Greetings,
This is a brief interuption of the current study on the Reformed theology. This is an excerpt from Gordon H. Clark's Book
What is Saving Faith? This is an excellent book. Granted I do not believe with everything that Clark says he is ,for the most part, and excelent reformed theologian.
What Is Saving Faith?
Gordon H. Clark
...Some deny that Christ earned anything for his people, because, they say, contradicting Scripture, God never deals with his creatures in terms of merit or justice, but only in terms of grace, which is unearned.Some say faith alone is not enough; that one must also work (obey, remain faithful) in order to be justified, or to stay justified. These claim James as their authority, twisting his words to contradict Paul and to fit their works-religion. Some deny that Christian faith is knowledge, asserting that it is a personal encounter, or a personal relationship, or membership in a covenant community. They say that those who think we are saved by knowledge, such as the Apostle Peter, are Gnostics. Those attacking Christianity and the Gospel of Jesus Christ fail to consult Scripture to see what faith is and does. But one theologian has: Gordon H. Clark. More than 30 years ago Clark examined hundreds of passages of Scripture about faith and published his findings in two seminal books, Faith and Saving Faith and The Johannine Logos. More than three decades later the pseudo-scholars and theologians who now pass as Christian thinkers remain ignorant of Clark’s work. Clark’s exegesis exposes the theology they have fabricated in their books and schools as Romantic fables.1Logos means a sentence, a proposition, a doctrine, an object of intellectual apprehension.
John 7:36, 40 are similar. In the first of these the logos is the assertion, “You will search for me, but you shall not find me.” In the second, the plural occurs: “Some of the crowd, when they had heard these words, said, ‘This man is indeed the prophet.’”
Restricting this section to instances where a definite sentence or sentences define the logos, we come next to John 10:19. Here Jesus had just said that he lays down his life voluntarily; no one can take it from him. “Then the Jews, because of these words [logoi], were again divided.” The words referred to are roughly all of the first eighteen verses.
Here then is a long list of cases where the meaning of the term logos is determined by quoting it. It is always an intelligible proposition. At this point, and before continuing with the list of instances of logos, the reader might want to know what the connection is between the sentences or propositions just given and the Logos of verse 1 who cre-ated the universe and enlightens every man who comes into the world. How did the argument get from Christ to sentences? The connection is this: The Logos of verse 1 is the Wisdom of God. To him his worshipers erected the architectural triumph Hagia Sophia, the church in Constantinople dedicated to the Holy Wisdom of God. To purloin Heraclitus’ phrase, this is the Wisdom that steers the universe. But this steering, the plan on which the universe is constructed, the providential governing of all creatures and all their actions, is based on wise counsel. God does not work haphazardly. He acts rationally. Some of this wisdom is expressed in the propositions of the previous list. They are the mind of Christ: They are the very mind of Christ. In them we grasp the holy Wisdom of God. Accordingly, there is no great gap between the propositions alluded to and Christ himself. The Platonic Ideas, as interpreted by Philo, and by him called Logos, are the mind of God. Some of these Ideas are given to us in the words of John, or in the words of Christ recorded by John. This is how Christ communicates himself to us. Is it completely ridiculous to suggest that this is why John uses the term logos for these two superficially different purposes? But now to continue the list of instances.
The meaning of the term logos is determined by quoting it. It is always an intelligible proposition.
If the listing of these verses seems tedious, it is at least overwhelming and leaves no defense for those who deprecate words and doctrine.
Since some fundamentalists also have accepted the anti-intellectualism of the liberals, we must patiently plod through the list. John 15:3 is, “You are already clean because of the theology I have spoken to you.” John 17:6 and 14 hardly need to be quoted. Verse 17 says that God’s word is truth. And in verse 20 of the same chapter the logos referred to is the future preaching of the disciples.
To make this a complete list of all the occurrences of the term logos in the Gospel of John, we have only to add John 1:1 and 14. In the beginning was the Logos, the logic, the doctrine, the mind, the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is God. This Logos became flesh and we saw the glory of his grace and truth.
Contemporary theology frequently distinguishes between the Logos and the rheemata: the Word and the words.The Word is in some sense divine. If it is contained in or somehow mediated by the Bible, the Bible is “authoritative,” though not infallible. Just how false statements can be “authoritative” the liberals do not explain. Reception of the Word for them is a sort of mystic experience without intellectual content. The words, on the other hand, are human, fallible, and mythological. The supernatural truth of God is so different from human truth that they do not coincide at a single point and not even omnipotence has the power to express it in human language; therefore the words, the concepts, are mere pointers to an unknowable object.
They conclude from the meagerness of their thinking that thinking and believing are inadequate.
There is no antithesis between believing Jesus as a person and believing what he says.
6:69 says, “We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” John 8:24 says, “You do not believe that I am [Jehovah, or, the one I claim to be].” John 9:18, “the Jews did not believe that he had been blind.” John 10:25-26, “I told you [that I am the Christ] and you do not believe [that proposition]; the works I do…testify of me [that I am the Messiah], but you do not believe [the propositions they assert].” John 11:26-27, “Everyone who is alive and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this [proposition]? Yes, Lord, she said, I have believed that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.” In John 11:42 Jesus spoke out loud “so that the crowd would believe that you did send me.” But why tediously quote in addition 12:38, 47; 13:19; 14:10-11, 29; 16:27, 30; 17:8, 21; 19:35; and 20:31?
äubigen.” But in English the connection between the Greek verb believe and its Latin noun is obscured by translating the noun as faith instead of belief.
This Latin anti-intellectualism, permitted by the noun fides, undermines all good news and makes Gospel information useless.
This part of the study pays no attention to the grammatical object of the verb. Reliance is now placed on the conclusion already drawn that noun and pronoun objects are linguistic simplifications of the intended propositional object. To believe a person means precisely to believe what he says.
The Apostle John never mentions a mystic experience. He repeatedly says, if you believe, you are saved. Belief is the whole thing.
10:25-28 say, “You do not believe because you do not belong to my flock. My sheep listen to my voice…. I give them eternal life.” This states what is essentially both the negative and the positive proposition; and the negative is clearly implied in 16:9: “He will convict the world of sin…because they do not believe on me.” Then if one supposes that God granted the petitions of the high-priestly prayer, the positive statement is implied in 17:8-10, 16-17, 20-22, and 26.
Editor’s Note: