Qtnurnr~tu
UJqtulugtral :!Inutltly
Continuing
LEHRE UNO WEHRE
MAGAZIN FUER Ev.-LuTH. H OMILETIK
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
Vol. XV May, 1944 No.5
CONTENTS
The Right and Wrong of Private Judgment. Th. Engclder
Nathan Soedel'blom. Theodore Gra"hner
Page
289
314
328 Outlines on the Standard Gospels
Miscellanea
Theological Obsen.·er
Book Review
Eln Predlger muss nlcht alleln wei-
deft. also dais er die Schafe unter-
weise. wle de rechte Chrl8ten sollen
Rln. sondem liIuch cianeben den Woel-
ten tDeh7'lm. dass sle die Schafe nlcht
angrelfen Wld mit talscher Lehre ver-
tuehren und Irrtum elntuehren.
Luther
339
3·a
354
Es 1st keln Ding. das die Leute
mehr bel der Klrche behaelt denn
die gute Predigt. - A pologie. Arl. 24
If tile trumpet give an uncertain
sound. who ahall prepare himself to
the battle? -1 eM. 14:8
Published for the
Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
CONCORDIA PUBUSIUNG BOUSE, St. Louis 18, Mo.
'11'1 T!:) I - tr. IS. A.
314 Nathan Soederblom
times and must be preached to all true believers: 'All things are
yours; and ye are Christ's.' Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty
wherewith Christ has made you free, and be not entangled again
with the yoke of bondage! Amen." (Loc. cit.) Let us follow the
example of Luther, who would not permit any man to rule over
his conscience, but did make Christ its absolute ruler. "In his
very last sermon the great champion of private judgment and
liberty of conscience declared once more (XII: 1260 fl.): 'I grant
that the emperor, king, pope, cardinal, princes, and lords are pru-
dent and wise; but I will believe on my Lord Christ alone: He
is my Master and Lord, whom God has bidden me to hear and
to learn of Him what is true, divine wisdom. . .. Therefore, dear
Pope, your claim to sit in Christendom as lord and to have authority
to decide what I should believe and do, that I cannot accept. For
here is the Lord whom alone we should hear in these matters ....
This, and much more, might be said on this Gospel, but I am too
feeble; let this suffice. God give us grace that we receive His
precious Word with thanksgiving and increase and grow in the
knowledge and faith of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and con-
tinue steadfast in the confession of His holy Word unto the end,
Amen!'" (Theological Quarterly, 1911, p.254.)
(To be continued) TH. ENGELDER
4 ••
Nathan Soederblom
I
Lars Olof Jonathan (Nathan) Soederblom was born in the
parish of Troenoe, Sweden, January 15, 1866, the son of Rector
Joseph Soederblom and his wife. He received the degree of Candi-
date of Philosophy at the University of Uppsala in 1886 and the
degree of Candidate of Theology in 1892. He was appointed pastor
of the Swedish church in Paris in 1894 and also seamen's pastor
at Dunkerque, Calais, and Boulogne. While in Paris, he pursued
his studies and graduated from the EcoLe des hautes etudes, in the
section of the science of religion, in 1898, receiving the degree of
Doctor of Theology from the University of Paris in 1901. The same
year he was called to the chair of comparative religion in the
University of Uppsala. In 1914 he was made Archbishop of Sweden.
The honorary degree of Doctor of Theology was conferred upon
him by Geneva, Oslo, St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Greifswald, the
honorary Doctor of Philosophy by the universities of Uppsala,
Greifswald, Bonn. Other honorary degrees he received from
Berlin and Oxford.
In the work When the Hours Course and Change, 1909, there
Nathan Soederblom 315
is in one essay a most remarkable passage which must be auto-
biographical and where Soederblom apparently is giving an insight
into what might be called his conversion. First the work of the
Gospel came, breaking in on his purely intellectual state of total
skepticism and darkening of the light when the old doctrines he
had learned were lost to his convictions. Then he continues to set
forth how one day the dazzling and amazing demolishment from the
knowledge that God is holy and righteous fell, lightninglike,
upon him.
One is apt to agree with one of the keenest critics of Soeder-
blom's religious position, the late Professor Adolph Hult of Rock
Island Seminary, that this biographical self-analysis, where the
Gospel precedes the Law in its work on the soul- saved first by
the Gospel and then by the Law, discovering the threatening and
dire demand of the Law - accounts for the unspeakable confusion
of spiritual judgment that makes the writings of Soederblom as
a Liberal "so disheartening in their jumbled brilliancy and their
maze of winsome and repellent elements."
