The Importance of Dogma # 6

The Importance of Dogma # 6

(f) In the last place, let us turn to the death beds of all who die with solid comfort and good hope - and appeal to them. There are few of us who are not called on occasionally, as we travel through life, to see people passing through the valley of the shadow of death, and drawing near to their latter end, and to those "things unseen which are eternal."

We all know what a vast difference there is in the manner in which such people leave the world - and the amount of comfort and hope which they seem to feel. Can any of us say that he ever saw a person die in peace, who did not know distinctly what he was resting on for acceptance with God, and could only say, in reply to inquiries, that he was "earnest and sincere?" I can only give my own experience - I never saw one. Oh, no! The story of Christ's moral teaching, and self-sacrifice, and example, and the need of being earnest and sincere and like Him, will never smooth down a dying pillow. Christ the teacher, Christ the great pattern, Christ the prophet - will not suffice. We need something more than this!

We need the story of Christ dying for our sins, and rising again for our justification. We need Christ the mediator, Christ the substitute, Christ the intercessor, Christ the redeemer - in order to meet the King of terrors with confidence, and to say, "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?"

Not a few, I believe, who have gloried all their lives in rejecting dogmatic religion, have discovered at last that their "broad theology" is a miserable comforter, and the gospel of mere "earnestness" is no good news at all!

Not a few, I firmly believe, could be named, who at the eleventh hour have cast aside their favorite, new fashioned views, and have fled for refuge to "the precious blood of Christ," and left the world with no other hope than the old-fashioned Evangelical doctrine of faith in a crucified Jesus. Nothing in their life's religion has given them such peace as the simple truth grasped at the eleventh hour - 

"Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Your blood was shed for me,
And that You bidd'st me come to Thee -
O Lamb of God, I come."

Surely, when this is the case, we have no need to be ashamed of dogmatic theology.

And now, as I leave the subject - let me wind up all I have said with an expression of my earnest hope that all honest, true-hearted Churchmen will walk in the steps of their forefathers, and stick to the old weapons which they wielded so well and successfully.

Let no scorn of the world,
let no ridicule of witty writers,
let no sneers of liberal critics,
let no secret desire to please and conciliate the public - tempt us for one moment to leave the old paths, and drop the old practice of enunciating dogma - clear, distinct, well-defined, and sharply-cut "dogma" - in all our teachings. Let us beware of being vague, and foggy, and hazy in our teachings. Let us be specially particular about such points as original sin, the inspiration and authority of Scripture, the finished work of Christ, the complete atonement made by His death, the priestly office which He exercises at the right hand of God, the inward work of the Holy Spirit on hearts, and the reality and eternity of future punishment.

On all these points let our testimony be not Yes and No - but Yes and Amen! Let the tone of our witness be plain, ringing, and unmistakable.

"If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (1 Cor. 14:8). If we handle such subjects in a timid, faltering, half-hearted way, as if we were handling hot iron, and we had not made up our minds what is truth - then it is vain to expect people who hear us to believe anything at all! It is the bold, decided, outspoken doctrinal man, who makes a deep mark, and sets people thinking, and "turns the world upside down." 

It was "dogma" in the apostolic ages which emptied the heathen temples, and shook Greece and Rome. It was "dogma" which awoke Christendom from its slumbers at the time of the Reformation, and spoiled the Pope of one-third of his subjects. It was "dogma" which, a hundred years ago, revived the Church in the days of Whitefield, Wesley, Venn, and Romaine, and blew up our dying Christianity into a burning flame. It is "dogma" at this moment which gives power to every successful mission, whether at home or abroad. It is doctrine - doctrine,clear ringing doctrine - which like the rams' horns at Jericho, casts down the opposition of the devil and sin. Let us go on clinging to "dogma" and doctrine, whatever some may please to say; and we shall do well for ourselves, well for others, well for the Church, and well for Christ's cause in the world.

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 7)