beginning with the marriage feast at Cana and ending with the raising of Lazarus.

Make a list of at least eight of the sayings of Jesus concerning himself, such as "I am the living bread," as found in John.

From John 14 to 17 select ten or more individual verses or passages which set forth the ideal of the life of the disciple in relation to God or Christ.