J Gresham Machen

The Origin of Paul's Religion

2011-09-21T04:59:00.000-07:00

This is now available as an e-sword module. See here.

Author:Gresham Machen

e-Sword Version: e-Sword 9.x and above

The Origin of Paul's Religion (1921) is perhaps Machen's best known scholarly work. This book was a successful attempt at critiquing the Modernist belief that Paul's religion was based mainly upon Greek philosophy and was entirely different from the religion of Jesus.

Machen writes a masterful and forthright defense of the historical truthfulness and supernaturalism of the New Testament. This volume is taken from the James Sprunt Lectures delivered at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. Reprints of this book sometimes add the subtitle "The Classic Defense of Supernatural Christianity".

Machen refutes with the anti-supernaturalism that was beginning to dominate the church in the early decades of the twentieth century. Although written 85 years ago it remains a model of biblical scholarship and warm piety.

"In an age when the nature and content of Paul's message are once again under scrutiny, evangelical and Reformed readers will benefit immensely from a close reading of Machen's masterwork. This book is an outstanding example of careful, patient scholarship that received high praise when it was first published and continues today to demand attention." - R Scott Clark

"J Gresham Machen not only believed, practised, and proclaimed Paul's gospel, he was also able to defend its authenticity at the highest scholarly level. Because 'The Origin of Paul's Religion' penetrates to the heart of the matter it continues to speak to contemporary controversies over the nature of the gospel and the Christian faith." - Sinclair Ferguson

Amazon.com Reviews

J Gresham Machen produced an amazing response to liberal scholarship surrounding the topic of the origin of Christianity in the lectures contained in The Origin of Paul's Religion. Machen meets scholars on their level to refute mistaken notions about the origin of Christianity; he is thorough, well read, and clear in his arguments. As far as relevancy, Machen's lectures may as well have been delivered last year. Machen delivers a stirring apologetic supporting the supernatural origin of the religion of Paul, and in turn Christianity. The church will always be under attack and we must be grateful for men like J. Gresham Machen who have defended it to the end.

One of Machen's more academic works as a biblical scholar. This is a thorough treatment of Pauline theology in response to modernist biblical studies (higher criticism, comparative religion, etc.). Thesis: the "origin" of Paul's religion consists in the historical facts constituting the redemptive gospel of Jesus Christ. He refutes modernist interpretations of Paul that cast him the light of naturalistic comparatives on the one hand, and moralistic spiritualism on the other. Rather, Machen argues, through the variety of his ministry, Paul preached the revealed and properly supernatural message of Christ crucified, died, buried, resurrected and ascended for the redemption of all those who are united to Christ and his righteousness through faith. This work is significant as a defense of historic Protestantism equally as engaged in biblical scholarship as the contemporary modernists in Germany and elsewhere.

NT Greek

2011-02-24T01:37:00.001-08:00

You can find an introduction to the revised version of Machen's NT Greek Primer here.

Hart on Machen and Culture

2011-02-16T03:52:00.000-08:00

An essay by Daryl Hart on J. Gresham Machen and the Problem of Christian Civilization in America can be found here. Machen on culture can be found here.

The Need of Regeneration

2011-02-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

As editor of THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN Machen would provide a regular page under the heading "The Changing Scene and the Unchanging Word" with the text “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.”-lsa. 40:8.

June 01, 1936 issue Vol. 2 – 5 of THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN

The Need of Regeneration

This article will appear at Just about the time when very momentous events will be taking place in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Anything that it may say about the situation in that church may, therefore, at the time when THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN comes into the hands of its readers, seem to be out of date.

Yet at least one thing is already clear. It is that the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. is profoundly corrupt. That fact would not be obscured in the slightest, in the eyes of any really well-informed observer, even by a decision of the General Assembly, in the pending judicial and administrative cases, against the 1934 General Assembly’s Mandate and in favor of the members of the Independent Board and the Rev. John J. DeWaard and the Rev. Arthur F. Perkins.

It must be remembered that the 1934 Mandate is not only contrary to the Constitution of the church.

It is also contrary to the contentions of the Modernists themselves, so far as the powers of the General Assembly are concerned. If the Modernists were in the slightest degree consistent, they would declare the 1934 Mandate unconstitutional and would put an abrupt quietus upon the subjection of candidates for the ministry to utterly unconstitutional questions as to their willingness to support the boards and agencies of the church.

But, you see, if the Modernists did come to such a decision, they would do so on quite different grounds from those which operate in the minds of people who are really true to the Bible and to our Standards. The Modernists would be insisting on liberty in the interests of a freedom to undermine the authority of the Bible; people who are true to the Bible and to the Standards are insisting on that liberty in the interests of the Lordship of Jesus Christ as His commands are made known to us in God’s holy Word.

The two positions would be poles apart, and the fact that liberty would be granted to the members of The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions on the Modernists’ ground would not in the slightest exhibit the soundness of the church; on the contrary, it would be only one more indication of the church’s unsoundness.

As a matter of fact, it is extremely unlikely that the Modernists will attain to any such degree of consistency.

Take as an example the Auburn Affrmationists in the Presbytery of Philadelphia. In the Auburn Affrmation these gentlemen protested loudly against what they regarded as a misuse of the power of the General Assembly. Yet now they are breathing out threatening and slaughter against those who appeal against the General Assembly to the Bible and the Constitution of the church. They are going to really extreme lengths to keep out of the ministry and oust from the General Assembly those who will not promise a blanket allegiance to the General Assembly’s shifting programs.

Could anything be more utterly-I almost said more absurdly-inconsistent? So there is liberty in the church for those who undermine the Bible but none for those who believe it and live by it! Consistency is not one of the virtues of those who are now dominating the ecclesiastical machine.

My point is, however, that even if the Modernists now dominating the Permanent Judicial Commission -there are actually four Auburn Affrmationists among the seven ministerial members of that Commission- did muster up enough consistency to give liberty in the church to those who honestly uphold the church’s constitution as well as to those who undermine it, that would not in the slightest indicate that the church would be returning to orthodoxy.

It would still remain true that the machinery of the church is in control of the Modernists and their friends. It would still remain true that the church is exceedingly corrupt.

My own opinion is not only that the church is exceedingly corrupt but that it is hopelessly corrupt.

When I say that, I want to make perfectly clear what I mean. I do not mean that the reform of the church is beyond the power of the Spirit of God. On the contrary, the Spirit of God is all-powerful. He could, if He pleased, regenerate a million people in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. in a year or in a month or in a single day. If that many people were regenerated in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the church could no doubt be reformed.

But what I mean by saying that the church is hopelessly corrupt is that ‘the church cannot be reformed with the Christian resources now in the church. We ought, it is true, to be very slow about trying to look into the heart of the individual man. We ought to be very slow to say: “This man or that man is certainly not a Christian, has certainly not been born again.”

But when the state of the church is taken as a whole, it certainly can be said rather decidedly that great hosts of church-members give little credible evidence of having been born again. There must be regeneration as well as education if the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Is to be reformed.

Copious other examples can be found here.

Conference Videos

2011-02-11T06:05:00.000-08:00

Videos from the recent conference on Machen can be viewed here (mp3 audio too):
Michael Horton (Christianity and Liberalism)
Daryl Hart (Perennial Problem)
Joel Kim (Bible)
John Fesko (Gospel)
David VanDrunen (Ethics)
Robert Godfrey (Church)
Q&A

By a former student

2011-01-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

This article appeared in Horizons and is available here. (My underlining).

J. Gresham Machen, Man of God

John P. Galbraith

Most people who know the name J. Gresham Machen think almost exclusively: theologian. That is understandable. He was one of God's great theologians, and he was known widely through his theological writings. Yet, deep as his theology was, it was only the foundation of what the man Machen really was.

It was my inestimable privilege to be a student of his for two and a half years at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, from September 1934 until his death on January 1, 1937. It may be that I, at age 97, am the only one living who knew him as a teacher and in his ministerial calling. It is such a privilege to still have the memories!

It was not Machen the theologian who drew me to Westminster. It was Machen the loving and devoted follower of Jesus his Savior, the one who raised the flag of truth at all costs, who gripped me. His watchword, as it were, was: God's Word is my command. Before I ever entered seminary, what would become a lifelong memory was founded. For Machen, it was not just a Presbyterian conflict in which he had become engaged, but a proclamation of the gospel for the entire world. His positions were, thus, not of his own devising, but the careful exegesis of the Scriptures.

Machen, however, was more than a theologian, more than a devotee of God's Word. He was a quiet, kind, modest, and sociable person. He was of medium height, a little bit overweight, and he always had a sparkle in his eyes. He was attentive to his students and did many fine things for them. Occasionally he would have what he called a "Checker Club" on a Saturday evening in his apartment building, Chancellor Hall, a high-rise a few blocks from the Seminary. He set out games (especially checkers and chess) and bowls of fruit and snacks, and he mixed well with the students. He would say, "Don't be a tightwad!"— hoping that we would be generous to ourselves.

At other times, when he was home over a weekend (he had many preaching engagements), he would send word to our "dormitory," the Gladstone Hotel, that anyone available was welcome to have dinner with him at the fashionable Drake Hotel on Sunday after morning worship. During the football season — he was an avid college-football fan —h e would buy groups of tickets to games at the University of Pennsylvania and distribute them among the students at Westminster.

