James Denney on 'Intolerance'
Having just got back, I am first of all very tired, and secondly very busy (preaching last night, to-morrow, term begins on Tuesday). So, before I begin any original writing here (that is a loose term, some of my 'original writing' is re-hashed material from my College Summer Project), here is James Denney.
"The doctrine of the death of Christ and its significance was not St. Paul's theology, it was his gospel. It was all he had to preach. It is with it in his mind - immediately after the mention of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present world with all its evils - that he says to the Galatians: 'Though we or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you contravening the gospel which we preached, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so say I now again, if any man is preaching a gospel to you contravening what you recieved, let him be anathema' (Gal. i.4,8 f.). I cannot agree with those who disparage this, or affect to forgive it, as the unhappy beginning of religious intolerance. Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament has any conception of a religion without this intolerance. The first commendment is, 'Thou shalt have none other gods beside Me,' and that is the foundation of the true religion. As there is only one God, so there can be only one gospel. If God has really done something in Christ on which the salvation of the world depends, and if he has made it known, then it is a Christian duty to be intolerant of everything which ignores, denies, or explains it away. The man who perverts it is the worst enemy of God and men; and it is not bad temper or narrowmindedness in St. Paul which explains this vehement language, it is the jealousy of God which has kindled in a soul redeemed by the death of Christ in a corresponding jealousy for the Saviour. It is intolerent only as Peter is intolerent when he says, 'Neither is there salvation in any other' (Acts iv. 12), or John, when he says, 'He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life' (I John v. 12); or Jesus Himself when He says, 'No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him' (Matt. xi. 27). Intolerance like this is an essential element in the true religion; it is the instinct of self-presevation in it; the unforced and uncompromising defence of that on which the golory of God and the salvation of the world depends. If the evangelist has not something to preach of which he can say, if any man makes it his business to subvert this, let him be anathema, he has no gospel at all. Intolerance in this sense has its counterpart in comprehension; it is when we have the only gospel, and not till then, that we have the gospel for all. It is a great argument, therefore, for the essential as opposed to the casual or accidental character of St. Paul's teaching on Christ's death - for it is with this that the epistle to the Galatians is concerned - that he displays his intolerance in connection with it. To touch his teaching here is not to do something which leaves his gospel unaffected; as he understands it, it is to wound his gospel mortally."
James Denney, The Death of Christ (Fifth edition, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1905) Pp. 110-111
"The doctrine of the death of Christ and its significance was not St. Paul's theology, it was his gospel. It was all he had to preach. It is with it in his mind - immediately after the mention of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present world with all its evils - that he says to the Galatians: 'Though we or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you contravening the gospel which we preached, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so say I now again, if any man is preaching a gospel to you contravening what you recieved, let him be anathema' (Gal. i.4,8 f.). I cannot agree with those who disparage this, or affect to forgive it, as the unhappy beginning of religious intolerance. Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament has any conception of a religion without this intolerance. The first commendment is, 'Thou shalt have none other gods beside Me,' and that is the foundation of the true religion. As there is only one God, so there can be only one gospel. If God has really done something in Christ on which the salvation of the world depends, and if he has made it known, then it is a Christian duty to be intolerant of everything which ignores, denies, or explains it away. The man who perverts it is the worst enemy of God and men; and it is not bad temper or narrowmindedness in St. Paul which explains this vehement language, it is the jealousy of God which has kindled in a soul redeemed by the death of Christ in a corresponding jealousy for the Saviour. It is intolerent only as Peter is intolerent when he says, 'Neither is there salvation in any other' (Acts iv. 12), or John, when he says, 'He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life' (I John v. 12); or Jesus Himself when He says, 'No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him' (Matt. xi. 27). Intolerance like this is an essential element in the true religion; it is the instinct of self-presevation in it; the unforced and uncompromising defence of that on which the golory of God and the salvation of the world depends. If the evangelist has not something to preach of which he can say, if any man makes it his business to subvert this, let him be anathema, he has no gospel at all. Intolerance in this sense has its counterpart in comprehension; it is when we have the only gospel, and not till then, that we have the gospel for all. It is a great argument, therefore, for the essential as opposed to the casual or accidental character of St. Paul's teaching on Christ's death - for it is with this that the epistle to the Galatians is concerned - that he displays his intolerance in connection with it. To touch his teaching here is not to do something which leaves his gospel unaffected; as he understands it, it is to wound his gospel mortally."
James Denney, The Death of Christ (Fifth edition, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1905) Pp. 110-111
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