A Brief Statement and Defense of Original Sin

In his delightful labor, Reformed Dogmatics, Herman Bavinck writes, “The point of the “fall” narrative in Genesis is to point to the human desire for autonomy from God. To “know good and evil” is to become the determiner of good and evil; it is to decide for oneself what is right and wrong and not submit to any external law. In short, to seek the knowledge of good and evil is to desire emancipation from God; it is to want to be “like God.” The temptation and fall of man is a tragedy that no human being is capable of escaping. Man’s desire was a desire planted in his mind by the fallen angel, Lucifer. And Lucifer’s fall was along the very same lines as man’s fall. Lucifer sought to surpass the greatness of the glory of his Maker. Adam, no less than Lucifer found the idea seemingly irresistible. He bought the story hook, like, and forbidden fruit.

In terms of the narrative laid down in Genesis, one has only two choices. Either the narrative is a straightforward account of actual history or it is myth or some other genre. The trouble with taking Genesis any other way than simple, honest historical narrative is that there seems to be no good reason offered by those who take it as such, that does not itself reduce to an arbitrary rescuing device designed to save their prior philosophical commitments. There are no objective literary rules that lend themselves to the view that this account is legend, myth or even poetry. The literature and grammar of the text demand historical narrative as the genre. The only way to arrive at any other conclusion is to formulate a philosophical approach to Scripture as a whole that is informed by something other than Scripture itself, say modern historical critical methods that are themselves entangled in numerous difficulties, contradictions, and obvious controversies. The fact is that the historical character of Genesis 3 has been something that the Church has maintained for centuries. Only in the shadows of modernity do we have competing views offered for what the account actually reflects. One has to ask if such modern notions are the product of faithfulness to the biblical text, or perhaps the outcome of unbelief borne out of the very fall it seeks to interpret.

Orthodox Christianity has held that the temptation and subsequent fall of Adam and Eve into sin was an actual historical event that happened just as Genesis describes. John Frame tells us, “The normative definition of sin (“sin is lawlessness, 1 Jn. 3:4) is often prominent in Scripture, especially because the first sin was disobedience to a specific divine command. Adam decided to reject the law of God in place of his own law. We do not have to observe humanity very long before we see men doing the very same thing today. There is an enormous distaste for law even within the ranks of the Christian community. Men despise an overpowering imposition, even if it is God’s overpowering imposition. Observe how Christ is offered to men in modern times. There idea that God demands repentance and complete surrender has been displaced and God is not pictured as a kind old father begging people to just give him a chance and if they do, he will show them just how happy and satisfied he can make them. That is NOT the gospel! But that is what you hear, or nearly hear, in nearly every Church in the Western hemisphere. That message is designed to accommodate the law-hating reality that is at the very core of humanity. Sin is lawlessness.

John Gill writes, “Adam, being the common parent of mankind, may be considered as the ground of the derivation of a corrupt nature to them.” He goes on to say, “Adam stood in the relation of a federal head to his posterity.” As a result of the fall, Scripture reveals that all men now are born guilty and corrupt before an infinitely holy God. This guilt is what we refer to in theology as reatus poenae. We are born in the state of being found guilty as criminals in relation to the divine law.  This condition we designate original guilt. Death serves as the overwhelming evidence for this doctrine. Paul tells us that sin entered the world through one man and infected everyone and we see this is the case because all men die. Paul tells us that through the transgression of one man, all men became condemned. Through one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners. It was not through actual transgression that we were condemned and made to be sinners but rather through Adam who stands as our federal head. In Adam, all die. (Rom 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:22)

Not only are we born into this world with original guilt, we are also born into a state of original corruption. Eph. 2:3 explains that all men live in the lusts of their flesh, indulging in the desires of the flesh and mind, and are by nature children of wrath. Berkhof writes, “But original sin is not merely negative; it is also an inherent positive disposition toward sin.” (Systematic Theology) Col. 1:21 informs us that all men are alienated from God, hostile in mind and engaged in evil deeds. That an infant is born in this state is exegetically irrefutable. Just as Adam was created in the image of God and then corrupted that image, Seth was born in the corrupted image of his father and his children after him and their children after them. Paul described this condition in more detail in the New Testament. In Romans 8:7, he informs us that the mind that is set on the flesh (all unregenerate minds) is hostile toward God and it does not submit to the law of God and indeed is not even able to do so. The reason this is the case has nothing to do with what men do, but rather, what men are from birth. Men are born natural haters of God. That is the state of original pollution or corruption into which all men are born. Francis Turretin, in his Institutes writes, “The necessity of regeneration without which no one can see the kingdom of God (Jn. 3:3). For why ought men to be renewed by regeneration unless he is naturally corrupt by generation?” Paul, writing to the Corinthian Church says, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” (1 Cor. 2:14) All men are natural men until the Spirit of God regenerates their being.