As a professor, he was careful, clear, and precise in his teaching. When I caught on to how he approached New Testament exegesis, I took every one of his elective exegesis courses that I could. One of his major purposes was to teach us to arrive at the meaning of the text without making unwarranted assumptions. That emphasis fitted well with a famous emphasis of his Old Testament colleague and our professor, Oswald T. Allis: "Gentlemen, respect the silences of Scripture!" Never were we allowed to forget that the text is the Word of God and that the Word of God is what we preach.

Machen also had a built-in means of entertaining students. He was certainly not a curmudgeon, as his enemies declared. If anything, he was a humorist! One could say, even, that he was a stand-up comedian. He had a number of delightful stories that did not use words, but sounds made with his mouth — all told with those sparkling eyes. Being a student of Machen was not all work.

Dr. Machen, to the surprise of many, was an enthusiastic mountain climber, particularly in the Swiss Alps, though also in the Canadian Rockies and in the U.S. He loved the beauty and majesty of the natural world, and was thrilled to stand at the summits of great peaks and glory in what God had made. One of his favorite climbing adventures was Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island, off the coast of Maine. He was horrified, and personally protested, that the mountain would be ruined by the building of a road in the interests of tourists. This was somewhat like his protest against the City of Philadelphia passing a law to forbid pedestrians from crossing intersections in the downtown over against a traffic signal.

He did indeed have his prejudices — such as his disdain for a new translation of the Bible that he believed was not as good as it should be. As a guest preacher at Immanuel Church in Morristown, New Jersey (now Immanuel OPC in Whippany), he began to use the pulpit Bible, saw what translation it was, and set it aside. He then used his own King James Bible.

On a more serious note, he did not try to impose his views on others. When the doctrinal conflict arose in the Presbyterian Church in the USA, he followed the set procedures for addressing his problems to the proper authorities. As the conflict turned toward a decision, some fellow students and I travelled to Trenton to view the conclusion of Machen's trial before the Presbytery of New Brunswick (New Jersey). When he was told to rise, he rose without a word. He was silent as charges were read to him, and then was seated. I could not refrain from thinking of Isaiah 53, which says of Christ, "as a lamb before his shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." Later, when he had been declared guilty of disturbing the peace and unity of the Church, and the Church had been told that it was the duty of all members to support whatever the Church allowed, he saw that his only way to avoid participating in the false teachings of the PCUSA was to leave it. His course, if his church was going to require him to support unbelief, was to join with others in a new church that would seek to follow the Word of God as the final standard of truth in all things.

Machen stood alone at Trenton, but the next month (June 1936) I had the privilege, with my father, mother, and sister, to stand with him and one hundred and twenty-six others called together through the Presbyterian Constitutional Covenant Union at the New Century Club in Philadelphia. We stood when those desiring to affiliate with a new church were called to rise and be counted as founding members of the Presbyterian Church of America (renamed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1939). Then, from that group, thirty-four ministers and seventeen elders (including my father) constituted the Church's First General Assembly. Dr. Machen was elected without opposition as the moderator. Machen himself would say, "We became members at last of a true Presbyterian Church." What a memory to have of the man whom God chose to lead us, J. Gresham Machen, man of God.

The author, a retired minister, has served the OPC in many capacities. New Horizons, January, 2011.

Recent Conference 2011

2011-01-15T07:42:00.000-08:00

A conference on Machen recently took place at Westminster Seminary in California. The schedule was

“Christianity and Liberalism Today” –Michael S. Horton
“The Perennial Machen” –D.G. Hart
“Machen and the Bible” –Joel. E. Kim
“Machen and the Gospel” –J.V. Fesko
“Machen and Ethics” –David VanDrunen
“Machen, Christianity, and the Church” –W. Robert Godfrey
“Q & A” -Faculty
More here

On the Fear of God

2010-11-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

Machen's piece on the fear of God can be found here. it was published in God Transcendent.

On predestination

2010-11-01T03:22:00.000-07:00

I found this here

J. Gresham Machen (d. 1937) has an oustanding explanation of predestination in his little book The Christian View of Man. I realize this biblical doctrine is a tough one. If you’ve wrestled with it or know someone who struggles with this doctrine, I recommend reading chapters 3-6 of The Christian View of Man. I’ll give a few excerpts below. First, he says the main question at hand is

“…whether a man is predestinated by God to salvation because he believes in Christ or is enabled to believe in Christ because he is predestinated.”

After discussing a few different views of predestination, he notes this:

“[The Bible] is utterly opposed to the view that God does not know what man will decide, and it is equally opposed to the view that what God foreknows he does not foreordain. Over against such views, it tells us in the clearest possible way, not only in general that God has foreordained all things according to the counsel of his will but also in particular that he has foreordained the salvation of some men and the loss of others.”

“We do not, indeed know what the reason for God’s choice is. … But because we do not know what the reason is for God’s choice of some and his passing by of others, that does not mean there is no reason. As a matter of fact, there is without doubt an altogether good and sufficient reason. We can be perfectly sure of that. God never acts in arbitrary fashion; he acts always in accordance with infinite wisdom; all his acts are directed to infinitely high and worthy ends. We must just trust him for that. We do not know why God has acted thus and not otherwise, but we know the One who knows and we rest in his infinite justice and goodness and wisdom.”

“Little hope have we, my friends, if our salvation depends upon ourselves; but the salvation of which the Bible speaks is rooted in the eternal counsel of God. [Here Machen quotes Rom 8.28 & 30] There, my friends, is the true ground of all our comforts – not in our love, not in our faith, not in anything that is in us, but in that mysterious and eternal counsel of God from which comes all faith, all love, all that we have and are and can be in this world and in the world to come.”

Again, this is an outstanding treatment of predestination. Machen (as always) writes clearly, biblically, and pastorally. He deals with objections well, and ends this section with a brief discussion of the beauty of God’s gracious act of choosing and saving wicked rebels. If you haven’t read this book, The Christian View of Man, I’d say get it! It is written for the average layperson, so most thoughtful Christians will be able to benefit from it. While I’m at it, I also recommend What is Faith by Machen, which is one of the best presentations of faith alone and justification that I’ve read – its right up there with some of Luther’s sermons. [I also need to note that each of these books is less than $10 - probably under $5 if you get them used!]

Serious humour

2010-06-16T05:39:00.000-07:00

I have come to the conclusion that the two institutions which Germany most needs are (1) The Sabbath; and (2) American Football.

... What a wonderful aid tobacco is to friendship and Christian fellowship.

Stonehouse Biography pp 84, 85

Machen on social betterment

2010-06-16T03:43:00.001-07:00

material benefits were never valued in the apostolic age for their own sake, they were never regarded as substitutes for spiritual things. That lesson needs to be learned. Social betterment, though important, is insufficient; it must always be supplemented by God’s unspeakable gift,

J Gresham Machen, New Testament, ed, John Cook, pp 345, 346

Facebook

2010-02-18T03:54:00.000-08:00

There is a facebook page for Facebook users who are Machen fans here

Reformed Audio

2010-02-18T03:50:00.001-08:00

You will find some useful Machen materials at Reformed Audio

Machen on Controversy

2009-10-26T03:11:00.000-07:00

Again, men say that instead of engaging in controversy in the Church, we ought to pray to God for a revival; instead of polemics, we ought to have evangelism. Well, what kind of revival do you think that will be? What sort of evangelism is it that is indifferent to the question what evangel is it that is to be preached? Not a revival in the New Testament sense, not the evangelism that Paul meant when he said, 'Woe is be unto me, if I preach not the gospel.' No, my friends, there can be no true evangelism which makes common cause with the enemies of the Cross of Christ. Souls will hardly be saved unless the evangelists can say with Paul: "If we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than that which we preached unto you, let him be accursed!"Every true revival is born in controversy, and leads to more controversy. That has been true ever since our Lord said that He came not to bring peace upon the earth but a sword. And do you know what I think will happen when God sends a new Reformation upon the Church? We cannot tell when that blessed day will come. But when the blessed day does come, I think we can say at least one result that it will bring. We shall hear nothing on that day about the evils of controversy in the Church. All that will be swept away as with a mighty flood. A man who is on fire with a message never talks in that wretched, feeble way, but proclaims the truth joyously and fearlessly, in the presence of every high thing that is lifted up against the gospel of Christ.

J Gresham Machen, The Importance of Christian Scholarship

Machen on Good News

2009-10-26T02:21:00.000-07:00

What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?

J Gresham Machen, Christian Faith in the Modern World

Trial News Clipping

2009-10-22T12:49:00.001-07:00

We have mentioned the link before which is here

Brief biographical piece

2009-10-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

A brief biographical piece on Machen can be found here.

Galatians 3:1-7

2009-10-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

"The Christian does indeed live still in this world. It is a travesty on this Pauline doctrine when it is held to mean that when he escapes, inwardly, from the present evil world by the redeeming work of Christ the Christian can calmly leave the world to its fate. On the conrary, Christian men, even after they have been redeemed, are left in this world, and in this world they have an important duty to perform.In the first place, they do not stand alone, but are united in the great brotherhood of the Christian Church. Into that brotherhood it is their duty to invite other men by the preaching of the gospel; and they should pray that that preaching, through the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit in the new birth, may be efficacious, and that the great brotherhood may expand yet more and more.In the second place, Christians should by no means adopt a negative attitude toward art, government, science, literature, and the other achievements of mankind, but should consecrate these things to the service of God. The separateness of the Christian from the world is not to be manifested, as so many seem to think that it should be manifested, by the presentation to God of only an impoverished man; but it is to be manifested by the presentation to God of all man's God-given powers developed to the full. That is the higher Christain humanism, a humanism based not upon human pride but upon the solid foundation of the grace of God. But these considerations do not make any less radical the step of which Paul speaks. It remains true that the Christian has escaped from this present age - from this present world with all its sin and all its pride. The Christian continues to live in the world, but he lives in it as its master and not as its slave. He can move the world because at last he has a place to stand."