One might find a symbol of the soul of the Swedish arch-
bishop in two recollections which we have of his visit to the
United States in 1923. For one thing, he delivered 130 lectures at
eleven universities, which received him as the most distinguished
Protestant representative of modern thought. But with him he
carried in a leather plush-lined case a bishop's crozier seven
hundred years old, which he bore as he walked in procession at
the church meetings which welcomed him as the Augustana
Synod's visitor from the "Mother Church." Probably there has
not been among the church leaders of the last fifty years a figure
which united such discordant elements of deep sentimental regard
for the inheritance which has come down to us from the Apostolic
Church and the sponsorship of destructive Biblical criticism of
the religionsgeschichtliche Schule, of which Soederblom, Ernst
Troeltsch, and Bousset were the banner bearers. Accordingly, as
one side and the other of his spirit impressed those who came
into contact with him, he was regarded on the one hand as a
champion of ancient truth and, on the other, as a leader in the
naturalistic criticism of religion.
He was born of devout Christian parents. His father was a
pastor of distinguished ability, who regarded his highest calling
to be the preaching of the Gospel. Soederblom tells us that as
he grew up through childhood and adolescence to manhood, he
learned to love the church in which he had been baptized and
confirmed because the constant answer to his inquiries into the
source of the many peculiar blessings which he enjoyed in this
church was always: Martin Luther and the Reformation. The
316 Nathan Soederblom
hymns were his delight. He asked his mother, "Who gave us
these hymns?" and the answer was, "Martin Luther and the
Reformation." He was interested in the Bible and read it with
growing love and devotion, and when he asked, "Whence this
Bible?" the answer was: "In our language through Martin Luther
and the Reformation." When upon the high festivals the liturgical
service of the church uplifted his soul and he inquired from whom
they had received these forms of worship, he was told, "From
Martin Luther." He tells us that his mother was his first teacher,
and he adds this compliment, that she was the best teacher he
ever had. He relates that he memorized Martin Luther's Small
Catechism and never lost the thrill which he felt when he
repeated Martin Luther's wonderful explanation of the Second
Article.
Years later, when he was primate of Sweden, the leading
figure of the Second Lutheran World Convention, held at Copen-
hagen, Denmark, 1929, he closed the meeting at which he had
presented the greetings of His Majesty, King Gustavus of Sweden,
by reading a scholarly paper on the subject : "Luther as a Christian
P ersonality and His Significance for Northern Europe." Here are
a few excerpts:
"Luther takes up the classical documents of elementary in-
struction. His Little Catechism continues what the Ancient Church
and the Middle Ages had taught and done. Luther was come not
to break up but to fulfill- obedient to the Master. His piety as
well as his psychological grip are shown by the fact that Luther
bases his teaching on the main items of the faith which had of
yore been taught by the Church, viz., the Ten Commandments,
from Moses' time, the Lord's Prayer, which Jesus gave to His
disciples, and the summary of the Ancient Church of its faith in
Father, Son, and Spirit. He kept to the classical tradition of the
Church. An inevitable objectivity determined him. Was Chris-
tianity to be stated in terms, the starting point must be sought in
its most widespread and time-honored documents. The same rule
must be observed this very day."
In conclusion Soederblom said:
"May the Word live and work among us ; God's Word and
promises shall stand fast. The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us. . .. Shall we not, in our different languages, confess
QUI' faith in our Lord together, using Luther's words?"
All arising, led by the Archbishop, then confessed:
"I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father
from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my
Lord; etc."
A Fundamentalist magazine, Chr'.stian Faith and Life (Oc-
Nathan Soederblom 317
tober, 1931, p.543), continuation of the Bible Champion, broke
a lance for the orthodoxy of Dr . Soederblom in such terms as
these: "There have arisen voices who claim him as a Liberal,
who awaken the impression that he had broken with the historic
Christianity of Holy Scriptures, that he was an outstanding leader
of the Modernists, true, not radical, but one of them. That is
false - it is a glaring misrepresentation. It manifests either a
deliberate attempt to distort the facts, or it is, as is so often the
case, a superficial understanding of a great and devout faith." In
support of this judgment Christian Faith and Life quotes extracts
from the remarks addressed by Soederblom to the first Lutheran
World Convention (1923):
"With profound gratitude in our hearts we lift our voices in
praise to God for His grace in sending the prophet Martin Luther
to reveal to us again the atoning work of His Son. . . . Luther
is the greatest evangelist the Church of Christ has known since
New Testament times. . . . Luther's doctrine of faith is often
interpreted as a strong psychological effect which a man produces
in himself. This is utterly false. Luther himself wrote in his
first exposition of the Lord's Prayer: 'Proud-spirited saints do
more harm than any other people on earth, etc.' Weare nothing.
