Christ will do everything or nothing.

This week I began reading Christianity and Liberalism by J Gresham Machen. It is a book and an author I've often seen quoted, but have never read. I'm only part way into it but two things have already struck me about this book. First for an author and a topic that is 90 years removed from our current circumstances, it is amazingly up to date. The following quote is from the introduction. Read it without regard to the 1921 copyright date and see if it doesn't ring true for us in 2011.

When one considers what the public schools of America already are--their materialism, their discouragement of any sustained intellectual effort, their encouragement of the dangerous pseudo-scientific fads of experimental psychology--one can only be appalled by the thought of a commonwealth in which their is no escape from such a soul-killing system.

 The second thing I've noticed about this book may prove even more soul-nurturing to me than finding a kindred spirit from 90 years ago. It is the fact that Machen reads scripture very precisely and sees that the arguments the authors made were real arguments made to convince real people of a real live-giving truth. This second quote is taken from a section focusing on Paul's strong dispute with the Galatians.

If Christ only provides part of our salvation, leaving us to provide the rest, then we are still hopeless under the load of sin. For no matter how small the gap which must be bridged before salvation can be attained, the awakened conscience sees clearly that our wretched attempt at goodness is insufficient even to bridge that gap. The guilty soul enters again into the hopeless reckoning with God, to determine whether we have really done our part. And thus we groan again under the bondage of the old law. Such an attempt to piece out the work of Christ by our own merit, Paul saw clearly, is the very essence of unbelief; Christ will do everything or nothing, and the only hope is to throw ourselves unreservedly on His mercy and trust Him for all.

 To God Alone be the Glory