- J. Gresham Machen, Machen's Notes on Galatians, ed. John H. Skilton (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1972), 32-33.

Found here.

Machen on the cross

2009-10-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

"I do not think that what the New Testament says about the cross of Christ is particularly intricate. It is, indeed, profound, but it can be put in simple language. We deserved eternal death; the Lord Jesus, because he loved us, died in our stead upon the cross. It is a mystery, but it is not intricate. What is really intricate and subtle is the manifold modern attempt to get rid of the simple doctrine of the cross of Christ in the interests of human pride. Of course there are objections to the cross of Christ, and men in the pulpits of the present day pour out upon that blessed doctrine the vials of their scorn; but when a man has come under the consciousness of sin, then as he comes into the presence of the cross, he says with tears of gratitude and joy, He loved me and gave himself for me."

– J. Gresham Machen, “What the Bible Teaches About Jesus,” in Selected Shorter Writings, ed. D.G. Hart. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2004), 30

Mencken on Machen

2009-10-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

These words about Machen by the journalist H L Mencken written in 1931 are found here.

Thinking of the theological doctrine called Fundamentalism, one is apt to think at once of the Rev. Aimee Semple McPherson, the Rev. Dr. Billy Sunday and the late Dr. John Roach Straton. It is almost as if, in thinking of physic, one thought of Lydia Pinkham or Dr. Munyon. Such clowns, of course, are high in human interest, and their sincerity need not be impugned, but one must remember always that they do not represent fairly the body of ideas they presume to voice, and that those ideas have much better spokesmen. I point, for example, to the Rev. J. Gresham Machen, D.D. Litt.D., formerly of Princeton and now professor of the New Testament in Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. Dr. Machen is surely no mere soap-boxer of God, alarming bucolic sinners for a percentage of the plate. On the contrary, he is a man of great learning and dignity – a former student at European universities, the author of various valuable books, including a Greek grammar, and a member of several societies of savants. Moreover, he is a Democrat and a wet [against Prohibition], and may be presumed to have voted for Al [Smith] in 1928. Nevertheless, this Dr. Machen believes completely in the inspired integrity of Holy Writ, and when it was questioned at Princeton he withdrew indignantly from those hallowed shades, leaving Dr. Paul Elmer More to hold the bag.
I confess frankly, as a life-long fan of theology, that I can find no defect in his defense of his position. Is Christianity actually a revealed religion? If not, then it is nothing; if so, then we must accept the Bible as an inspired statement of its principles. But how can we think of the Bible as inspired and at the same time as fallible? How can we imagine it as part divine and awful truth and part mere literary confectionery? And how, if we manage so to imagine it, are we to distinguish betwen the truth and the confectionery? Dr. Machen answers these question very simply and very convincingly. If Christianity is realy true, as he believes, then the Bible is true, and if the Bible is true, then it is true from cover to cover. So answering, he takes his stand upon it, and defies the hosts of Beelzebub to shake him. As I have hinted, I think that, given his faith, his position is completely impregnable. There is absolutely no flaw in the arguments with which he supports it. If he is wrong, then the science of logic is a hollow vanity, signifying nothing.
His moral advantage over his Modernist adversaries, like his logical advantage, is immense and obvious. He faces the onslaught of the Higher Criticism without flinching, and he yields nothing of his faith to expediency or decorum. Does his searching of Holy Writ compel him to believe that Jesus was descended from David through Joseph, and Matthew says, and yet begotten by the Holy Ghost, as Matthew also says, then he believes it calmly and goes on. Does he encounter witches in Exodus, and more of them in Deuteronomy, and yet more in Chronicles, then he is unperturbed. Is he confronted, in Revelation, with angels, dragons, serpents and beasts with seven heads and ten horns, then he contemplates them as calmly as an atheist looks at a chimpanzee in a zoo. For he has risen superior to all such trivial details, the bane of less devout and honest men. The greater marvel swallows all the lesser ones. If it be a fact, as he holds, that Yahweh has revealed the truth to His lieges on this earth, then he is quite as willing to accept and cherish that truth when it is odd and surprising as when it is transparent and indubitable. Believing, as he does, in an omnipotent and omniscient God, maker of heaven and earth, he admits freely that God probably knows more than he himself knows, both of the credible an the incredible, though he is a member of both Phi Beta Kappa and the American Philological Assocation.

It must be plain that the Modernists are in a much weaker position. The instant they admit that only part of the Bible may be rejected, if it be only the most trifling fly-speck of the Pauline Epistles, they admit that any other part may be rejected. Thus the divine authority of the whole disappears, and there is no more evidence that Christianity is a revealed religion than there is that Mohammedianism is. It is idle for such iconoclasts to say that one man – usually the speaker – is better able to judge in such matters than other men, for they have to admit in the same breath that no man’s judgment, however learned he may be, is infallible, and that no man’s judgment, however mean he may be, is neglibible. They thus reduce theology to the humble level of a debate over probabilities. Such a debate it has become, in fact, in the hands of the more advanced Modernists. No two of them agree in all details, nor can they conceibably agree so long as one man, by God’s inscrutable will, differs from all other men. The Catholics get rid of the difficulty by setting up an infallible Pope, and consenting formally to accept his verdicts, bu thet Protestants simply chase their own tails. By depriving revelation of all force and authority, they rob their so-called religion of every dignity. It becomes, in their hands, a mere romantic imposture, unsatisfying to the pious and unconvincing to the judicious.
I have noted that Dr. Machen is a wet. This is somewhat remarkable in a Presbyterian, but certainly it is not illogical in a Fundamentalist. He is a wet, I take it, simply because the Yahweh of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New are both wet – because the whole Bible, in fact, is wet. He not only refuses to expunge from the text anything that is plainly there; he also refuses to insert anything that is not there. What I marvel at is that such sincere and unyielding Christians as he is do not start legal proceeding against the usurpers who now disgrace the name. By what right does a Methodist bishop, in the face of John 2:1-11, Matthew 11:19 and Timothy 5:23, hold himself out as a follower of Jesus, and even as an oracle on Jesus’ ideas and desire? Surely there is libel here, and if I were the believer that Dr. Machen is I think I’d say that there is also blasphemy. I suggest formally that he and his orthodox friends get together, and petition some competent court to restrain the nearest Methodist congregation from calling itself Christian. I offer myself a witness for the plaintiffs, and promise to come well heeled with evidence. At worst, such a suit would expose the fraudulence of the Methodist claim and redound greatly to the glory and prosperity of the true faith; at best, some judge more intelligent and less scary than the general might actually grant the injunction.

Machen in love

2009-09-02T06:20:00.000-07:00

We found these quotations here

“Machen did have a brief romance with Mildred B. Stearns that blossomed in the summer of 1920. He met her at Seal Harbor, where she also vacationed with her family. The major obstacle to their marriage was religion. Stearns was Unitarian … Machen corresponded with her throughout his life and visited her whenever in Boston. Members of Machen’s family say she traveled alone from Boston to Baltimore to attend Machen’s burial service at Greenmount Cemetery,”

D. Hart, Defending the Faith (P&R 2003), 130.

“There was however one real romance in his life, though unhappily it was not destined to blossom into marriage … He identified the lady by name, as a resident of Boston, and as ‘intelligent, beautiful, exquisite.’ He further stated that apparently they were utterly devoted to each other for a time, but that the devotion never developed into an engagement to be married because she was a Unitarian. [She] made a real effort to believe, but could not bring her mind and heart to the point where she could share his faith.”

N. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen (Banner of Truth 1987), 318.

Van Til on Machen's Death

2009-08-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

In John Muether's biography of Cornelius Van Til (Reformed Apologiust and Churchman) it says that Van Til was devastated at the death of Machen. "No one has meant so much to me" he wrote to John De Waard a few days after the funeral, "I have never felt so forsaken". In a Dutch magazine article he lamented the loss of Machen but concluded "Enough about that - God has taken him. God will continue his work. To be disheartened would be sinful."

Debate with Speer

2009-06-11T02:07:00.001-07:00

NOT in many years has the Presbyterian Church witnessed such a dramatic and significant event as the clashing in debate on April 11th, before the Presbytery of New Brunswick of Dr. Robert E. Speer and Dr. J. Gresham Machen. ...

This is how a contemporary description of Machen's debate with Robert Speer in 1933 begins. The article can be fond here.

Review of Speer

2009-06-11T02:04:00.000-07:00

Machen's review of The Finality of Jesus Christ (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1933) by Dr Robert E Speer can be found here.

Child Labor Amendment

2009-06-11T02:01:00.000-07:00

In 1925 Machen wrote against what he labelled "The so-called Child Labor Amendment". What he had to say can be found here.

On Paul's fearless honesty

2009-05-26T06:23:00.000-07:00

And in these sad days, when Christian language so often conceals a profoundly unchristian mind and heart, would to God that we had, in all our churches, less empty pious words, less of a foolish optimism, and more of the fearless honestly of Paul.

From Notes on Galatians

On Applied Christianity

2009-05-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

Liberals are constantly talking about 'applied Christianity' without having any Christianity to apply.

On modern scientific materialism

2009-05-13T04:38:00.000-07:00

Modern, scientific utilitarianism, in other words, did not succeed in producing the millennium prior to 1914; and there is not the slightest evidence that it has producted the millenium since that time or that it ever will produce the millenium in the ages to come. Indeed modern scientific utiltiarianism may produce something far more terrible than anything that we have seen as yet.

