By
A. W. Tozer
There is scarcely anything so dull and meaningless as
Bible doctrine taught for its own sake. Truth divorced from life is
not truth in its Biblical sense, but something else and something
less. Theology is a set of facts concerning God, man and the world.
These facts may be, and often are, set forth as values in
themselves; and there lies the snare both for the teacher and for
the hearer.
The Bible is among other things a book of revealed
truth. That is, certain facts are revealed that could not be
discovered by the most brilliant mind. These facts are of such a
nature as to be past finding out. They were hidden behind a veil,
and until certain men who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost
took away that veil, no mortal man could know them. This lifting of
the veil of unknowing from undiscoverable things we call divine
revelation.
The Bible, however, is more than a volume of hitherto
unknown facts about God, man and the universe. It is a book of
exhortation based upon those facts. By far the greater portion of
the book is devoted to an urgent effort to persuade people to alter
their ways and bring their lives into harmony with the will of God
as set forth in its pages.
No man is better for knowing that God in the
beginning created the heavens and the earth. The devil knows that,
and so did Ahab and Judas Iscariot. No man is better for knowing
that God so loved the world of men that he gave his only begotten
Son to die for their redemption. In hell there are millions that
know that. Theological truth is useless until it is obeyed. The
purpose behind all doctrine is to secure moral action.
What is generally overlooked is that truth as set
forth in the Christian Scriptures is a moral thing; it is not
addressed to the intellect only, but to the will also. It addresses
itself to the total man, and its obligations cannot be discharged by
grasping it mentally. Truth engages the citadel of the human heart
and is not satisfied until it has conquered everything there. The
will must come forth and surrender its sword. It must stand at
attention to receive orders, and those orders it must joyfully obey.
Short of this any knowledge of Christian truth is inadequate and
unavailing.
Bible exposition without moral application raises no
opposition. It is only when the hearer is made to understand that
truth is in conflict with his heart that resistance sets in. As long
as people can hear orthodox truth divorced from life they will
attend and support churches and institutions without objection. The
truth is a lovely song, become sweet by long and tender association;
and since it asks nothing but a few dollars, and offers good music,
pleasant friendships and a comfortable sense of well-being, it meets
with no resistance from the faithful. Much that passes for New
Testament Christianity is little more than objective truth sweetened
with song and made palatable by religious entertainment.
Probably no other portion of the Scriptures can
compare with the Pauline Epistles when it comes to making artificial
saints. Peter warned that the unlearned and unstable would wrest
Paul’s writings to their own destruction, and we have only to visit
the average Bible Conference and listen to a few lectures to know
what he meant. The ominous thing is that the Pauline doctrines may
be taught with complete faithfulness to the letter of the text
without making the hearers one whit better. The teacher may, and
often does, so teach the truth as to leave the hearers without a
sense of moral obligation.
One reason for the divorce between truth and life
maybe the lack of the Spirit’s illumination. Another surely is the
teacher’s unwillingness to get himself into trouble. Any man with
fair pulpit gifts can get on with the average congregation if he
just “feeds” them and lets them alone. Give them plenty of objective
truth and never hint that they are wrong and should be set right,
and they will be content.
On the other hand, the man who preaches truth and
applies it to the lives of his hearers will feel the nails and the
thorns. He will lead a hard life, but a glorious one. May God raise
up many such prophets. The church needs them badly.
