Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: J. Gresham Machen 1

Covenant Reformed Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

The following message is by pastor John Piper more information from desiring.

00:05

God is available at www .desiringgod .org

00:13

On New Year's Eve of 1936 in a Roman Catholic Hospital in Bismarck, North Dakota One day away from his death

00:26

J. Gresham Machen lay with pneumonia at the age of 55 It was

00:33

Christmas break at Westminster Seminary where he was teaching New Testament at the time and his colleagues said that he looked deadly tired

00:45

But instead of resting as his colleagues said he should have he accepted a speaking engagement in North Dakota and he took a train from the mild temperatures of Philadelphia to the 20 below zero winds of Bismarck and He spoke with pastor

01:05

Samuel Allen in several Presbyterian churches there Ned Stonehouse who wrote his biography

01:13

Said there was no one sufficient in influence to constrain him to curtail his program to any significant degree

01:25

His isolation really was remarkable in those last Hours of his life. He was the leader of the conservative movement in the

01:34

Presbyterian Church in America No one doubted that and so he had no one above him to watch over him to hold him accountable for his schedule

01:47

His heroes and mentors Warfield and Patton were dead. He never married so he had no wife to connect him with reality

01:57

His mother and father his mother had given him remarkable counsel over the years They were both dead.

02:03

His two brothers were 1 ,500 miles to the east he had according to George Marsden a personality that only his good friends found appealing and So he was incredibly isolated

02:19

For a man of international stature. He had pneumonia. He could scarcely breathe Pastor Allen visited him on that last day of 1936 to pray with him and he told pastor

02:33

Allen of a vision that he had of being in heaven and Said Sam it was glorious.

02:39

It was glorious. And then a little later. He said Sam Isn't the reformed faith grand

02:47

And on New Year's Day 1937 he mustered just enough strength to send one

02:54

Telegram to John Murray back at Westminster and his last recorded words in the telegram were

03:02

I am so thankful For the active obedience of Christ No hope without it and he died at 730 that night

03:13

That's a picture of Jay Gresham a chin his death Scene is a picture so much of the man's life is there the stubbornness of Going his own way when friends urged him not to do this extra preaching the isolation far away from the centers of church life his

03:34

Suffering for what he believed in with all his might his utter allegiance to the reformed faith of the

03:41

Westminster confession his Getting comfort not just from general truths that Christ loved him and gave himself

03:50

But from a specific doctrinal truth about the active obedience of Christ that he knew was his

03:58

Obedience and therefore fit him to be accepted into eternal life for Christ's sake

04:05

All of that was mentioned And he was cut off in the midst of a great work at the age of 55

04:14

The great work at that moment was the founding of Westminster Seminary and the founding of the

04:20

Orthodox Presbyterian Church he had not set out to found anything

04:26

He prided himself and Princeton prided themselves that not anything new had come out of Princeton for a hundred years

04:33

It was the glory of Princeton Seminary to have stood With Hodge Hodge and Warfield for a hundred years.

04:42

He had no intention of founding Seminary or a church. He had taught at Princeton for 23 years and was at the thick of everything in the ecclesiastical life of the

04:55

PC USA in those days But who he was and what he stood for made it almost inevitable in view of where that church and that seminary was going

05:04

Westminster at that moment when he died was seven years old The Presbyterian Church in America, which was forced legally within its first months to change its name

05:16

To the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was six months old He had been elected its first moderator

05:24

June 11 1936 and the occasion for starting that new

05:30

Presbyterian Church Was that on March 29 1935

05:38

Machen Was found guilty of Insubordination and failure to obey his

05:48

Ordination vows and was stripped of his ministerial standing by the

05:54

New Brunswick Presbytery the appeal was made to the General Assembly and at the

06:01

Syracuse Assembly in 1936 it failed and he was out of the ministry by vote of the entire denomination

06:12

The reason for the insubordination that led to the censure and the indictment and the conviction and the ouster was that in June of 1933 he had formed an independent

06:24

Board of Foreign Missions to protest the fact that the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions Had endorsed a book called

06:34

Rethinking missions written by layman which Machen said quote from beginning to end is an attack upon the historic

06:42

Christian faith and Because he said that they were supporting missionaries of the likes of Pearl Buck Pearl Buck said that if someone existed who could create a person like Christ or Portray for us a

07:03

Christ like the Gospels then Christ lived and lives whether he once had a body and a soul or whether he is just the essence of men's highest dreams and when

07:14

Machen read that kind of Latitudinarian ism or indifferent ism as he would call it.