From the Baccalaurete Address at Hampden-Sydney College on June 9, 1929

Found here

Radio prog link

2009-05-13T04:32:00.001-07:00

A radio programme discussing Machen on Christianity and Liberalism can be found here.

On Law

2009-03-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

A new and more powerful proclamation of law is perhaps the most pressing need of the hour; men would have little difficulty with the gospel if they had only learned the lesson of the law. As it is, they are turning aside from the Christian pathway; they are turning to the village of Morality, and to the house of Mr. Legality, who is reported to be very skillful in relieving men of their burdens ... 'Making Christ Master' in the life, putting into practice 'the principles of Christ' by one's own efforts-these are merely new ways of earning salvation by one's obedience to God's commands.

From What is faith?

On simplicity and theology

2009-03-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure where this oft quoted gem comes from

The more we know of God, the more unreservedly we will trust him; the greater our progress in theology, the simpler and more childlike will be our faith.

What is faith?

2009-02-19T02:15:00.000-08:00

The full text of the book What is faith? can be found here.

On the poor

2009-02-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good; but me ye have not always. Mark 14:7
Here in one of the most unforgettable, characteristic words that Jesus ever uttered, our Lord actually contrasts the service of the poor with the service of Him. “Ye have the poor with you always,’ he said, ‘and whensoever ye will ye may do them good; but me ye have not always.’ We have not Jesus always with us in the sense in which the woman had Him with her at Bethany; we cannot pour any precious ointment upon His head. But in a higher better sense we have Him with us still. And surely we must not neglect the privilege of communion with Him.
Certainly I am not advocating neglect of external service. Without that it is quite impossible that we should be true disciples of Jesus. It is a poor and untrue religion which leaves the hungry in distress. But we shall perform such services all the better if we take time also to commune with Jesus Himself. Do you think that the Christian life is concerned only with philanthropy; do you think that activity in social service is all that our Lord Desires? Oh no, my friends. Those things are absolutely necessary to the Christian, but they are not all that is necessary. If we are true Christians, we shall not neglect those things; but we shall also take time to go into our closet and close the door; and there, with the world shut out, with even our service forgotten for the moment, we shall think no longer of what we do but of what our Savior has done, and we shall pour out upon Him, with an abandon like that of the woman at Bethany, our gratitude and love and praise.
…In these words to the woman at Bethany our Lord sets us free from the oppressive tyranny of the efficiency expert…
J. Gresham Machen – The Claims of Love (In God Transcendent)

Found here

On Good news

2009-01-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

What good does it do to me to tell me that the type of religion presented in the Bible is a very fine type of religion and that the thing for me to do is just to start practicing that type of religion now? ... I will tell you, my friend. It does me not one tiniest little bit of good. ... What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?"

(Cited in Michael Horton's Trust and Obey, p 40.

From J. Gresham Machen, Christian Faith in the Modern World Macmillan, 1936 p 57)

Vance on Machen on imperialism, etc

2009-01-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

An article by L Vance on Machen on imperialism, militarism, and Conscription can be found here.

Machen's Parents

2008-12-22T04:53:00.001-08:00

Machen's parents were Arthur Webster Machen (born July 20, 1847, he died in 1915) and Mary (Minnie) Jones (born June 17, 1849, she died in 1931).

On being polemical

2008-12-12T01:50:00.001-08:00

Men tell us that our preaching should be positive and not negative, that we can preach the truth without attacking error. But if we follow that advice we shall have to close our Bible and desert its teachings. The New Testament is a polemic book almost from beginning to end.

Some years ago I was in a company of teachers of the Bible in the colleges and other educational institutions of America. One of the most eminent theological professors in the country made an address. In it he admitted that there are unfortunate controversies about doctrine in the Epistles of Paul; but, said he in effect, the real essence of Paul's teaching is found in the hymn to Christian love in the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians; and we can avoid controversy today, if we will only devote the chief attention to that inspiring hymn.

In reply, I am bound to say that the example was singularly ill-chosen. That hymn to Christian love is in the midst of a great polemic passage; it would never have been written if Paul had been opposed to controversy with error in the Church. It was because his soul was stirred within him by a wrong use of the spiritual gifts that he was able to write that glorious hymn. So it is always in the Church. Every really great Christian utterance, it may almost be said, is born in controversy. It is when men have felt compelled to take a stand against error that they have risen to the really great heights in the celebration of truth.

From an essay on Christian scholarship

On being clear

2008-12-12T01:49:00.000-08:00

Clear-cut definition of terms in religious matters, bold facing of the logical implications of religious views, is by many persons regarded as an impious proceeding. May it not discourage contribution to mission boards? May it not hinder the progress of consolidation, and produce a poor showing in columns of Church statistics? But with such persons we cannot possibly bring ourselves to agree. Light may seem at times to be an impertinent intruder, but it is always beneficial in the end. The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases, regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from "controversial" matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life. In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight.

In the intro to Christianity and Liberalism

On the real Jesus

2008-12-12T01:46:00.002-08:00

Very different is the imitation of the real Jesus – the Jesus of the New Testament who actually lived in the first century of our era. That Jesus advanced lofty claims; but His claims, instead of being the extravagant dreams of an enthusiast, were sober truth. On His lips, therefore, language which in the reduced Jesus of modern reconstruction would be frenzied or absurd becomes fraught with blessing for mankind. Jesus demanded that those who followed Him should be willing to break even the holiest ties–He said, "If a man cometh to me and hateth not his father and mother . . . he cannot be my disciple," and "Let the dead bury their dead." Coming from the mere prophet constructed by modern liberalism, those words would be monstrous; coming from the real Jesus, they are sublime. How great was the mission of mercy which justified such words! And how wonderful the condescension of the eternal Son! How matchless an example for the children of men! Well might Paul appeal to the example of the incarnate Savior; well might he say, "Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." The imitation of the real Jesus will never lead a man astray.

Christianity and Liberalism

More quotations

2008-12-12T01:46:00.001-08:00

False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel.

The Christian religion flourishes not in the darkness but in the light. Intellectual slothfulness is a quack remedy for unbelief; the true remedy is consecration of intellectual power to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from "controversial" matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life.

A low view of law leads to legalism in religion; a high view makes man a seeker after grace.

How to say the name

2008-12-12T01:36:00.000-08:00

From this blog here

Over the years, one of the more common and grievous errors in pronunciation I have had the displeasure to encounter relate to the name of our hero, J. Gresham Machen. While it has been my dubious privilege to hear several mistaken pronunciations of his name in my time, it seems that the more popular one is that which applies to it the rules of German pronunciation. [UPDATE: Or, alternatively, the Welsh pronunciation used by the horror writer Arthur Machen. With thanks to Maureen for suggesting this in the comments.]In happier times, general interest magazines such as the Literary Digest (an ancestor, so to speak, of Time magazine) would request that scholars and other persons of note explain in a brief, popular manner how to pronounce their names. Indeed, there was even a regular column in the Digest dedicated to this, and compilation was published by Charles Earle Funk under the title What's the Name, Please?: A Guide to the Correct Pronunciation of Current Prominent Names (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1936). Fortunately for us, our hero being just such a person of note, he was asked by the magazine to elucidate the matter of the pronunciation of his name, which he did with the following note:

"The first syllable is pronounced like May, the name of the month. In the second syllable the ch is as in chin, with e as in pen: may'chen. In Gresham, the h is silent: gres'am."

Here, then, we have as close to a final word on the matter as we can hope for. This text is included in Funk's compilation, and as I recall, originally appeared in the Literary Digest in 1917. Full bibliographical data for the magazine column is given in Ned B. Stonehouse's memoir, my copy of which I regrettably cannot find.

Machen and McLaren

2008-12-12T01:10:00.000-08:00

In a paper given last month by Michael Wittmer of Grand Rapids (pictured) he uses Machen's insights to critique Brian McLaren and the emergent church. An outline can be found here. His thesis is that many of Brian McLaren’s “new” ideas were expressed 85 years ago by the liberal interlocutors of J. Gresham Machen as seen in Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism

Understanding Machen

2008-12-12T01:01:00.000-08:00

A chapter on Machen can be found in George Marsden's book Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (a number of pages can be read here).

On preaching sin

2008-12-01T02:00:00.000-08:00

No man is interested in a piece of good news unless he has the consciousness of needing it; no man is interested in an offer of salvation unless he knows that there is something from which he needs to be saved. It is quite useless to ask a man to adopt the Christian view of the gospel unless he first has the Christian view of sin.

Machen, God Transcendent, 1949

On the miracle of miracles

2008-11-03T06:40:00.000-08:00

Found here
“The very point of the Christian view of the cross is that God does not wait for someone else to pay the price of sin, but in His infinite love has Himself paid the price for us– God Himself in the person of the Son, loved us and gave Himself for us; God Himself in the person of the Father, who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.
It is a strange thing that when men talk about the love of God, they show by every word that they utter that they have no conception at all of the depths of God’s love.
If you want to find an instance of true gratitude for the infinite grace of God, do not go to those who think of God’s love as something that cost nothing, but go rather to those who in agony of soul have faced the awful fact of the guilt of sin, and then have come to know with a trembling wonder that the miracle of all miracles has been accomplished, and that the eternal Son has died in their stead.”
– J. Gresham Machen, “What the Bible Teaches About Jesus,” in Selected Shorter Writings, ed. D.G. Hart. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2004), 31-2.

