Editorial Keynotes

Much time and considerable feeling have, in the past, been expended over controversial details of prophecy or doctrine, with little ultimate hope of changing the contrary-minded, and with scant possibility of value even if accomplished. All this arises out of an unfortunate distortion of values; it springs from confusion of essentials with secondaries, of verities with spec­ulations. The first are foundational, the second are only and ever relative. Meantime the facts remain:

1. That while we differ and consume time in meeting one another's argu­ments on such secondaries, we become unfitted to save the souls of men who are dying in the darkness of sin all about us. Controversial doctrinarians are not successful soul winners. They are apt to discourage or drive away more than they win. And their con­cern over secondaries usually arises because of absence of the primaries from the central place in their lives.

2. That no man is saved by an ab­solutely correct knowledge of doctrine or prophecy, even if such knowledge could be obtained. He is saved by a living, personal faith in the simple but full redemption offered in Christ. That is man's sole hope of salvation and heaven.

Doctrine and prophecy are needed in order to understand the truths of God and to avoid the errors of Satan. But when the eons of eternity have superseded these days of time, proph­ecies will cease forever. There will be no more need nor place for them. They will have served their full and blessed purpose. There will then be no more perversions to expose, no more controversies to foretell. Our doctrinal platform will have achieved its grand objective. The things we must now hold by faith, we can then comprehend by simple sight. The ex­igencies of this period of time and sin will have passed forever, met by the full and final provisions of God.

But that moment will never come when the basic provisions of salvation —the fundamental relationships of the soul to Christ—will terminate. They will undergird all relationships be­tween Creator and creature, both hi time and in eternity. Thus they will never expire by limitation; they can never be outgrown. So long as the redeemed live with God in eternity, will these essential verities remain as the basis of that blessed relationship, for Christianity is in essence and ac­tuality a glorious, living relationship to Christ, and not a mere mental as­sent to a body of correct teaching. Christianity has such a body of teach­ing, and every sincere Christian should seek to competently understand that teaching; but the subtle danger lies in contentment with a conscious ortho­doxy, that may be fatally destitute of the one thing that gives orthodoxy any value whatsoever. The form without the life is but vain mockery.

Let us therefore put first things first in thought, word, and act. Let us put the primary emphasis where it belongs in our teaching. Nor will that leave the other needful, helpful things un­done. Prophecy and doctrine are es­sential in their divinely assigned place. Let there be no confusion here. Proph­ecy informs, but it does not save. It is Jesus only who can save. And we are sent not merely to inform, but to bring men to Christ, the Saviour. Doc­trines codify truth and segregate er­ror. But doctrines do not save. It is Jesus alone who saves, for He only can forgive, and keep, and deliver.

Therefore, in the exposition of all prophecy or doctrine, preach Christ, —His sinless life, His vicarious death, His triumphant resurrection, His blessed ascension, His sovereign in­tercession, His indwelling presence in the lives of His children, and His im­minent, glorious return; preach the full provision of God for deliverance from sin,—its guilt, its power, and ultimately its very presence and pos­sibility. It is the Christ of the mes­sage who saves. Let us tell it forth.

L. E. F