TRUE SCIENCE CAME FIRST

FAITH AND HISTORY: AS TO NATURE AND INTERPRETATION-TRUE SCIENCE TAKES FAITH

Psalm 19

"Therein the elders had witness borne to them. By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear."—HEBREWS 11:2-3

            True science has been taken over by a false religion as this article will point out. Hold on for further details.

            By the quotation from Habakkuk, the writer of this letter has declared faith to be the true philosophy of life: "My righteous one shall live by faith." He has, moreover, defined faith in the abstract. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen." In the rest of this chapter 11 we have abounding illustrations of the power and the victory of faith. The writer has selected his illustrations from the stream of history, from Abel to Jesus. The consummation is reached, not in the eleventh, but the twelfth chapter.

            In the words of our text, before dealing with personalities, he shows faith in its relation to human history as a whole. I know of no passage which has suffered more from misunderstanding, due to faulty translation. Let us, therefore, follow three lines of consideration, first attempting a careful examination of the passage itself then observing the statement of its double declaration. So we shall find its interpretation of history.

            I have dogmatically said that this passage has been misunderstood largely through faulty translation. Notice first of all that the writer says, "Therein the elders had witness borne to them." The Old Version read, "Through faith the elders obtained a good report." Some may say those two translations mean the same thing. They may, but they may be very different. The Authorized Version suggests a record concerning the elders. When we went to school, we took home at the end of the year a good report—at least some did—but it was a report! That is how we have understood this; the elders had a good report. Their marks were good. But if we take the translation, "the elders had witness borne to them," not about them, but to them, the form suggests a record the elders gained, and received; a good report, they had witness made to them and from the right source. They were not talking. They were listening. They were not reading something said about them. They were listening to something said to them. "Through faith the elders had witness borne to them." I do not object to the old rendering, provided we understand the meaning of the word "obtained."

            Then again. "By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God." That is constantly understood as a reference to the material universe, to creation, a reference to the great phrase, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." That is a glaring error. The word used is not "worlds," but "ages." "By faith we understand that the ages have been framed by the word of God." The word refers to a time element, not to a material structure. It does not refer to the cosmos materially, but to the passing of time, the passing of ages. Modern science has to change the ages to conform to their thinking and thereby the faith of their religion. They have to make up a new framing for the ages. (A day is a day to God not millions of years.)

            Here, then, the writer says that by faith we understand that the ages were framed by the word of God. At the beginning of this letter the writer says: "God . . . hath spoken unto us in his Son . . . through whom also he made the worlds." There is the same mistake. It is "through whom he fashioned the ages." The declaration of the writer, here, is that by faith we understand those periods, as they come and go do not arise out of circumstances which cannot finally explain any age. He is therefore totally in control of not only this age, but the past ages, and those that are to come.

            These changes in translation are of utmost importance to the true viewpoint of the great declaration made here by the writer. Let us now take those two declarations and consider them.

            The writer first said, Faith is the attitude which has made possible the reception of a revelation, and so witness was made. Through faith the elders gained, obtained news, a report, a statement, a revelation. Yes, in that sense faith obtained it, but they obtained it through faith. At once we are brought face to face with the philosophy of the passing of time, and the passing of every age; and also with the method by which we have obtained the statement found in Holy Scripture. It is that statement which makes us still believe in Genesis, in spite of all criticism of Genesis. These elders obtained a report, they had a revelation. They were told how, in and through faith, the revelation came. But oh how the religion of science today discredits and even ignores its simple statements. They have framed a new definition on the ages.

            What was faith in the elders case? It was an activity which ceased speculation, and found God, an activity that was no longer content to (examine) events and circumstances and matter and material. That activity may be perfectly right in its place. But this was an activity which was no longer content to dissolve the earth and universe into their component parts, and then taking some component part, again dissolve it. This was not the activity that knocked at one door of the atom only, revealing each secret force vibrant with motion. They were men who turned aside from this, and said, When we have discovered the constituent parts of the universe, and the mystery of every particle of that universe; and have discovered the mystery; when we stand confronted with that which baffles us, we are touching God. Because they passed from the realm of speculation into the realm of listening, the writer could speak of them and say that they had obtained a good report. They obtained an account of the nature of man. They obtained a revelation of the method of divine government. They obtained a record of how things came into being. They obtained an interpretation that ever grew through the passing of those very ages into clearer showing of the nature and character of God most importantly. Then all the other facts obtained made sense but now they form their own facts upon a false faith.