On Jaywalking

2008-10-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

Machen notoriously opposed laws against jay walking. What he had to say is reproduced here from this blog (Geneva Redux).

These anti-pedestrian laws are intended either for the protection of the pedestrian, or for the convenience of the motorist. In either case . . . they are wrong.
If they are intended to protect the pedestrian from himself, they are paternalistic. I am opposed to paternalism. Among other far more serious objections to it is the objection that it defeats its own purpose. The children of some over-cautious parents never learn to take care of themselves, and so are far more apt to get hurt than children who lead a normal life. So I do not believe that in the long run it will be in the interests of safety if people get used to doing nothing except what a policeman or a traffic light tells them to do, and thus never learn to exercise reasonable care.
I am sorry when I see people taking foolish chances on the street. I believe in urging them not to do it. If they do it in outrageous and unreasonable fashion I should not be particularly averse to fining them for obstructing traffic. I rather think that might even be done under existing laws.
But I am dead opposed to subjecting a whole city because of the comparatively few incautious people to a treadmill regime like that which prevails in Western cities. I resent such a regime for myself. I have tried it, and I know that it prevent me from the best, and simplest pleasure that a man can have, which is walking. But I resent it particularly because it is a discrimination against the poor and in favor of the rich.
That brings us to the real purpose of these laws, which is not that pedestrians should be spared injury but that motorists should be spared a little inconvenience. I drive a car from the driver’s point of view. I know how trifling is the inconvenience which is saved thus at the expense of the liberty of the poorer people in the community. Indeed, I do not believe that in the long run it is for the benefit even of the motorist. I think it is a dreadful thing to encourage in the motorist’s mind, as these laws unquestionably do, the notion that he is running on something like a railroad track cleared for his special benefit.
After all, the most serious objection to these doctrinaire, paternalistic laws is the bad effect which they have upon the mentality of people. I do think we ought to call a halt to the excessive mechanization of human life. When I am in one of those over-regulated Western cities, I always feel as though I were in some kind of penal institution. I should certainly hate to see Philadelphia make like those places.

On the Reformed Faith

2008-10-17T04:39:00.000-07:00

This quotation is again on several blogs including this one here.

"When a man has once come into sympathetic contact with that noble tradition of the Reformed faith, he will never readily be satisfied with a mere “Fundamentalism” that seeks in some hasty modern statement a greatest common measure between men of different creeds. Rather will he strive always to stand in the great central current of the church’s life that has come down to us through Augustine and Calvin to the standards of the Reformed faith."

From Machen's Selected Shorter Writings (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing), 551.

Machen on Education and Civil Government

2008-10-07T01:01:00.000-07:00

Machen's Testimony before the House & Senate Committees on the Proposed Department of Education in February 1926 can be found here.

“It is very much easier to prevent the formation of some agency that may be thought to be unfortunate than it is to destroy it after it is once formed.” After an agency is formed, Machen argued, it tends to grow and gain more power, even if it does not accomplish its original goal. Any perceived failure may well be attributed to lack of power or funds, both of which, when supplemented, expand the intrusiveness of the agency.

(See here too)

More Trueman on Machen

2008-09-26T02:35:00.000-07:00

The article below is in the latest edition (33.2 (2008)) of Themelios here

Minority Report
The Second Most Important Book You Will Ever Read
— Carl Trueman —
Carl Trueman is Academic Dean, Vice President of Academic Affairs, and Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In the lounge next to my office hang the portraits of a number of the founding faculty of my institution, Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. There is one of John Murray, the dour-looking Scotsman with the glass eye. Legend has it that you could tell which eye was the real one because that was the one which did not smile. There is one of Ned Stonehouse, whose good looks in early faculty photos would seem more appropriate to a Hollywood heart-throb of the 1930s than a learned professor of New Testament. Then above the fireplace, now somewhat moth-eaten and in need of restoration, is the magnificent portrait of the founder of the Seminary, the great J. Gresham Machen, a name synonymous with both exacting orthodox scholarship on the New Testament and, more than that, valiant struggle for the truth in both church and seminary.
Machen had a stellar academic background: he studied at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, then Princeton Seminary under the great B. B. Warfield, and also in Germany where his mind was set on fire by the passionate liberalism of the wild yet brilliant Wilhelm Herrmann. Yet in the 1920s and ’30s he became a passionate advocate for Christian orthodoxy amidst the conflicts that were shaking both Princeton, where he was a professor, and the Presbyterian Church of which he was a member and an office-bearer. The result of these conflicts was the founding of (1) Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929 as an institution committed to continuing the teaching of theology according to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms and (2) the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936 as a church committed to maintaining biblical church standards in doctrine and life.
Machen also possessed a key quality which is evident in many of the great church leaders throughout history: the ability to write and communicate at both a high scholarly level (as in his book on the virgin birth) and at the level of the ordinary (if there is such a thing) believer in the pew, and to do the latter in a manner which is not condescending or patronizing. His was a rare gift indeed. Among the greatest examples of this in the Machen corpus is his remarkable little book, entitled simply Christianity and Liberalism, a book still kept in print by Eerdmans, the American publisher.
The thesis of the book is devastatingly simple: Christianity, built on the authoritative, divinely inspired, inerrant revelation of God in Scripture, embodying a robust supernaturalism, and focused on the exclusivity of salvation in the person and work of Christ, is a different religion to that liberalism that repudiates each of these things.
In an age like ours, of course, where fuzzy boundaries, vagueness, doubt, and caution are supreme virtues, Machen’s thesis is likely to appear both arrogant and overstated. But, as Machen himself says in the opening paragraphs, "In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight." There is insight here. Before we see Machen as too intolerant, too much a man of a bygone age, let us reflect on the fact that we live in an age that is remarkably certain and intolerant on a whole host of fronts, from racism to poverty to cruelty against animals to homophobia. Regardless of where we come down on each of these issues, very few of us will be indifferent on them, or particularly laissez-faire towards those with whom we disagree on these matters.

Thus, it is not really that Machen is a man of a bygone, intolerant age which makes this little book so offensive to modern ears. We should not flatter our own enlightened times so easily, for it is not the reality of intolerance in itself that has changed. Rather, it is that we now have a different set of issues that arouse intolerance, and this change reflects not only shifting values in society but also in the church, to the extent that she no longer stands intolerantly for her truth as she once did. The question is thus not whether we are intolerant: we surely are. The question is rather: Are we intolerant of the right things? As the value of religious truth has become negligible, so the passions aroused by such in the wider world have died down. That we do not fight over these things is not a virtue; it is rather be a sign that we just do not care about them any more, and that is the result of the downgrading of the Bible in our thinking. We no longer look on it as a book of divine truth and thus of almost unbearable importance; it is now a ragbag of disparate religious reflections, or a collection of texts reflecting on religious psychology, or simply a cacophony of ancient near-eastern tribal mythology.
For Machen, however, the Bible contains truth, and as such is ineradicably doctrinal. Indeed, one
overarching concern in Christianity and Liberalism is simply the vital importance of Christian doctrine to the church: doctrine, he makes clear, is the very heart of Christian testimony. Claiming to honor the Bible without synthesizing the Bible’s teaching into doctrine, into systematic theology, is not really honoring the Bible at all, for the Bible teaches truth, truth which is coherent and can be articulated; and regarding with indifference those things which the Bible clearly sees as important is, in some sense, the worst sin of all. In a memorable passage, Machen discusses how it was a tragedy that Luther and Zwingli fell out so badly over the nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper, but how it would have been an even greater tragedy had they simply agreed to differ on the grounds that the matter was of no importance.
Given this doctrinal concern, those who follow Machen in this regard are unlikely to win many friends or influence people in today’s Christian world, where the great doctrines of the faith are often considered less significant than positions on social issues, whether it be the current conservative passion for Christian and home schooling, or the left’s zeal for issues of social justice. Pragmatics—what we do, what results we achieve—has real priority over what we believe and stand for every time. Yet for those who wish to stand within the stream of historic, biblical Christianity, Machen’s book represents a clarion call to action: Christians must realize the essentially doctrinal core of their faith and fearlessly stand upon such without compromise.

The book is also full of pithy sayings that repay careful reflection. Here are a few examples:

"Christ Died"—that is history; "Christ died for our sins"—that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity (27).
When it is once admitted that a body of facts lies at the basis of the Christian religion, the efforts which past generations have made toward the classification of the facts will have to be treated with respect (46).

The modern liberal preacher reverences Jesus; he has the name of Jesus forever on his lips; he speaks of Jesus as the supreme revelation of God; he enters, or tries to enter, into the religious life of Jesus. But he does not stand in a religious relation to Jesus. Jesus for him is an example for faith, not the object of faith (85).

[L]iberalism within the "evangelical" churches is inferior to Unitarianism. It is inferior to Unitarianism in the matter of honesty. In order to maintain themselves in the evangelical churches and quiet the fears of their conservative associates, the liberals resort constantly to a double use of language (111).

Narrowness does not consist in definite devotion to certain convictions or in definite rejection of others. But the narrow man is the man who rejects the other man’s convictions without first endeavoring to understand them, the man who makes no effort to look at things from the other man’s point of view (160).

These are typical of the sentiments throughout the book. My own copy has barely a page without some paragraph, sentence, or clause underlined. It is refreshing to read a book that is as clearly thought out as it is written. But the bottom line is not Machen’s style or his logical precision or the passion of his rhetoric. It is his basic point: Christianity and liberalism are two different religions. The difference between them is not a quantitative one, of a system of 100% truth over against a system of 75% truth; rather it is a qualitative one of truth to falsehood, of worship to idolatry, of that which brings blessing to that which ultimately brings only a curse.