“There is, indeed, nothing that man’s nature seeks more eagerly than to be flattered.” (John Calvin, The Institutes) We see, even in my dispute with Dan Trabue, one position that elevates humanity, giving it the greatest benefit of the doubt, even placing it in a position to make moral judgments about how God handles His own guilty creation, juxtaposed against my position, which seeks to exonerate and defend the actions of the Creator as, set down in Sacred Scripture. Calvin writes, “Yet it is at the same time to be noted that the first man revolted from God’s authority, not only because he was seized by Satan’s blandishments, but also because, contemptuous of truth, he turned aside to falsehood. And surely, once we hold God’s Word in contempt, we shake off all reverence for him.” Indeed, the denial that Scripture is binding, authoritative, authored by God for a very unique purpose is nothing short of holding God in contempt. “Therefore all of us, who have descended from impure seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin. In fact, before we saw the light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God’s sight.” (Calvin, see Job 14:4)

Modernism, and I speak of the philosophy, seeks to elevate man above his supposed ancient religious superstitions. The law of God is viewed as an ancient mechanism produced by evolution designed to preserve men until he could evolve into a more enlightened state. Once there, man could discard such silly mechanism and replace them with things like science. In so doing, man has simply replaced one religious commitment with another. Science seeks to displace the sort of laws found in religious ideals like the law of God. Just like Adam, man desires to remove the weight of the law of God and wants to replace it with a law of his own. That is, man wants to determine for himself what is good and evil. The corruption that began so long ago in the garden continues to express itself to even much greater degrees in our own day. The denial of original sin is a denial of the force and binding nature of the law of God itself. It is a doctrine that seeks complete freedom from the Creator. Jesus warned that lawlessness would increase in the last days. Paul tells us that the man of lawlessness must be revealed before the second coming of our Lord. Sometimes I wonder if the man of lawlessness is more like an ideal state or condition of mankind in general as he seeks to destroy any traces of the law of God in his own existence.

If Dan is right and original sin is a false doctrine, then one has to wonder in great bewilderment how sin has become so pervasive. If he is right, what need have we of a Savior or Redeemer? If man is a sinner because he sins and there is nothing corrupt about his natural state, then it follows that he could, if he willed, avoid sin altogether. And if that is actually the state of affairs that has obtained, Christianity is nothing more than a superfluous religion that is in some ways very fascinating, but in others quite insane.

Original sin points us back to the place of the law of God and its prominence in the reality of human affairs. For the Church, original sin reminds us of our desperate need for a Savior, a Redeemer, One Who will rescue us from our helpless condition. However, this also points out the need for the Church to never leave behind such topics in her preaching, her teaching, and her discipleship. The lawlessness we see in the Church is more than just a little disturbing. Christian pastors, teachers, and Christians mock law keeping all across the Church. It is as if grace has destroyed the idea of divine law. Yet, John tells us that those who claim to love God but who refuse to obey His law are liars. How can it be that the Church has come to hate the law of God so intensely? Many ignorantly refer to divine law keeping as legalism. One pastor I know constantly framed it up as list keeping. Moreover, because he was too vague in what he meant, people thought that Christianity had no ethic by which to order practical living. The love of God expressed in Christ points to the law of God violated by humanity. Christ did not come to negate the divine law. He upheld the law of God. He fulfilled the Law of Moses. Christians without law cannot be a city set on a hill for all to see.