07:21

He said I can't give my money to support a Pearl Buck and Therefore the seriousness of that decision flowing from the

07:31

General Assembly in 1934 read like this Quote a church member that will not give to promote the officially authorized missionary program of the

07:42

Presbyterian Church is in exactly the same position with reference to the Constitution of the church as a member that would refuse to partake of the celebration of the

07:52

Lord's Supper or any other prescribed ordinance of the denomination in other words It was elevated his decision not to support the board to found a new independent board was elevated to the level of refusing to come to the table of the

08:06

Lord and that was the ground of his dismissal a few years earlier 1929 he had left

08:17

Princeton Seminary not under the same conditions. He voluntarily left

08:22

Princeton because of the reorganization of the governance structure

08:28

There was in Princeton for a hundred years a board of directors who embodied the curve conservative confessional commitments of the school and as the president

08:37

Stevenson and other groups became more broad in their sympathies with the modern way of thinking they wanted to get the control of the seminary out of that group and therefore proposed the combining of the trustees and the directors the trustees having on them the more broadly minded people and that was voted on and passed

09:00

Machen said if the proposed Dissolution of the present board of directors is finally carried out and the control of the seminary passes into entirely different hands then

09:12

Princeton Theological Seminary as it has been so long and so honorably known will be dead and we shall have at Princeton a new institution of Radically different type and in his judgment the seminary died in 1929 and by the fall of 29 a new seminary existed with Machen and others as The faculty and he said at the inaugural address

09:43

September 25 1929 to the class of 50 students No, my friends though Princeton Seminary is dead.

09:52

The noble tradition of Princeton Seminary is alive Westminster Seminary will endeavor by God's grace to continue that tradition unimpaired now the title of this

10:06

Message today is Jay Grisha Machen's response to modernism and my first answer to the question of How he responded is that his most enduring?

10:18

response were two institutions It was not his intention.

10:23

That wasn't the way he was responding For 20 years, but the most enduring response has been

10:30

Westminster Seminary which today I believe is a remarkably influential Institution in evangelicalism and the

10:38

Orthodox Presbyterian Church Which after 56 years has 188 churches and only 19 ,000 members but may in fact have a wider influence than the numbers would signify though probably

10:54

They are a part of what I said this morning was the reform traditions failure to reform

11:06

Where did this warrior come from? who was this man who came on the scene in the

11:13

PC USA and Left their seminary and were kicked out of their denomination and formed

11:18

Westminster in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. What shaped him? what was his engagement with modernism over the 20 years while he taught 23 years at Princeton and what is this thing called?

11:33

modernism that he so Energetically opposed and can we learn anything from him today?

11:42

John Gresham a chin was born in 1881 16 years after the end of the

11:47

Civil War his mother was from Macon, Georgia and was educated Cultured she wrote a book called

11:55

The Bible in Browning and his father was a very well -to -do lawyer in Baltimore.

12:01

That's where he grew up He was in a word a well -to -do Southern Aristocrat he made at least six journeys to Europe in those days when there were no planes

12:12

Flying sailing the family had a retreat house in Seal Harbor He went to university school for boys studied

12:21

Latin from the time. He was 11 They belong to the southern aristocratic

12:26

Presbyterian Church, Franklin Street his ways of thinking about black people were

12:33

Southern quote the servants are the real old -fashioned Kind -hearted southern darkies in the house.

12:42

It was a man Gripped by the southern culture in which he grew up and when he was 21 years old

12:50

He inherited $50 ,000 from his maternal his maternal grandfather to put that in perspective

12:56

His first annual salary at Princeton was $2 ,000 so he inherited 25 times an annual salary when he's 21 and a similar amount when he was 35 from his father when he died he was in a millionaire in our terms and That explains how you could read in his biography over and over again that he funded the magazine

13:18

He funded the 250 ,000 books that were mailed out to the PC USA and so on when he died his estate was $250 ,000 in those days dollars that carries with a tremendous limitations and it defines in Large measure the level at which he engaged his culture and the level at which he engaged the

13:43

PC USA when he finished

13:51

High school he went to Johns Hopkins studied classics and then Kicking and screaming almost he went to Princeton Seminary for three years not at all intending to go into the ministry didn't know whether he would or not took a year in Germany to study

14:06

New Testament and there He met modernism as he came to understand it for the first time in vital compelling

14:18

Winsome form in the person of Wilhelm Hermann at Marburg It was an almost compelling overwhelming encounter

14:34

This is important because what Machen was doing for the next 23 years

14:39

When he opposed modernism was not throwing rocks over a wall that he'd never glimpsed over He had been over the wall into the camp and almost was lost there

14:49

To the cause I'm going to read an extended series of quotes from the letters home just to show you how close we came as evangelicals to losing him and What an impact this man

15:01

Hermann had on him and what it should teach us about the way we present our

15:10

Theology Princeton almost lost him because of the way they presented their theology

15:17

Here's the quotes the first time I heard Hermann may almost be described as an epic in my life

15:26

Such an overpowering Personality, I think I almost never before encountered overpowering in the sincerity of religious devotion

15:35

My chief feeling with reference to him is already one of deepest reverence.