That is a crucial message for the church today, particularly for those involved in academic study. Certainly Christianity is no excuse for obscurantism. It is important—indeed, it is a Christian imperative—that we understand and treat fairly the views of opponents, whoever they may be. Intentionally to distort the views of an opponent in order to win an argument is a breach of the ninth commandment and not an option for a disciple of Christ. Nor is Christianity an excuse for being rude and curmudgeonly towards those with whom we disagree. But let us be clear: the supernatural Christianity of the authoritative and divinely inspired Scriptures stands in opposition to all other religious systems, even those that use Christian jargon while yet denying the faith’s basic foundations.
Study can be seductive. The realization that professors who spend their days undermining the faith are actually pretty decent people, interesting and delightful company, loving to their wives and children, and often more likeable than their orthodox counterparts, can produce crises of faith among students more often than many would imagine. The attractive power of real learning should never be underestimated. What Machen’s argument makes clear, however, is that truth is not personal. It is truth, and conformity with such is what is important, not whether we like the people advocating it or not. That Christ has died is fact. That he died for my sins is doctrine. That the person telling me this might be less likeable than that really decent and friendly professor who denies the resurrection is irrelevant.
Theological students should reach for Machen’s little book every year to remind themselves that
orthodoxy does not equate to obscurantism, but that there is something really at stake here in the struggle between orthodox, supernatural Christianity and everything else. Indeed, I would venture to say that this is the second most important book that theologians could ever read. As to the first: well, if you don’t know what that is, read chapter four in Christianity and Liberalism, and hang your head in shame!

Galatians 2:21

2008-09-21T15:37:00.000-07:00

“I do not make void the grace of God; for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain” (Galatians 2:21)
“I do not make void the grace of God,” says Paul in concluding the report of his speech to Peter; “for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain.” The “for” here gives a reason for the use of the harsh word “make void”–” ‘make void,’ I say; for that is just the right word, since if Judaizers say, justification comes even in part through our obedience to the law, then Christ died in vain.”
This verse is the key verse of the Epistle to the Galatians; it expresses the central thought of the Epistle. The Judiazers attempted to supplement the saving work of Christ by the merit of their own obedience to the law. “That,” says Paul, “is impossible; Christ will do everything or nothing: earn your salvation if your obedience to the law is perfect, or else trust wholly to Christ completed work; you cannot do both; you cannot combined merit and grace; if justification even in slightest measure is through human merit, then Christ died in vain.”

J.Gresham Machen, Notes on Galatians. Edited by John H. Skilton, Solid Ground Classic Reprints, page 161.

Found here

Notes on Notes on Galatians

2008-09-21T15:27:00.001-07:00

NOTES ON GALATIANS
J. Gresham Machen, Edited by John H. Skilton
Here we read

The chief feature of this volume is that it makes available in convenient form the "Notes on Biblical Exposition" which Dr. J. Gresham Machen published in the earlier 'Christianity Today' from January 1931 to February 1933. Students at Westminster Seminary have made profitable use of these Notes on Galatians 1:1 - 3:14 by following them, with minor inconveience, through bound periodical volumes; but for many others who might greatly benefit from them, they have long been inaccessible.

Here you will find a master exegete opening up important and essential meterial to help undertsand the import of the great Apoostle on this vital portion of Scripture.

"Notes on Galatians is one of the hidden jewels of J Gresham Machen's outstanding contributions to Christian literature. As Galatians has again become a battleground for theological controversy over the nature of the gospel, Dr Machen's exegetical insight and theological sturdiness provide wise and careful guidance for a new generation of Bible students. Written for a previous generation it continues to speak to the contemporary one." - Dr. Sinclair Ferguson"

"Dr. Machen was a master at crystal clear teaching and his work on Galatians is a good model of this gift. In a day of confused and confusing teaching on this Book, Dr. Machen reminds us of the dynamic power of this Gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ alone that is opened so richly by the Apostle Paul." - Pastor Bill Shishko

"Machen wrote on Galatians to inform his students and to help Sunday School teachers. It is written with delightful clarity and incidentally introduces us to what Machen did very well, teach the New Testament to students at Princeton and Westminster Seminaries. It is wonderfully lucid; a pleasure to read; a model for anyone who preaches the Bible." - Geoff Thomas"

"This is Machen at his best, and surely begs to be re-printed. Especially the introductory chapters are needed nowadays." - Pastor Tom Lyon"

"J. Gresham Machen is perhaps best known for his defense of Christianity and especially for his articulate advocacy of confessional Reformed theology. By training, however, he was a New Testament scholar and by practice he was a biblical exegete of the first order. This little work on Galatians is still useful as a witness to Machen's clear-headed insight into the nature and message of Paul's letter to the Galatians. This witness seems particularly relevant in the midst of the current confusion surrounding Paul and the doctrine of justification." - Dr. R. Scott Clark

The late John H. Skilton did a great service to the church by getting this material from various places and putting it all conveniently in one place.

W H Chellis has written here

In reading through J. Gresham Machen’s Notes on Galatians, I found this interesting quote. It first appeared in Christianity Today in January 1931. Machen died in 1937. I assume this comment is a product of Machen’s more mature thought:

“In the second place, Christians should by no means adopt a negative attitude toward art, government, science, literature, and other achievements of mankind, but should consecrate these things to the service of God. The separateness of the Christian man from the world is not to be manifested, as so many seem to think that it should be manifested, by the presentation to God of only an impoverished man; but it is to be manifested by the presentation to God of all man’s God-given powers developed to the full. That is the higher Christian humanism, a humanism based not upon human pride but upon the solid foundation of the grace of God.”

(p 33)

Another good quote is this one

“The faith that James is condemning is not the faith that Paul is commending.”

NT Greek Grammar

2008-09-21T15:16:00.000-07:00

The text of Machen's NT Greek grammar can be found here

A Brief Bible History

2008-09-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

Work extracted from a joint work by Machen and James Oscar Boyd entitled "A Brief Bible History: A Survey of the Old and New Testaments" (The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, (1922), now in the public domain can be found here in pdf.

The whole work can also be found here.

Sin and its consequences

2008-09-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

A series of essays by Machen drawn from The Christian View of man and God Transcendent can be found here.

Topics covered

The Fall of Man

The Consequences of the Fall

What Is Sin?

Is Mankind Lost in Sin?

Sin's Wages and God's Gift

Machen Quotes

2008-09-17T02:37:00.000-07:00

It is upon this brotherhood of twice-born sinners, this brotherhood of the redeemed, that the Christian founds the hope of society. He finds no solid hope in the improvement of earthly conditions, or the molding of human institutions under the influence of the Golden Rule. These things indeed are to be welcomed. They may so palliate the symptoms of sin that there may be time to apply the true remedy; they may serve to produce conditions upon the earth favorable to the propagation of the gospel message; they are even valuable for their own sake. But in themselves their value, to the Christian, is certainly small. A solid building cannot be constructed when all the materials are faulty; a blessed society cannot be formed out of men who are still under the curse of sin. Human institutions are really to be molded, not by Christian principles accepted by the unsaved, but by Christian men; the true transformation of society will come by the influence of those who have themselves been redeemed.

(Found here)

Christianity may be subordinated to culture. That solution really, though to some extent unconsciously, is being favored by a very large and influential portion of the Church today. For the elimination of the supernatural in Christianity—so tremendously common today—really makes Christianity merely natural. Christianity becomes a human product, a mere part of human culture. But as such it is something entirely different from the old Christianity that was based upon a direct revelation from God. Deprived thus of its note of authority, the gospel is no gospel any longer; it is a check for untold millions—but without the signature at the bottom. So in subordinating Christianity to culture we have really destroyed Christianity, and what continues to bear the old name is a counterfeit.

(Found here)

Machen and WTS Faculty

2008-09-17T02:25:00.001-07:00

Machen is at the centre with Ned B. Stonehouse, O.T. Allis, Paul Woolley and Cornelius Van Til either side of him and John Murray and Allan MacRae at the back.

Chrisope on Machen

2008-09-13T05:35:00.001-07:00

An essay on Machen by Terry Chrisope can be found here in pdf

Stonehouse on Machen

2008-09-13T05:32:00.001-07:00

This entry draws attention to the updated version of Stonehouse's biography of Machen

Machen and the OPC

2008-09-13T05:27:00.000-07:00

A resource page regarding Machen and the OPC can be found here

On the mind

2008-09-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

A series of quotations on the subject by Machen can be found here

The Tolerance of Paul

2008-09-13T05:17:00.000-07:00

Machen's brief article on The Tolerance of Paul can be found here

Moore on Machen and theological reflection

2008-09-12T02:30:00.000-07:00

An essay by Moore on William G Moore on Machen and the power of theological reflection can be found here

Hart on Machen and America

2008-09-12T02:27:00.000-07:00

An article by Daryl G Hart entitled J. Gresham Machen and the Problem of Christian Civilization in America can be found here in pdf

Hart on Machen etc

2008-09-12T02:23:00.000-07:00

A Themelios article by Machen expert Daryl G Hart called J Gresham Machen, Inerrancy, and Creedless Christianity can be found here

Creeds and doctrinal advance

2008-09-12T02:18:00.001-07:00

This sermon or talk on Creeds and doctrinal advance was given as a radio talk and is in God Transcendent. It can be found here

The Separateness of the church

2008-09-12T02:15:00.000-07:00

Machen's 1925 sermon on Matt 5:13 can be found here

The Evangelical Student

2008-09-12T01:57:00.000-07:00

Largely forgotten now, the League of Evangelical Students was an early 20th Century forerunner to such contemporary evangelical student fellowships as InterVarsity, Campus Crusade for Christ and Reformed University Ministries. Its mission statement declared it to be "an inter-denominational and international student movement for the defense and propagation of the Gospel in the modern student-world."