            The nature and character of God were never discovered by speculation. We cannot discover any emotion by speculation or investigation. The mystery of law and government wraps us round everywhere. Not by investigation, but by faith we know; and faith obtains a good report. To that attitude God can speak.

            The word "elders" here is synonymous with the word "fathers" in the first chapter. We could translate in our language "presbyter." In the past God spoke to the fathers, the elders, in divers portions and manners. They were men of faith, who came to the conclusion that "nothing can be finally explained until God is found." By faith in God they obtained a good report, witness was made.

            Take the other declaration, "By faith we understand." What do we understand? We understand that the things seen "hath not been made out of things which do appear." By faith we understand that these ages have been framed by the word of God. "By faith we understand." We remember Tennyson's line:

"We have but faith; we cannot know."

            Never was there a more untrue statement made. That is modern sciences view of the man of faith who understands. The truth is we now have faith, and so we can know. That is a very different thing. That is what this writer says, "By faith we understand." That word "understand" simply means we exercise the mind. The mind may be exercised with God shut out, but no discovery is made as to the secret of the universe, or the character of God, or the nature of man. And that is where modern science is today. But by faith we understand. Faith is apprehension. It is the rational attitude of the soul. When faith has found God it has found the realm of reason. Faith is never, credulity (that is the avenue of modern science). "By faith we understand." Faith appeals to the intelligence. Faith interprets, and so we understand.

            What is it we understand? I come back to the word so full of significance. "By faith we understand that the ages have been framed by the word of God." True science knowledge incorporates God, and does not deny that He created from nothing. This is a most stupendous statement. What are the ages? Periods of time, and they are always unlimited. An age does not necessarily mean a certain period of time. It is an interesting and revealing study in scientific investigation to read about the Stone age, and the Bronze age, and the Iron age. They are supposed to have succeeded each other, and very likely that is true. There was the early age, the Stone age, when men began out of the rocks to make weapons and tools, and so use the stones. These were not monkies that just stood erect, they were true scientists. That age had its period, how long we do not know; and it was succeeded by the Bronze age, when metals began to be understood and intermixed, so that better tools and instruments were made. Then came the most cruel and hardest age in human history, the Iron age.

            Again, I take up my Bible and see there the ages. The Stone age, the geological age of Stone. There the mind of man was working on the material, and there came the dawning of understanding in him. God was fashioning the age, whether it be of stone, or of bronze, or of iron. I stand behind this Book, this marvelous and miraculous Literature, and glance at the ages.
       There are ages, some longer and some shorter. Let us summarize them. There was the age of Innocence. Then sin, entered, and there followed the age of Conscience. That broke down and failed, and there broke the age inaugurated by the call of Abram, the age of Faith. That ran on over centuries, and when that was failing another age dawned, the age of Law, which continued until Christ came. That is the meaning of that New Testament word that the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Rather, it was our guardian, our custodian. The law took us into custody. The nearest approach to the Greek word there is the word pedagogue. In the olden day he was the guardian, who saw that the boy attended the lessons of his teacher, and looked after him. The nearest approach to the pedagogue of the Greek time is the tutor at our universities. He does not teach, but is watching over students, advising them what lectures to take, and seeing that they attend—at least, he tries to do so! In that sense the law was our custodian until Christ. We are well aware of what happens when mens intelligence turns away from Christ and His custodian.

            The age of the Christ lasted thirty-three years, just a generation in human history. Then, the age of the Spirit. We are living now in that age. We might correctly call it the age of the Church, for the Church is the body through whom the Spirit works. We might call it the age of Grace.