The denial of original sin is a denial of biblical Christianity. The denial of the binding and authoritative nature of Scripture is a denial of biblical Christianity. The denial of God’s righteous nature in how He judges unbelievers, even young ones, is a denial of biblical Christianity. The denial of God’s design for marriage is a denial of biblical Christianity. The endorsement of gay sex under any circumstances is a rejection and denial of law of God over the area of human sexuality and is itself a denial of biblical Christianity. For this reason, the Church, throughout the centuries and from her early beginning, insisted on basic confessions of belief before she would either baptize or receive into membership anyone claiming to know Christ. We must purge the heretical leaven from the Church because it spreads like a cancer and will infect the entire body eventually and the results will be nothing short of cataclysmic.

The Spin of Sin: The Sinister-Spinster-Sinner

As many of you know, I have been back and forth lately with Dan Trabue over a number of issues ^th century and to excommunicate those who refuse to receive said dogma with all humility. The purpose of this post is to show the reader how Dan claims one thing and thing tries to say that he is not claiming the very thing he is claiming. It is the same slight-of-hand nonsense we observed in men like Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt, and Brian McLaren.

related to the biblical expression of Christianity. Dan is one of those emergent guys, and he seems to think he can replace nearly every basic doctrine of historic Christian orthodoxy while retaining his identity as Christian. This is due in no small part to his uncritical acceptance of postmodern philosophy coupled with the Church’s true failure to rightly emphasize Christian dogma in the late 20

Dan’s first claim is that ANE writers did not write with the same aim of modern historians. What Dan means is that ANE writers were more concerned with doing something other than just transmitting historical facts as they occurred when they wrote. First of all, like any good slight of hand movement, there is some truth in the statement. However, the statement is much more controversial Dan admits. Second, the statement is far too general. Third, the statement assumes that the Ancient Hebrew Scriptures follow the ANE model in recording historical narrative, which also assumes that the motivation and forces behind the Hebrew Scriptures were the same as every other ANE text. That these assumptions are patently false seems obvious to anyone but those with the most extreme prejudice. Dan’s view destroys the universal fall humanity and, along with it, the doctrine of original sin. If there was no literal Adam to fall, there could be no literal, universal fall. If Adam was not the federal head of man, there was no federal head of man. If that is true, men can obtain righteousness and be saved apart from Christ by simply not sinning. Yet, Dan spins, claiming to believe that we are all sinners even though he has removed the very foundation for his own claims.

Luke Included Adam and Seth in his genealogy

I pointed out that Luke, in his genealogy of Christ, include Adam and Seth among the many other generations from Christ back to Adam. My reason for doing so was so that Dan might realize that Luke, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, accepted the view that Adam and Seth were historical people living at a point in time. Dan rejected Luke’s account although he provided no alternative explanation and then claimed that we do not know what God’s opinion of what Luke wrote might be. Now, if Dan believes Luke was wrong, he must also believe that God believes that Luke was wrong. Yet, he says we just don’t know God’s opinion of Luke’s account. I suppose Dan could argue that Luke mixes myth and legend into geological records while providing a certification of the historicity of Christ and his Messianic office. But such a move would seem to be, not just logically incoherent and absurd, it would be philosophically outrageous. Yet, Dan denies holding the view that Luke’s writings are unreliable. He wants to attest that Luke is reliable while claiming on this point that Luke was wrong, or in other words, unreliable. This is the two-faced spin that emergent thinkers love to play games with. They hold a view while claiming NOT to hold a view. How long did we know that Rob Bell rejected the Scriptures and endorsed homosexual sex before he finally came out and admitted it?

Dan has repeatedly said the Bible is not the Word of God and that the Scriptures are not binding, nor ipso facto, claiming that this was just Paul’s opinion. At the same time, Dan has attempted to employ a certain authority over me by informing me that I cannot slander him because slander is forbidden. I have to ask, by whom? Whose authority forbids me to slander? Oh, the same text that forbids slander is the text that Dan wants to argue in another place has no authority and is not binding. And then Dan wants people to believe that he really doesn’t believe the things I am accusing him of. Once again, we see the sinister spin of the sinister sinner at work. It really is outrageous and would be comical if it were not so wicked and rebellious.

authoritative on our lives. Having grown tired of generalities, I took Dan to Paul as he was pronouncing a curse on anyone who dared disagree with him on the gospel. Paul wrote with all authority on the matter. There can be no doubt that Paul, in the very least, was under the impression he had a right to claim that his version of the gospel was the standard and that no one had any right to proclaim even a slightly different one. Dan rejects Paul’s authority