15:41

I Have been thrown now This a man who does not believe in the resurrection and believe in the infallibility of the scriptures didn't believe in the virgin birth

15:48

Okay, this a modernist. I Have been thrown all into confusion by what he says

15:56

So much deeper is his devotion to Christ than anything. I have known in Myself during the past few years the

16:06

Princeton years Hermann affirms very little of Which I have been accustomed to regard as essential to Christianity Yet there is no doubt in my mind that he is a

16:19

Christian and a Christian of a peculiarly earnest type He is a Christian not because he follows

16:25

Christ as a moral teacher, but because of his trust in Christ Practically if anything more truly than theoretically his trust is unbounded

16:37

Hermann represents the dominant Rishelian school Hermann has shown me something of the religious power

16:45

Which lies back of this great movement Which is now making a fight even for the control of the

16:52

Northern Presbyterian Church in America in New England Those who do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus are generally speaking religiously dead in Germany Hermann has taught me this is by no means the case

17:07

He believes that Jesus is the one thing in all the world that inspires absolute confidence and absolute joyful Subjection and that through Jesus we come into communion with the

17:20

Living God and are made free from the world It is the the faith that is a real experience a real revelation of God that saves not the faith that consists in Accepting as true a lot of dogmas on the basis of merely what others have said

17:36

That's fair care this Christmas. God is one of the greatest religious books.

17:41

I have ever read Perhaps Hermann does not give the whole truth. I Certainly hope he does not that little phrase is so hope giving as you read the history of this man

17:53

I certainly hope I think underlying This is a token of the way

17:59

God works, I believe as young men experience doubts underlying these intellectual doubts that he was being plummeted into there was

18:07

What Jonathan Edwards would probably call a an affection a nose? That didn't operate here mainly a nose and an affection for the truth

18:20

So that periodically as he's expressing his fascination with these new ideas He keeps inserting.

18:26

I hope it's not true. I hope it isn't true because there was this gut level

18:31

I have loved what Warfield taught I think I Certainly hope he does not at any rate

18:39

He has gotten hold of something that has been sadly neglected in the church and in the

18:45

Orthodox theology Perhaps he is something like the devout mystics of the Middle Ages They were one -sided enough

18:52

But they raised a mighty protest against the coldness and deadness of the church and were forerunners of the

19:00

Reformation end quote now what Machen Found in Hermann, I think was something that he had apparently not found at Princeton Nor in his home church

19:14

Franklin Street nor in his mother Whom he loved dearly and counted as a saint namely passion joy

19:27

Exuberant trust at Princeton. There was solid learning There was civil formal careful aristocratic presentations of fairly cool thorough

19:41

Reformed Theology he eventually came to see that that theology was an infinitely better foundation for joy than what

19:53

Hermann had but in comparison to Hermann spirit

20:01

The spirit of what he had experienced in the reformed community Almost lost it came within a hair of losing him and the lesson

20:11

That I just I just throw out to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and to this group because those of you who were attracted to hear

20:19

Oz Guinness and to this topic are Probably the kind of people who are toward the the war field in ilk of human being which is a peculiar sort of person that isn't like Hermann and You you need to be aware that you can lose precious young People by not as Edwards would say having affections that correspond to the glory of your affirmations

20:56

There must be a correlation or something's not going to click in young people's lives

21:08

The experience in Germany made a lasting impact on him and on the way he carried mercy the mercy the rest of his life he said again and again that he respected and he sympathized with Modernists who could honestly not believe in a bodily resurrection from the dead

21:25

Nor that the Bible was inerrant nor that Jesus was born of a virgin Provided they said it and Didn't stay in churches where it wasn't believed

21:43

That's what made him angry quote There is my real quarrel with them referring to some of the

21:50

Faculty Union in New York There's my real quarrel with them as for their difficulties with the

21:57

Christian faith. I have profound sympathy for them, but not with their

22:04

Contemptuous treatment of the Conscientious men who believe that a creed solemnly subscribed to is more than a scrap of paper

22:15

He wanted to deal with people straight up argument for argument honestly his struggle with people

22:25

Who were struggling? Was very empathetic 20 years after his

22:30

German experience. He wrote some of us Have been through such struggle ourselves some of us have known the blankness of doubt the deadly discouragement the perplexity of indecision the vacillation between faith diversified by doubt and doubt diversified by faith

22:53

Now Machen came through Without losing his evangelical faith

22:58

And he was called to Princeton to teach New Testament which he did from 1906 until he left in 1929 and incidentally in regard to this morning's comment.