We are poor, weak vessels with impure content or at best with
no content at all. But the empty hand of trust is filled by God's
mercy in Christ Jesus. . . . Luther's special mission lay in the
fact that he revealed again, as no other since the days of St. Paul
had done, the boundless depths of the love of God in the Crucified
One. And this evangelical doctrine of the salvation alone through
the grace of God it is our mission to keep forever pure and whole.
Nothing else can assure us of eternal life ....
"So therefore we gather under the name of Luther but by no
means in the name of Luther. Rather do we gather in the Name
of Jesus Christ. The Word of God is our only strength. No
worldly means nor human calculations will suffice. The Word that
Luther brought to light again, the Word of Revelation, above all,
the Word become flesh, the incarnated Logos, - this is our suf-
ficiency. By the grace of God we should also incarnate that Word
in our hearts and lives, because that Word is the Will of God."
On the same occasion Archbishop Soederblom gave his hearty
"yea" to this article of faith: "The Lutheran World Convention
acknowledges the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments
as the only source and the infallible norm of all church doctr ine
and practice, and sees in the Confessions of the Lutheran Church,
especially in the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and Luther 's
Small Catechism, a pure exposition of the Word of God."
It is necessary that we quote such expressions as these, uttered
318 Nathan Soederblom
or publicly acknowledged by Nathan Soederblom, in order to
account for the acclaim with which he was received in the United
States by many Lutherans, particularly by the officials, theologians,
and parish clergy of the Augustana Synod on his visit to this
country. Dr. Hultl) records the unequivocal statement of a Lu-
theran official paper that Soederblom is "the Lutheran theologian
who freely but firmly [italics by the original writer of the editorial]
moves within the limits drawn up by the Word and the Confes-
sional writings." I had occasion soon after to interrogate one
of the Augustana Synod editors regarding the honors which his
Church had shown a man whose theological position I had learned
to regard even more radical than that of Adolph Harnack. I pointed
out that he had not so long ago contributed an article to an
Episcopalian paper, The Churchman, in which he denied the pro-
priety of using the Psalms and Old Testament examples of praying
for victory in time of war, since the Jehovah of the Old Testament
differed in degree but not in kind from the tribal deities of other
Semitic nations. The answer I received was : "The trouble is,
when Soederblom writes as a philosopher, one must read him
as a philosopher and not forget what he writes as a theologian."
The view still prevails also outside the Augustana Synod that
Soederblom's religious speculations have been misunderstood, that
in his rich, poetical mind there welled up a wealth of symbols to
express the inexpressible and to dress in modern scientific terms
the ancient faith of Christendom, and that at heart he was a simple
Lutheran Christian. We also heard the note sounded occasionally,
while Soederblom was still living, that the Lutheran Church should
be proud of possessing the greatest Protestant leader of the age.
It is, therefore, not out of place that in the series now running
in the CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY a chapter be devoted to
a brief analysis of Soederblom's religious position.
II
Nathan Soederblom was one of the leading representatives
of a group of religionists called the "History (or Science) of Re-
ligion School." The representatives of this school of thought hold
that religion is a product of natural evolution, which has attained
its highest developments, so far, in Christianity. As already noted,
he was associated both in thought and literary activity with Ernst
Troeltsch of Berlin. So far as scholastic attainments are concerned,
Troeltsch was the giant, his scholarship by far richer and more
profound than that of his brilliant Swedish friend. You will find
little in his writings, however, that will compare with Soederblom's
aesthetic evaluation of Cr..ristianity and of ancient dogma, none of
1) Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1916, p.468.
Nathan Soederblom 319
that enthusiastic delight in the Lutheran Church as a Church, none
of thai eager quest tor the spiritu ... ~. _~ .. _.ling of th_ _ ____ ..;h's
life, as he understood it. Yet Dr. Troeltsch, like Professor Harnack,
recognized the complete religious solidarity between himself and
the Swedish archbishop. He praised Soederblom for eliminating
the distinction of "pagan" and "Christian" from the study of
religions.