In addition to Dan’s denial of a literal Adam which must mean a denial of a literal fall and the necessity for a literal redemption in Christ, Dan has denied the reliability of Luke along with the authority of Paul specifically and all of Scripture in general. At the same time, Dan wants us to believe that he is a Christian. Now, as one might guess, Dan also embraces homosexuality. Dan claims that marriage and sex are open to all that want it and that God is perfectly fine with such arrangements. I am sure Dan has read the supposed apologetic for gay Christianity and is familiar with those weak and ridiculous arguments. The point here is that gay sex is described by Scripture not only as a sin, but as a perversion of the natural design of the human body. And the larger point is that commandment breaking can never be a part of the Christian community regardless of how many OSAS hard-core dispensational guys preach that it can be. The view that Christ can be your Savior even though He is not your Lord crawled up out of the sewers of hell even if it did so through well-intentioned men. Dan’s endorsement of same-sex relationships precludes him from the community of faith even if he says that it does not.

In the end, due to Dan’s beliefs and their implications for Christian doctrine and their impact on the Christian community, we have to challenge his claim that he possesses genuine faith. Many people came along in the first century church making the same claims. But upon closer inspection, they were found out to be false teachers, false prophets, and false converts. The same is not any less true today. The difference is that today’s church hardly ever inspects a person’s claim to know Christ. They simply take it at face value and conduct no due diligence whatsoever. We have to be more prudent about how we conduct ourselves in the Christian community. We don’t start out doubting a person’s faith. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that new arrivals must be known. We spend time with them. We have conversations with them. We observe their life. What do they believe and how do they conduct themselves? When we begin to hear things that trouble us, we must push into those issues and understand more about their claims and beliefs. When we bump into guys like Dan, we engage in conversation and eventually end up where we have ended up. We ask the person to repent of their unbelieving views, submit to Scripture with all humility, and call on their elders to teach them a more pure form of the Christian system. When they are persistent in their refusal to accept and believe Christian dogma, we are equally persistent in refusing their testimony and view them as a wolf instead of a sheep. Those facts are published for the rest of the community so that everyone is aware and protected from those who would bring damnable heresies into the body of Christ. When men like Dan collect other cavils of like-mind and run down the street to start their own group, we treat them with contempt and shame, refusing to extend the slightest degree of respect and honor to them because they reflect a shameful and despicable version of Christianity that does far more harm than it does good to the Christian way.

Don't take the pictures too seriously. They are mere my way of interjecting a little sarcasm, you know, a literary device not to be taken overly literal. 

Karl Barth And Historic Christianity

An Article by Cornelius Van Til

In a previous article we have seen that Karl Barth rejects the Protestant doctrine of the Bible. Together with Modernism Barth makes no objection of principle to the negative criticism of Scripture.

In another article we have pointed out that Barth virtually rejects the creation doctrine. Together with Modernism Barth can make no objection of principle to evolutionism.

Keeping these two points in mind we cannot reasonably expect that Barth will stand squarely with orthodox theology against Modernism when the question of historic Christianity is at stake.

Yet here too Barth’s first and main attack seems to be against Modernism. Against those who hold that it really makes no difference whether Jesus actually lived and died and rose again, Barth insists: “The name of the Roman procurator in whose term of office Jesus Christ was crucified, proclaims: at such and such a point of historical time this happened.” Barth wants to burn down the house of modernist Christianity which is indifferent to historic facts.

Then too Barth wants to burn down the house of Modernism when it recognizes the “Jesus of history” but does not own Him as the unique and eternal Son of God. In this we rejoice.

The Sovereign God

But Barth thinks he cannot burn down the house of Modernism unless he also burns down the house of orthodox theology. And why does he think so?

The reason is that both Modernism and orthodox Christianity believe that in History we have the expression of God’s plan. Modernism holds that man in his own power works out his own program in history; orthodox Christianity holds that God through man realizes His program in history. These two programs are radically opposed to each other. We feel that allmen must naturally participate in the work of either the one or the other. We feel that men are for God if they oppose Modernism and against God if they favor it. Not so with Barth. He says we are against God if we hold to any sort of program or system, whether modernist or orthodox.

Barth tells us that he is preaching the doctrine of a sovereign God. Now a sovereign God, he feels, cannot and does not bind Himself to any program. A sovereign God, Barth holds, cannot and does not bind Himself even to a program that He Himself might devise. God would not be truly free if He had to act in accord with a program in history.