Organized 1925, the League grew to have over 60 chapters across the campuses of America, with an affiliated chapter located in China. Its leadership came primarily from the conservative ranks of the northern Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and it is notable that many of these same leaders were later to figure prominently in the formation of both Westminster Theological Seminary 1929 and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church 1936. The Evangelical Student magazine ran 1926-1939, with the first issue appearing April, 1926. In addition to the magazine, the League held annual conferences which were hosted by various chapters. Three articles appearing in the first issue give something of the background and purpose of the organization. The final issue of the magazine was January 1939 (Vol 14, no 1).

Over the years Machen contributd the following six articles:

"Facing the Facts Before God," 6.1 (Oct. 1931) 6 - 10.
"Is the Bible Right About Jesus?: I. What the Bible Teaches About Jesus," 3.1 (Oct. 1928) 4 - 11.
"Is the Bible Right About Jesus?: II. The Witness of Paul," 3.2 (Jan. 1929) 7 - 15.
"Is the Bible Right About Jesus?: III. The Witness of the Gospels," 3.3 (Apr. 1929) 11 - 20.
"A Precious Fragment of the Gospel According to John, 11.2 (Apr. 1936) 6 -7.
"The Separateness of the Church," 12.2 (Apr. 1937) 6 - 12.

The series "Is the Bible right?" is reproduced in the Selected Shorter Writings

Faith and the gospel

2008-09-10T06:27:00.000-07:00

Machen's essay Faith and the gospel can be found here

Life founded upon the truth

2008-09-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

Machen's Life founded upon truth can be found here

Quotations

2008-09-10T05:29:00.001-07:00

A number of unreferenced quotations can be found here and here Eg

In many respects, my work is very enjoyable, for I seem to get on pretty well with the fellows and enjoy the work of instruction as well as my own studies.

Afternoon classes - that evil invention!

Conservative New Testament studies could also provide an intellectually satisfying alternative to German biblical criticism and to the liberal theology that accompanied it.

I see with greater and greater clearness that consistent Christianity is the easiest Christianity to defend.

Stay the course.

I can't die now, I have so much work to do.

I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.

Machen's mother

2008-09-10T05:24:00.000-07:00

An early notebook of Machen's mother Minnie is extant. Details here

Time articles

2008-09-10T05:19:00.000-07:00

Time articles that mention Machen can be found here

Death Notice

2008-09-10T05:15:00.000-07:00

This brief death notice appeared in Time Janury 11 1937

Died, Dr. John Gresham Machen, 55, peppery Philadelphia Fundamentalist; of lobar pneumonia; in Bismarck, N. Dak., where he had paused on a speaking tour.
Tried, convicted and suspended by the Presbyterian Church, he defiantly formed his own Presbyterian Church of America.

Link

Machen on trial

2008-09-10T05:12:00.000-07:00

Here is another contemporary newspaper piece from March 1935

Dr Machen invited

2008-09-10T05:09:00.000-07:00

An interesting contemporary newspaper piece from June 1927 appears here

Last telegram

2008-09-10T05:06:00.000-07:00

It is well known that as Machen lay dying, having gone through blizzards to visit a church in North Dakota that was in trouble, and having thus contracted pneumonia, he telegraphed his friend Professor John Murray at Westminster Seminary with these words: "Thank God for the act of obedience of Christ; no hope without it." The allusion seems to be to something they had recently been discussing.

The Origin of Paul's Religion

2008-09-10T05:00:00.001-07:00

Machen's book The origin of Paul's religion can be found here

Sharp Dresser Anecdote

2008-09-10T04:54:00.000-07:00

Wayne Sparkman recounts an anecdote here about Machen from Cornelius Van Til.

“Machen was known for being a sharp dresser and having a consistent stylish look Well, after he died they found 20 or 30 exact copies of the same suit in his closet!

It’s little things like that that add humanity to the man. It’s not just facts on a page, but a reality of who they were as a person.”

Apparently there is a Brooks Brothers receipt for a suit somewhere in the archive.

Christianity and Liberalism Thesis

2008-09-10T04:49:00.000-07:00

In my little book, Christianity and Liberalism, 1923, I tried to show that the issue in the Church of the present day is not between two varieties of the same religion, but, at bottom, between two essentially different types of thought and life. There is much interlocking of the branches, but the two tendencies, Modernism and supernaturalism, or (otherwise designated) non-doctrinal religion and historic Christianity, spring from different roots. In particular, I tried to show that Christianity is not a "life," as distinguished from a doctrine, and not a life that has doctrine as its changing symbolic expression, but that--exactly the other way around--it is a life founded on a doctrine.

(From "Christianity in Conflict," an autobiographical essay on Machen's life and works).

Trueman on Machen etc

2008-09-10T04:46:00.000-07:00

An article by Carl Trueman on Christianity, Liberalism and the New Evangelicalism can be found here

Benefits of Walking

2008-09-08T05:26:00.000-07:00

Found this here. Thanks!

“Having the great joy of three weeks of climbing in the Canadian Rockies, I am writing this little article to see whether I cannot help even those readers who cannot climb and cannot go to the Canadian Rockies to get some of the benefits which I am getting here.
Climbing mountains is good, in the first place for the body, and in the second place for the soul.
It is good for the body because of the wholesome buffeting of the body which it brings. To get such buffeting, the “tired American businessman” is wont, I believe, to place himself under the despotic control of some ex-prizefighter until he comes out of the ex-prizefighter’s (very expensive) establishment feeling fit. There are, I suppose, cruel and unusual punchings of the bag and pulling of the chest weights most severe. I shudder when I think of it. Such drudgery will people submit to in order to harden their bodies and make them a little better able to undertake the duties of life. I admire people who thus recognize the fact that a soft body will not do hard work.
But there are even better ways of hardening the body, and one of these is to learn to climb. Let that tired businessman get a good Swiss guide, like the one that I have here; let him be initiated into the mysteries of rock climbing, and he will find that his softness of body will soon disappear. What a thoroughgoing twisting and pulling and bumping the body gets, at every conceivable angle and in every conceivable way, on a rock climb even of moderate difficulty! It is glorious exercise indeed.
Now I know that it is only a few people who can climb. Climbing without expert guides, unless one is oneself a real expert, is highly dangerous; and there are now, I believe, only four mountaineering guides in all of Canada. Since the Canadian Pacific Railway speaks of western Canada as “fifty Switzerlands in one,” that makes just about one guide for every dozen Switzerlands - hardly enough to go around!
But the point that I am making is that many of the same benefits as those that are obtained in climbing may be obtained also without climbing and without the expense of guides. They may be secured through that cheapest and simplest of all forms of exercise - the exercise of walking.
I can testify to that from personal experience, for I have been a walker all my life. I do not, indeed, underestimate those comparatively rare occasions when I have been able to climb. They would hardly have justified the expense involved in them if they had brought to me merely the pleasure of the moment, but as a matter of fact when the climbs have been over, the benefit of them has just begun. During a period of nineteen years, when I did no climbing at all, how I used to live over again in memory those glorious days in the Eastern Alps in 1913! How eagerly did I read countless descriptions, in books and Alpine journals, of precipitous mountains of South Tirol! Then in 1932 and 1935 came the crowning joy of standing on the great Zermatt peaks. When I get discouraged I love to think of that unbelievable half hour when, after having climbed the Matterhorn by the Zmutt Ridge, we sat on the Italian summit, with our feet over Italy and our backs to a little wall of summit snow, and let our eyes drink in the marvelous beauty of the scene. What a wonderful help it is in all discouragements, what a blessed gift of God, to be able to bring before the mind’s eye such a vision as that.
But do you know, my friends, a man can have very much that same joy in much simpler ways.
The more I see of the high mountains, the more I love the simple beauty of the woods and hills, and the more I love to walk.
What a very simple amusement walking is! You do not need any elaborate equipment; you just “up and do it” any time you like.
But perhaps you say that as a matter of fact you do not like it. All right, I say; but will you not learn to like it?
There are many things that man does not like at first, and yet that he comes to like. A man says, for example, that he cannot see anything at all in golf. It seems to him a very silly game. But then a friend persuades him one day to go out and have a try. He has “beginner’s luck.” He manages just once to hit the ball instead of the earth. To his amazement he watches that ball go. How amazingly far that little pellet will sail when you happen to hit it right! Well, the man understands the fascination at last. He plays golf and talks golf and the rest of his life. He is a hopeless victim of the well-known “hoof and mouth disease.”
So when you say you do not love to walk, I do wish I could just get you to try. I do wish I could persuade you to use the old Ford this summer just to get to the edge of the woods. If you did choose that kind of a holiday, it would not cost you much, shoe-leather being much cheaper than gasoline and rubber tires. And the wholesome exercise you would get, and the close contact with the beauties of nature, would be a wonderful thing “as well for the body as the soul.”