Fundamental to the entire scheme is the conception that the
Old Testament religion like all others has developed out of animism
(spirit worship). In general, the pan-Babylonian view is held,
which makes the religion of the Old Testament a late development
out of ancient Babylonian mythology. Basic is also the assumption
that the tendency towards the recognition of one Supreme Power
in the world is manifested at a comparatively early stage in the
development of man. The broad distinctions are made between
the religions of savages, the religions of primitive culture, the
religions of advanced culture, and finally, to follow the classifica-
tion of Morris Jastrovv}l "the religions ..rhich emphasize as an
the co-ext ; of relig .... life and which ain
at a consistent accord behvecn religious doctrine and religious
practice." This is understood to be not sh-nply a dassh'ication but
stages of development through which all the higher religions have
passed. From Wellhausen and Kuenen down, the Old Testament
is interpreted as offering a conception of Jehovah not inconsistent
with the supposition that there are other gods, albeit inferior ones
and unworthy of notice. These are the fundamentals of the History
of Religion School. They cut away the very ground from our
faith. All religion certainly disappears if what we have in the
Bible is merely a product of evolution.
In his Origin of the Idea of God (Preface) we are prepared
for Soederblom's evolutionistic study of his theme thus: "No one
can give an account of the origin of the God-faith. The super-
human, Divine origin of religion is not accessible to research.
And its earliest appearance on our earth lies beyond the oldest
testimonies. We were not along." Then he traces through 340 of
390 pages, in truly evolutionistic manner, "the primitive beginnings,
to which a God-conception in the proper sense with consequent
worship has attached itself." The lowest form of animistic and
like religions of the vvild tribes of the earth are studied, and he says
of them: "Even if a God-faith in the proper, customary sense has
not 1:~::n found, i: ::::: ::::t follow thererrom that man e "L -'ked
religion" (p. 207). There is no mention of true religion in the
Bible before the patriarchs.
The fundamental rejection of the Christian concept of revela-
2) The Study of n.eligion, p.1l7.
320 Nathan SoederbloID
tion runs through all the religionsgeschichtliche papers and books
of Soe erbIc "FoJ the 'hole cycle of the churL~_ J ear is
filled with the life of Jesus and its continuation in the work of
the Spirit. . .. But the revelation is not finished. The Father
worketh until now."3l In the rather confused and vague, but, as
R. Seeberg 4l says, "ueberaus anregenden Ausfuehrungen von
N. Soederblom," Vater, Sohn und Geist (1909, pp. 70-72), we
have the same presentation of continued revelation: ".Teder, der
mem oder werJ.ger bcwusst, aber doch wesentlich von Christus
abhaengig, sich zur Gottesgewissheit durcharbeitet, zu innerer Be-
freiung and Erneuerung des Lebens, erwirbt sich gleichzeitig einen
Platz in der Geschichte der Offenbarung." The New Testament
came under the judgment of the same d<::,,~ructive criticism. "We
know that Jesus Christ Himself-who in His personality is recog-
nized by faith as God's speaking work to men - He, too, was a
child of His time, although He rises heavens-high above the ages.
He thought like his contemporaries concerning the form of the
earth and the course of the sun. Like them, he related certain
fom ~ ins, to €'Jil ,pirH lat IT men emoni! ." 5) I
the v.l'u.lion VL ... 'roeltsch, Soec.;:;:;:;:;lom\:. 'Y~'ithlg l .... Je c(,_~ribute_
largely to the wiping out of the line of disti11ction betWeen natural
and revealed religion.
III
The study of the Comparative Science of Religion tends to
relativize Christianity in the minds of all whose spiritual ex-
perience has been defective, either by lack of Christian training
or by too prominent an intellectual disposition. In the following
we shall trace the effect of Soederblom's preoccupation with ver-
gleichende Religionskunde upon his career as a churchman and
a theologian.
In a letter, of which I have the original before me, addressed
by Archbishop Soederblom to certain Hindu Christians in 1922, the
practical working out of the confessional indifference of the Swed-
ish primate is plainly revealed. The Church of Sweden had taken
over certain missions formerly conducted by German Lutherans.
When the natives were informed of the fact that the Swedish
Church had entered into alta~ dnd pulpit fellowship with the
Anglicans (Church of England), they asked, "How can this be?"
Replying to a letter -~ -roteoL .L:>m Hindu laymen, Soederblom
defended this change of Lutheran policy, made under his admin-
istration. In this letter he eJ-':pressed views regarding the Lord's
Supper and other doctrines which later caused these native
S) The Individual and the Church, 1909, p.17.