Creed And System

Now if God has not expressed Himself by way of a program in history the Bible is not the story telling us of the program of God. Thus if the church seeks to set forth in a Confession of Faith the system of truth taught in the Bible it is seeking to do the impossible. The church, in its “I believe” in which it attempts to set forth the content of the Word of God, must always be mindful of the “frontier” of the Sacrament, “through which the Church is reminded that all its words, even those blessed and authenticated by God’s Word and Spirit, can do no more than aim at that event itself, in which God in His reality has to do with man.” 

This position of Barth would condemn the Westminster divines as they wrote the Shorter Catechism definition of God in dependence upon the Bible no less than the Hegelian philosophers who wrote their definitions of God independently of the Bible.

Christ Our Contemporary

That Barth does not accept historic Christianity as it is portrayed to us in Scripture may be seen from the fact that he constantly speaks of Christ as our contemporary. In his recent book, Credo, Barth tells us briefly what he means by the facts that Christ was born, that He suffered, was crucified, dead, buried, raised again and seated at the right hand of God. Did these events take place a certain number ofyears ago on our calendar? Not at all, says Barth. Something, no doubt, did take place, at a specific time on the calendar, when Christ was born, buried and raised again. Yet this something that did happen in history was not the real thing, the important thing. The historical event could only point to the real event. The real event took place in “revelation time” which is not measured by our calendar. “So far as the Church lives by revelation and in faith, it lives contemporaneously with the divine act depicted in these Perfects.” By “these Perfects” Barth refers to “was crucified, dead, buried, raised again and seated at the right hand of God.”

According to Barth, then, we, to the extent that we are true Christians, live contemporaneously with the virgin birth of Christ, with His passion, His death, His resurrection, His ascension and His session at the right hand of God.On the other hand, we do not live contemporaneously with our neighbors to the extent that they are not true Christians.The contemporaneousness in which the church lives with the mighty saving act accomplished in Christ, has its reverse side; its non-contemporaneousness with the man of disobedience and disorder overcome in Christ. 

Now it goes without saying that we do live in the year 1937 with all our neighbors, Christian and non-Christian. It also goes without saying that the events of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation took place some nineteen hundred years ago. What Barth, means, then, by our living contemporaneously with Christ is something that is supposed to take place in some other realm than that of history. And it is in that other realm, according to Barth, that the real events of Christ’s mediatorial work take place.

The Virgin Birth

As a specific illustration of what Barth thinks of the facts of Christ’s life and death we mention his conception of the virgin birth. If a fundamentalist were to ask Barth, “Do you believe in the virgin birth of Christ?” he would no doubt answer promptly that he does. He might point to the fact that he has even defended this doctrine against his opponents.

But what does Barth mean by the virgin birth? He himself illustrates what he means by referring to the story of the healing of the man with the palsy. Jesus first said to this man: “Son, thy sins are forgiven,” and thereupon performed the miracle of healing. What was the relation between the forgiveness of sins and the miracle? We quote from Barth:As a matter of fact, there is no knowing to what extent the doctrine of the Incarnation could not be understood as self-substantiated, or to what extent it should, so far as content is concerned, be in need of supplementing from the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. But it certainly could not be said that the truth and power of the forgiveness of sins pronounced by Jesus (Mk 2:5) on the sick of the palsy was based on or increased by His afterwards (Mk 2:10) bidding him with such effect take up his bed and go home. Yet this story can manifestly not be read and understood without this miracle of healing. That order to the sick of the palsy is made, according to Mk 2:10: ‘That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins …’ This is exactly the relationship also between the mystery of the Incarnation and the miracle of the Virgin Birth. The miracle of the Virgin Birth has not ontic but noetic significance. It advertises what here takes place. As miracle in general, and now as just this special miracle, it is the watch before the door drawing our attention to the fact that we are here concerned with the mystery, with God’s free grace. 

According to Barth, then, the virgin birth which occurred in history is merely a sign-post pointing to the incarnation which itself does not take place in history. On this point, as on the point of the authority of Scripture, Barth could readily sign the Auburn Affirmation.