23:08

He never got any advanced degree Beyond Princeton me neither did by the way

23:17

FF Bruce beyond his masters and Numerous others that there is no necessary correlation between insight and degrees

23:26

Most of the worst teachers in the world have PhDs. There is no correlation between Pedagogical ability and advanced training they are in two totally separate

23:38

Worlds and the same is true with passion. The same is true with orthodoxy The only thing a

23:44

PhD does is certify you in the guild. That's all it guarantees and that isn't much he came to embrace conservative reformed orthodoxy a

23:57

Strong apologist now for biblical Christianity and an internationally acclaimed

24:02

New Testament scholar with his book The origin of Paul's religion. It was still a textbook at Fuller in 1968 when

24:09

I studied it with RK Harrison The virgin birth of Christ still in print and and used today now two decades he was at Princeton teaching and And those two decades 1906 29 were the decades that we all know about as the controversy between fundamentalism and modernism that's when it was raging to the fullest and he

24:40

Made a very distinctive contribution to that debate and what

24:45

I want to do is I think get at him by contrasting his engagement of modernism with fundamentalism because you can't understand him if you only see him as one species of what's known as Fundamentalism least

25:04

I don't I don't think that Can be done. He was seen as an ally and he was an ally to fundamentalism

25:12

He was blasted as as guilty by association By those who were the enemies of fundamentalism he never would accept the term himself

25:25

Here's Stonehouse's definition of fundamentalists People who quote single out certain great facts and doctrines the fundamentals that had come under particular attack and were concerned then to emphasize their truth and defend them in quote

25:46

Now there's a lot more to it than that and H and didn't like it Here's what he said

25:53

Do you suppose that I do regret being called by a term that I greatly dislike a fundamentalist?

26:01

I most certainly do regret it but in the presence of a great common foe.

26:08

I Have little time to be attacking my brethren who stand with me in the defense of the

26:15

Word of God So there you there you hear the balance of yes and no to fundamentalism

26:20

Here's what he did not like about it These were his characteristics one the absence of a historical perspective

26:28

To the lack of appreciation for scholarship three the substitution of brief skeletal creeds for historic confessions for the lack of concern for precise formulation of Christian doctrine five

26:45

Pietistic perfectionistic tendencies, let me just insert just to give you a glimpse here for somebody like me that grew up In a home that I would call fundamentalist and and love it prize it cherish it wouldn't choose any other home to grow it up in never have joined the people at fuller where I was kicking against that prick and Using nasty language and talking like an adolescent till you're 40 years old about how bad everything was in fundamentalism

27:13

I have no patience with that kind of debunking at all But it took a while for me to get adjusted that there could be

27:20

Christians who smoke Listen to this listen to this quote 1905

27:29

He's just finishing up at Princeton. The fellows are in my room now on the last

27:34

Sunday night Smoking the cigars and eating the oranges which has been the greatest delight

27:41

I have ever had to provide whenever possible My idea of delight is a

27:48

Princeton room full of fellows smoking When I when

27:56

I think what a wonderful aid tobacco is to friendship and Christian patience

28:01

I Have sometimes regretted that I never began to smoke.

28:09

I mean, I Think I can read that now Takes my breath away my fundamentalist breath away

28:19

Literally as and and it's killing about 40 ,000 people a year who don't smoke but go to work with those who do well enough

28:30

I'm I still believe in all those things six one -sided other worldliness

28:39

Seven a penchant for futuristic killa ism premillennialism

28:45

He didn't like it. He was an all -millennial. So those were the things that set him off from from fundamentalism

28:52

He was on one side and they were on the other but when it came to the modernists They were like two peas in a pod as far as he was concerned

29:01

Now There's a deeper issue For why he did not align himself with the fundamentalist and this is important because this gets to the root of how he tackled

29:13

Modernism in his day and I hope the definition of modernism will come out in in a few minutes more clearly perhaps than it has

29:20

Been so far He went deeper than the fundamentalists and he went broader than the fundamentalists and he owed his ability to do that to Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield February 16 1921 halfway through his time at Princeton Machen I Mean Warfield died

29:49

Machen wrote home to his mother with all his glaring faults. He was the greatest man

29:55

I ever knew In 1909 on the 400th anniversary of John Calvin's birth

30:04

Warfield gave a great address to the faculty and others gathered to celebrate that event on Calvinism and it

30:17

Struck to the very depths of Machen's mind and heart what Warfield said on that day

30:26

What he said in essence was that? Calvinism is not a species of Christian theism alongside others it is

30:39

Christianity come to full flower quote

30:45

Calvinism is not a specific variety of theistic thought or religious experience or evangelical faith

30:52

But just the perfect manifestation of these things The difference between it and other forms of theism religion