Main Biographies

2008-09-08T04:52:00.000-07:00

The main biographies regarding Machen are as follows:

1. Coray, Henry W, J. Gresham Machen A Silhouette (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1981), pb, 128pp.; 19 cm. (Willow Grove, PA: The Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2002), pb, 127pp; 21.5 cm.
2. Chrisope, Terry A, Toward a Sure Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Dilemma of Biblical Criticism, 1881-1915 (Ross-Shire, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2000), pb, 240pp; 21.5 cm.
3. Stonehouse, Ned B, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954), hb, 520pp; 22 cm.
4. Woolley, Paul, The Significance of J Gresham Machen Today (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co, 1977), pb, 84pp; 21 cm.
5. Nichol, Stephen J, J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought (Nutley NJ, Presbyterian & Reformed Pub Co, 2004) pb, 252 pp
6. Hart, Daryl G, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1994. (based on Doctor Fundamentalis: An Intellectual Biography of J. Gresham Machen, 1881-1937. PhD diss, John Hopkins University, 1988)

Also note

Lippmann, Walter, A Preface to Morals (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960), pb, 348pp; 20 cm. [pages 32-34 present Lippmann's comments regarding Dr Machen]
Hart, Daryl G "J. Gresham Machen." In Handbook of Evangelical Theologians. Walter A. Elwell, ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993.
_____ "The Legacy of J Gresham Machen and the Identity of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church." Westminster Theological Journal 53 (1991): 209-225.

Books

2008-09-08T04:39:00.000-07:00

The main books available by J Gresham Machen are as follows:

1. A Rapid Survey of the Literature and History of New Testament Times, Parts I, II, III, and IV in The Westminster Departmental Graded Series International Course-Modified (Philadelphia : Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1914 and 1915), eight volumes in all, Student's Text Book (4 vols.) and Teacher's Manual (4 vols.)
2. The Literature and History of New Testament Times (Philadelphia, PA: The Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work, 1915), 288pp.
3. The New Testament: An Introduction, edited by W John Cook, (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), hb, 386pp.
4. Christianity and Liberalism (Philadelphia: The Sunday School Times Company, 1923, reprinted February 1924; also New York: The Macmillan Company, 1934 [seventh printing], hb, 189pp.
5. The Origin of Paul's Religion (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921), hb, 329pp.; 22.5 cm. [being the James Sprunt Lectures delivered at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, VA]
(Grand Rapids : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1925, 1970, 1973 and 1976), pb, 329pp.
6. The Virgin Birth of Christ (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1930, Second edition, 1932), hb, x, 415pp.
7. What Is Faith? (Grand Rapids : Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1946), hb, 263pp.
8. The Christian View of Man (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1937, 1965), pb, 254pp.
9. God Transcendent (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1949, 1982), pb, 206pp.
10. Education, Christianity and the State, edited by John W. Robbins (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 1987, third printing, 2004), pb, xii, 163pp.
11. Selected Shorter Writings, edited by D.G. Hart (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004), hb, vii, 590pp.

12. Notes On Galatians, edited by John Skilton, (Solid Ground Books, 2006), pb, 248pp.
13. The Gospel and the Modern World, edited by S J nichols (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2005), pb, 48pp.

Also see New Testament Greek for Beginners New Testament Greek for Beginners (MacMillan)

Macartney on Machen

2008-09-08T04:34:00.000-07:00

Remarks on Machen made by Clarence MacCartney in 1936 can be found here

Letter to Miss Gushard

2008-09-08T04:33:00.001-07:00

A letter from Machen answering an enquiry on ethics can be found here in pdf

Christianity in Conflict

2008-09-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

Machen's essay Christianity in Conflict can be found here and here in pdf

Historical Collections

2008-09-08T04:17:00.000-07:00

The main historical collections regarding Machen are found here:
1. J. Gresham Machen Collection, PCA Historical Center, St. Louis, MO.
Content Summary: This collection consists of published works authored by Dr. J. Gresham Machen, one work each published by his father and his mother, and both books and articles concerning Dr. Machen's life and ministry.
Access Restrictions: None
Related Collections: J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. Papers, Box 284
See here
2. The Machen Archives, the definitive collection of his papers, is located in the Montgomery Library on the campus of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA.
3. There is also a collection of Machen papers, including materials on the 1929 reorganization of Princeton Theological Seminary, located in the Department of Archives and Special Collections at Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ.

Machen on mountains

2008-09-08T04:08:00.001-07:00

Various items in connection with Machen and mountains can be found here

Prophets False and True

2008-09-08T04:04:00.001-07:00

Machen's sermon 1 Kings 22:14 on can be found here

The Fear of God

2008-09-08T04:03:00.001-07:00

Machen's sermon on Matt 10:28 can be found here The text is also in his What is faith?

Constraining love

2008-09-08T04:01:00.000-07:00

Machen's sermon on 2 Cor 5:14f can be found here

The Living Saviour

2008-09-08T04:00:00.001-07:00

Machen's sermon The Living Saviour can be found here

Changing Scene Unchanging Word

2008-09-08T03:53:00.000-07:00

Machen's article on The Changing Scene and the Unchanging Word can be found here

News clippings 1935

2008-09-08T03:52:00.001-07:00

News clippings regarding Machen's 1935 trial can be seen here

Necessity of the Christian School

2008-09-08T03:50:00.000-07:00

Machen's essay The Necessity of the Christian School can be found here

My Idea of God

2008-09-08T03:49:00.001-07:00

Machen's 1927 essay under this title can be seen here in pdf

WTS Brochure 1931

2008-09-08T03:46:00.001-07:00

See here for an early brochure for Westminster Theological Seminary

Piper on Machen and Modernism

2008-09-08T03:42:00.001-07:00

John Piper's piece on Machen can be found here or here

Chronology

2008-09-08T03:40:00.000-07:00

A Chronological Outline of Key Events in Machen’s Life:

July 20, 1827 Father, Arthur Webster Machen, born
June 17, 1849 Mother, Mary Jones Gresham, born
1876 Brother, Arthur, bornJuly 28, 1881 Machen born in Baltimore
1881 Francis Patton comes to Princeton as professor
1886 Brother, Thomas, born
1888 Francis Patton becomes president of Princeton
Jan. 4, 1896 Machen became confessing member of Franklin St. Presbyterian Church
1897 William Park Armstrong graduates from Princeton
Nov. 3, 1898 - Machen enters Johns Hopkins on three-year program
1889, 1900, 1902 Machen attended the Northfield Conference
1901 Machen editor of The Hullabaloo, the school annual, the Banjo Club and the Chess Club
April 15, 1901 Machen elected Phi Beta Kappa
Fall, 1901 Machen began a year of graduate studies in Classics at Johns Hopkins
Summer, 1902 Machen took a course in banking and international law at U. of Chicago
Fall, 1902 Machen entered Princeton Seminary1903 His cousin, LeRoy Gresham, left law in Baltimore to study at Union Seminary in Richmond
1903 Mary Machen published, The Bible in Browning
1904 Machen won the Middler Prize in NT Exegesis with paper on John 1:1-18
Spring, 1904 Patton confers with Machen about preparing for a professorship at the Seminary in NT
Summer, 1904 Machen goes to Germany to learn German better
1905 Machen won the senior essay contest with “A Critical Discussion of the NT Account of the Virgin Birth of Jesus”
Spring, 1905 Machen’s graduation from Princeton
Oct., 1905 and Jan. 1906 Publication of senior essay in the Princeton Seminary Review.
1905-1906 Machen studies in Germany (Marburg and Goettingen)
Mar. 11, 1906 Armstrong asks him to join faculty of Princeton.
June 13, 1906 Machen is invited by Warfield’s brother, the president of Lafayette College to come and teach Greek and German.
August 21, 1906 Machen arrives back in America.
Fall, 1906 Machen accepts a year’s appointment to Princeton to assist Armstrong in NT.
Feb., 1909 “Student rebellion” at Princeton
1907-08 Machen announced a course on the birth narratives. His magnum opus, The Virgin Birth of Christ appeared in 1930.
1909 Machen began to supplement Huddlestone’s Essentials of New Testament Greek, an effort which became, New Testament Greek for Beginners in 1923.
1909 Warfield’s message on Calvinism at the 400th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth stirred Machen deeply.
1910-1915 Publication of The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth
Sept. 12, 1912 Machen gave address “Christianity and Culture” at opening of 101st session of Princeton.
Jan. 4, 1913 Machen got his first major recognition as a scholar of international attention when Adolf Harnack reviewed in Theologische Literaturzeitung Machen’s articles on the first chapters of Luke.
Nov. 1913 Machen came under the care of his Presbytery at age 32.
April, 1914 Machen was licensed.
June 23, 1914 Machen was ordained at Plainsboro, NJ.
May, 1914 Machen was elected to Assistant Professor of NT
1914 J. Ross Stevenson elected President of Princeton.
1914 Machen wrote the weekly lessons for the Board of Christian Education Senior Course of Sunday School.
January, 1915 Machen hears Billy Sunday
April, 1915 Machen turns down invitation to Union in Richmond.
May 3, 1915 Machen installed at professor at Princeton.
December 19, 1915 Machen’s father died at the age of 88.
April 6, 1917 America declared war.Nov. 11, 1918 War ended.
May 6, 1919 Address to alumni and then published the address in the Presbyterian under the title, “The Church in the War”
Summer, 1920 Controversy at General Assembly over the Plan of Union
Feb. 16, 1921 Benjamin Warfield died.
Summer, 1921 General Assembly sees the Plan of Union was defeated in the Presbyteries.
Jan. 1921 Machen delivered Sprunt Lectures at Richmond on the Origin of Paul’s religion.
Oct. 9, 1921 The Origin of Paul’s Religion

Found here

Eulogy

2008-09-08T03:06:00.000-07:00

Here you can found eulogies given at Machen's death by friends