Pontius Pilate

In this connection someone may point out that Barth militates against any sort of “Gnostic Christ-idealism.” Does not Barth teach that what happened to Jesus Christ “happened at a definite and definitely assignable time within that time which is ours also”? This is true, but the virgin birth also occurred at a definitely assignable date while yet it had, according to Barth, no ontic but only noetic significance. By this he means that the virgin birth has no significance in the field of reality or being, but only in the field of knowledge. All the events of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation took place in our history, but they were merely sign-posts of the mysterious realities that lie not in our history.

The Resurrection

Barth has not materially changed his views on these matters. In Romans he wrote of the resurrection as follows: The Resurrection is therefore an occurrence in history, which took place outside the gates of Jerusalem in the year A.D. 30, inasmuch as it there ‘came to pass,’ was discovered and recognized. But inasmuch as the occurrence was conditioned by the Resurrection, in so far, that is, as it was not the ‘coming to pass,’ or the discovery, or the recognition, which conditioned its necessity and appearance and revelation, the Resurrection is not an event in history at all. 

The resurrection of Christ is in one sense an occurrence with an assignable date on our calendar, but this event merely points to the real event which takes place in “resurrection history.” in which there are no assignable dates, in which all “events” are contemporaneous. “What happens in the ‘raising’ of Christ in His resurrection from the dead is that He is now manifest in His supreme sovereignty.”⁵ 

The Ascension

That Barth really disposes of historic Christianity completely may be learned again from what he says about the ascension of Christ. We quote in full: So much is certain, that it, too, is to be estimated first of all as the ‘sign and wonder’ that accompanies the secret of the Christian faith in the act of its revelation. Ascension as visible exaltation—i.e. exaltation that is perceptible as vertical elevation in space—of Jesus Christ before the bodily eyes of His disciples is obviously not the way to that ascension at the right hand of God. For the right hand of God is no place, least of all a place to be reached by some sort of natural or supernatural way through atmospheric astronomic space. As sign and wonder this exaltation is a pointer to the revelation, that occurred in His resurrection, of Jesus Christ as the bearer of all power in heaven and earth. We may compare this passage from Barth with the words of Charles Hodge, who, speaking of Acts 1:9–11, says:From these accounts it appears, (1) That the ascension of  Christ was of his whole person. It was the Theanthropos, the Son of God clothed in our nature, having a true body and a reasonable soul, who ascended. (2) That the ascension was visible. The disciples witnessed the whole transaction. They saw the person of Christ gradually rise from the earth, and ‘go up’ until a cloud hid him fromtheir view. (3) It was a local transfer of his person from one place to another; from earth to heaven. Heaven is therefore a place. 

The Last Things

Barth’s virtual rejection of historic Christianity appears perhaps most clearly of all in his doctrine of the last things. The question is sometimes asked whether Barth is premillennial, postmillennial or amillennial in his conception of the last things. The answer is quite plain. He is none of these. Speaking of the church and what it expects Barth says: But what it looks forward to cannot be any sort of neutral future, nor yet the content of a present of world time that has not yet come to pass and that is either near at hand or still far off. In the Cross of Christ that time, with all its past, present and future possibilities, is in its totality concluded and become past. In it, that is, in the development of events that we call world history, the Church has nothing to expect except the ‘signs of the time,’ i.e. the indications of its being past and therefore the indications of the real future, distinguished from mere futurity. What this real future is and what therefore the object of the actual and earnest expectation of the Church is follows immediately and cogently from its present as that is constituted by the Lordship of Christ. This present, as we saw, means contemporaneousness, the having of Jesus Christ as our contemporary. In this present the divine power is operative. In this present, therefore, the Church remembers revelation time. When it is really remembered, then it is also expected. 

This passage is self-explanatory. Real futurity has nothing to do with the years of our calendar. When the church looks “back” to the resurrection of Christ, and when it looks “forward” to His return it really does the same thing. It remembers and expects the same object. Such is Barth’s contention.

But according to the belief of historic Christianity we can remember the resurrection of Christ and expect His return while we cannot expect the resurrection or remember His return. To speak as Barth speaks is to play fast and loose with the facts of redemption and thus to play into the hands of Modernism. And incidentally, the “sovereign” God in whose behalf this destruction of the real significance of history is made, would, we believe, be better served, if He were not contrasted with history, but if He were shown to work His sovereign plan within history.