            But there is another age, the age of Consummation, or the Golden age. Here they pass before us in this Biblical literature, the differing ages. By faith, the activity of our mind convinces us that God arranged all these ages; indeed He has framed them. He has fashioned them. The word "framed" may correctly be rendered fashioned completely by the word of God.
       Here "the word of God" is not the word logos, but rhemati—a fiat. God commanded, God ordained, God said, "Let there be," and there was. In the creation of order seen in Genesis 1, He was commanding; and no word of God lacks power. Through all these running ages as they come and go, change and pass, the ultimate interpretation of every age is God.

            Some may say to me: Are you not putting a lot of blame on God? There have been ages characterized by the uttermost cruelty, and you say that God framed them? Certainly, but that needs to be taken a step further. Look over the field of history from this standpoint, and we should remember there are certain facts that stand out clearly revealed. The first is this: Confining ourselves to the history of this literature, all history reveals the faithfulness of God to His own creation in the freedom of "human will." God is seen here, but I read through, and watch, and I see the human will is free, free to obey, free to disobey. Free to trust His science or form their own view. God has created man, and has so fashioned the ages that they revolve around that central and marvelous mystery of the human will, with power to choose and elect. But God is revealed.

            The second thought revealed is that of the maintenance of the authority of God as symbolized in the Garden of Eden at the beginning. Man was put into the Garden, and two things were said to him. "Thou mayest" and "Thou shalt not." "Thou mayest freely eat of every tree of the garden." It is the great charter of freedom. Thou shalt not eat of this one tree. That is the word that marks limitation and restriction of liberty, under the authority of God. God has never abandoned man. It has been true in all history and of the human race. Man has been free to obey or to disobey; to recognize or to rebel, to trust His science or form their own; but we have never been away from His authority.

            That leads us a step further. The choices of humanity are worked out always to their logical conclusion, because this is a moral universe. It is in that fact that this is a moral universe that we recognize the government of God. He has fashioned the ages. He is always there. We cannot escape Him in any realm. Break a law, any law—I do not mean necessarily the Decalogue, or even the Sermon on the Mount—break law, and we have smashed God's universe.
           God is forevermore seen reigning, ruling. All human disaster is the result of human choice, worked out to its necessary issue. It is this compelling force of God's order that is making it so. God fashions the ages, but we are free. We can, if we like, take a philosophy that says that the ideals of Christ are the ideals of weakness. Such choose deliberately, and throw overboard the Man of Nazareth, and substitute the man of the mailed fist. Such teaching of the human race permeates the whole of it.

            I speak now with reverence. Says God: Very well, you are free; but remember this, that your choice will work itself out to a harvest which is inherent in your choice. One harvest came in 1914, and the misery and muck of war were due to a philosophy that had turned its back upon Christ. That philosophy followed with a 2^nd World war. Those two wars came due to the men’s leadership of countries that supported this philosophy of the fist. It goes on, and it works out in that way, because God is there, and He has created a moral universe in which man is free within limits; and the freedom of the will at last works out to the inevitable conclusion of the thing chosen, and that because God is governing.

            That is the conviction of faith, and it is that confidence in the unseen that gives us conviction concerning things hoped for. We cannot escape Browning at this point:

"That, after Last, returns the First;

Though a wide compass round be fetched;

That what began best, can't end worst,

Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst?"

            In every age, as it succeeds, God is in it, molding it, and allowing man his choice; but so shutting him in to the moral of eternal principles that at last his choice, whether for good or evil, comes to the harvest. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man," or a nation, "soweth, that shall he also reap."

            Yet the last thing to say in this connection is this: All history shows—and this is the marvel of it—God is making possible recovery, in spite of pain. There is always a second chance. There are always forces available to humanity, wherein and whereby humanity may turn in repentance, and find recovery and grace, and so be enabled to move forward. It is the very fashioning of the passing ages that they are for evermore moving on toward that final age when that rule and reign shall be acknowledged, and when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Man might return to the true science based on faith, based on truth and thereby receive a good report!!!