4) Der Ursp'Mhng des ChristusglauiJens, 1914, p.62.
5) The Y :' Aut tine, 19Hi, p.21.
Nathan Soederblom 321
Christians to organize a separate body. In 1923 they joined the
Missouri Synod group of congregations in India.
Summing up the activities of Dr. Soederblom until 1924, Dr.
Reu said, "He has given evidence of an absolutely morbid tendency
for uniting the churches."
Soederblom was not really in America as a guest of Au-
gustana, in 1923, but came under the auspices of the World
Alliance for Promoting International Friendship Through the
Churches, of which he was first vice-president. This alliance was
then (as it is now) federated with a Church Peace Council com-
pletely under radical control and was then working with two
million dollars of Carnegie money. In the announcement of his
addresses it was distinctly stated that their purpose was to bring
about union between the churches, and Soederblom's achievement
of establishing fraternal relationships of the State Church of
England and that of Sweden was particularly stressed in the
announcements of the World Alliance. At a number of American
universities Soederblom lectured on the subject "Luther, Erasmus,
Loyola." A typical passage is the following: "We now see that
Luther was quite as authentic a continuation of the deep religious
life of the Middle Ages as Erasmus or Loyola. Erasmus best
deserves the name of reformer. He wanted reform. He wished
to remove a lot of weeds from life, worship, and doctrine. Luther
and Loyola were impelled by a deeper pathos, an all-consuming
desire for peace of soul. They found it in different ways, and each
in his way forms an original religious type. It may be disputed
which is the straighter way, that which continues through Luther or
that which continues through Ignatius Loyola and Tridentinum."
In spite of his veneration for the Apostolicum and Luther's
Catechism, creedal statements were lightly esteemed by Soeder-
blom. "We must not attach too much weight to formulas, how-
ever important they may be. The work of the Spirit goes on con-
tinually in the Church, and that work of the Spirit acknowledges
no confessional boundaries." As for the road to Christian union,
he expected little from doctrinal discussion. His essays and ad-
dresses are singularly free from any attempt to mediate between
the doctrinal positions of the historic Christian denominations. He
advocated in a most outspoken manner those avenues toward union
which would circumvent all doctrinal differences and by ignoring
them lead the church into active collaboration on the basis of full
Christian fellowship. "This path is called Christian co- operation.
This method is fundamentally practical, not theoretical. All sin-
cere disciples can join in it. Even those who cherish the hope of
absorbing all fellow Christians in their own flock can center with
us upon the path of love without any prejudice to their principles.
21
322 Nathan Soederblom
. . . For Christian co-operation it has often been made a rule-
either understood or clearly expressed - to ascertain uniformity
of creed before the members of Christ's Church can agree to work
wholeheartedly together in His name. Leave to each communion
entire freedom to regulate its own faith and its own affairs. Is not
our sincere yearning to follow the Lord enough? Is it necessary
to go into the question of our different creeds, views, and customs
when the great thing in common really exists in our hearts,
namely, obedience to the voice of our Lord? Our own work in
His service as well as the distress of our generation renders sys:-
tematic co-operation imperative."6) In 1930 Archbishop Soeder-
blom was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in pro-
moting international friendship through the churches.
Naturally, sympathies as wide as those documented in these
brief extracts, which are typical, would not stop at acknowledging
religious fellowship with those who had broken completely with
the concept of evangelical orthodoxy and with declared enemies
of the Christian system of doctrine. When the ultraradical Mod-
ernist Loisy was to be honored on his seventieth birthday, it was
So blom 0 re~ =utec _, Sea •. :avia - lthel on the
committee. He, as well as Harnack, was willing to honor a man
who had been excommurlicated by the Roman Catholic Church
on account of his rejection of ihe fundamental doctrines of Chris-
tianity and who was then issuing one book after the other teeming
with blasphemous heresies.
Dr. W. H. T. Dau has analyzed 7) the relationship between
Soederblom and Harnack in connection with the visit of the Ger-
man theologian to the principal ecclesiastical and academic centers
of Sweden in 1923. He quotes a conservative editor who voiced
in Nya Vaektaren his disgust at the manner in which the primate
of the Swedish Church conducted himself, at a recent synodical
convention, as "bishop of the whole world," who, like the Pope,
devotes himself to world politics. This endorsement of religious
radicalism, of course, stems directly out of the archbishop's iden-
tification with the History of Religion School. He had written in
one of his earlier essays: "Ideell gesehen, kann man zu den Zeugen
des i.."1..."1eren Lebens, die zusammen gehoeren und sich zu einer
objektiven Macht sammeln, auch solche ausserhalb der biblischen
Religionslinie stehende Persoenlichkeiten rechnen, die auf hoe-
herem odeI' niederem Stadirnn eine gleichbedeutende Gotteser-
fahrung erlebt haben, besonders Sokrates."8) Dr. Huh expressed
6) Christian Fellowship or the United Life and Work of Christen~
dam, 1924, p.155.
7) TheoLogical Monthly, 1923, p. 225 fI.
8) Vater, Sohn und Geist, 1909, p. 71.
Nathan Soederblom 323
himself as "appalled by the Socinian breakdown of the atonement
doctrine in The Religious Problem, 1910, pp. 425 ff. and on. The
whole chapter pits the hopeless 'retribution doctrine' of, as he says,
Brahmanism and Moses and Paul and later Christian thought
against the 'deeper-lying law for God's line of conduct, election
and faithfulness, grace and forgiveness, suffering and atonement.' "
There is but a difference of rank and degree, but not of kind,
between Socrates and Jesus viewed as channels of divine revela-
tion. "History and revelation show us how Christ, God's supreme
Son, the real Revealer, suffers and dies. Dogmatics that are more
well-meaning and eager than Biblical and sound have emphasized
the divinity of Christ in a metaphysical way which incurs the risk
of crucifying God the Father and of transforming Golgotha and
Jesus' cry of anguish 'Eli, Eli' to a sort of sham maneuver in
divinity. The Christian Church has always rejected the con-
clusion from the dogma of the divinity of Christ that God Himself,
the one, sole Almighty, suffers."9) Christ was not essentially God
but with Him "a divine ferment entered into our species akin to
the image of God that is latent and deformed hl mankind."
Two lectures were published 1921 by Hinrichs in Leipzig.
The first: Gehen wir einer religioesen Erne1tertmg entgegen?
The second: Der Kirche Christi Weg in dieser Zeit. These essays
very well illustrate on the one hand the moral earnestness,
the enthusiasm for good causes which characterized Soederblom,
and also his dubious religious position, which never fails to move
into the liberal field and finds its explanation there. For instance:
"I know of no evangelical theologian of the better kind, be-
ginning with Martin Luther himself, who would consider the doc-
trine of the two natures and three persons and everything per-
taining to these as perfectly expressing the Savior's personality
and His witness concerning Himself and the Father." To which
we would add that to reject a mystery and to regard it as too
profound for our understanding are certainly two very different
things.
In the second of these essays Soederblom maintains that it is
God the Father who suffers and that Christ is not essentially the
eternal Son of God but only the Revealer of God. He ap-
proaches pretty close to the vulgar Rationalism of the eighteenth
century when he draws a parallel between the Virgin Birth and
the clahns for a miraculous conception which have been made for
Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Pharaohs of Egypt. "The
heart of the idea is that such a person was regarded as a product
of deity and furnished with divine powers." Concerning the In-
carnation, he has this significant interpretation: "It is a fundamental
9) Christian Fellowship, etc., p.146.
324 Nathan Soederblom
belief of Christianity that the appearance of Jesus is a miracle,
that the Word, the Logos, God's Purpose, became flesh in Him."
Not God, but the divine purpose, then, became flesh in Christ.
The idea of a vicarious satisfaction for sin as taught by the
Church is definitely rejected in this essay as in others. The
author terms it an "easy exchange between the sufferer and the
human souL" The entire discussion is based on the notion not of
some objective result of Christ's suffering and death, but as a
revelation of something that had previously existed but not recog-
nized by men in its fullness - the love of God for mankind. Christ
is represented as at the height of his office as Revealer in His
suffering and dying.
Regarding the resurrection of Christ, the most that Soederblom
is ready to conceue is the genuineness of the Gospel narratives
as a record of convictions held by the Evangelists, namely, that
the same body that was laid in the grave came forth again. But
as for an actual restoration of the crucified body of Jesus to physical
life, Soederblom quotes 1 Cor. 15 as denying any such conception.
There is here simply a spiritual "resurrection," "h"rdly rnore than
a c~ lued lenCE the I nalit J eSL~.
Dr. Reu closes an analysis of Der Kirche Christi Weg in dieser
Zei+ "Q fo11"">'