Machen’s view of eschatology

The issue in the new church, the Presbyterian Church of America, was over the question of the millennium. The issue began when Professor John Murray of Westminister Theological Seminary wrote several articles entitled “The Reformed Faith and Modern Substitutes.” They began appearing in The Presbyterian Guardian, of which Machen was editor, in December, 1935. In the course of these articles Professor Murray touched upon modern dispensationalism of the Scofield Bible type and declared that it was contrary to the Reformed Faith. The cudgel was taken up by Professor R.B. Kuiper, Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster, who wrote an article entitled “Why Separation was Necessary” in which he attacked the Dispensationalism of the Scofield Bible.

It was at this juncture that Carl McIntire published an editorial in the Christian Beacon attacking Kuiper for his condemnation of pre-millennialism. It should be noted here that McIntire charged that “eschatological liberty” had been called into question within the new church. Kuiper replied to McIntire that the latter had misinterpreted him, but McIntire refused to publish the reply. Then in The Presbyterian Guardian the reply of Kuiper was published to which he maintained that McIntire had misinterpreted him.

The issue became more intense as the time of the Second General Assembly drew near. Those who were pre-millennial in eschatology became concerned, and the Presbytery of California drew up an overture requesting that eschatological liberty be spelled out in the standards of the new church.

In light of our thesis, it may be asked what Machen did at this juncture.

Machen maintained two points. First, he held to a radical distinction between dispensationalism of the Scofield Bible, (which tended to relegate most of the Gospel to the millennium and reserve only the epistles of the New Testament to the church age,) and pre-millennialism.

In an extended editorial Machen supported Professor Kuiper:

"In attacking the Dispensationalism of the Scofield Bible, Professor Kuiper was not attacking in the slightest, as being incompatible with the Reform System, the Pre-millenarian view of the return of Christ; and we cannot detect the slightest color of justification for such an interpretation of his words. There are surely many persons who, though they hold to the Pre-millennial view of the return of our Lord, reject the Dispensationalism of the Scofield Bible. We agree with those Pre-millennialists and we agree with Professor Kuiper in such rejection. The Dispensationalism of the Scofield Bible seems to us to be quite contrary to the system of doctrine taught in the Westminster Standards."

Machen further declared that if a man accepted the Scofield notes in their real meaning “he is seriously out of accord with the Reformed Faith and has no right to be a minister or elder or deacon in The Presbyterian Church of America.”

The second point is that Machen did not regard the subject of the
millennium as one that was defined in the standards.

Though he himself regarded pre-millennialism as being contrary to Scripture yet because of the vagueness of the standards he did not regard it as being incompatible to true Presbyterianism. In the editorial of the Presbyterian Guardian for November 14, 1936, he declared:

"Be it said therefore with the utmost plainness and insistence that never have we or to our knowledge has anyone else in the Presbyterian Church of America or in the Faculty of Westminister Seminary asserted that the holding of the Pre-millennial view of the return of our Lord is incompatible with maintenance of the Reformed System of doctrine or that it prevents a man from subscribing honestly to the doctrinal standards of the Presbyterian Church of America."

Commenting, after the second General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America had taken place, in the November 28 issue of the Presbyterian Guardian, Machen again declared that “the Pre-millennial view of the time of our Lord’s return is not an anti-reformed heresy.”

"A man may hold to it and be a minister in a truly Reformed or Presbyterian Church. But the dispensationalism of the Scofield Bible is, we are convinced, just as Professor Kuiper says it is, an anti-Reformed heresy indeed. It is quite out of accord with the system of doctrine contained in the West minster Confession of Faith and Catechisms."

It should be noted at this point that since the standards had not defined the question of the millennium in a definite way, Machen opposed any proposal to define the question further. One Presbytery did suggest a definition to be included in the standards so that “eschatological liberty” might prevail. Machen opposed it because he contended that the standards had never denied such “liberty.” Secondly, he opposed it because it would tend to divide the new Church over a question that the standards had not defined clearly. Further, he declared that such an amendment would place the new Church before the “world as some ‘strange new sect’ and not as a ‘true exponent of the Reformed Faith.’”

Lastly, he opposed further amendment to the standards because ‘this is not a creed making age, and if we try to tinker with the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms we are pretty sure to mar the witness of our church to the things for which those great instruments stand.

To sum up the struggle in the new church we must emphasize that where the standards spoke Machen knew no compromise. At the same time, where they were not clear in their definitions, such as the quest ion of the millennium, Machen could allow for liberty of opinion in others though he personally thought that pre-millennialism was based upon a false interpretation of Scripture.

We do want to make the point here, moreover, that the standard of full subscription on the part of the teaching officers worked against the Fundamentalists in general. Those who held to dispensationalism were orthodox according to Machen’s standards in the other doctrines of the Church. They were in full agreement with him on such doctrine as the Virgin Birth, the Deity of Christ, the Inerrancy of Scripture, but they possessed dispensationalism as a part of their theological system. This theological diversity qualified them for exclusion from the Presbyterian Church of America because they were not in full conformity with the standards of the church. The thesis here set forth is pointed up in Machen’s declar ation that anyone adhering to dispensationalism “has no right to be a minister or elder or deacon in The Presbyterian Church of America.”

Machen’s attitude toward the Standards can perhaps be see in relation to the organization of the Presbyterian Church in America. One of the key issues, it will be remember, was the discussion of pre-millenialism. We have already referred to this controversy above. For our purpose here we want to point up Machen’s attitude toward the Confession as it became manifest in his position in this controvery.

Machen maintained that the pre-millennial view of t he return of Christ was not “incompatible with maintenance of the Reformed system of doctrine or that it prevents a man from subscribing honestly to the doctrinal standards of the Presbyterian Church of America.” But the issue of Scofield Dispensationalism was a different thing. He charged that the Dispensational emphasis of separating the gospel from the epistles was a

"heresy of a very terrible kind. Rather than that The Presbyterian Church of American should knowingly tolerate such heresy in its ministry or eldership or deaconate, it would surely seem better that it should be divided or dissolved."

The basis for making such a strong rejection and giving such drastic alternatives was that Machen desired a church true to the Westminster Standards.

In the midst of the controversy over dispensationalsim, some of the orthodox Presbyterians wanted to incorporate an article into the Confession to define the new Church’s attitude toward pre-millennialism. Machen’s reply is to the point and expresses his reverential attitude toward the standards:

"In the first place, we think that any attempt to deal with these matters in the Constitution of the Church would be nothing short of folly. The doctrinal standards of the Church should be simply the historic Westminster Standards. This is not a creed-making age, and we certainly have not the ability to formulate doctrine. There is hardly the remotest chance that we can agree upon anything–any statement of our attitude toward our Lord’s return or anything else–except what is hallowed for us by its inclusion in our grand historic Confession of Faith and Catechisms."

In the same editorial, Machen went on to say that there is room for
"Pre-millennial congregations but we do not think that there is room for congregations who practically even if not theoretically erect the Pre-millennial view into one of the essentials of their faith. As for the labeling of congregations as A-millennial congregations we should be opposed to that also, with all our might and main."

Machen fully agreed with the resolution of the Presbytery of Philadelphia:

"The question whether or not our Lord’s bodily return is held to precede the “thousand years” referred to in Revelation 20 is, in our opinion, despite its importance, not to be regarded as a test whether a man does or does not adhere to the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms. A man may, we think, answer this question in the affirmative or answer it in the negative, and still, if his convictions otherwise are satisfactory, be ordained and received as a minister or elder or deacon of The Presbyterian Church of America ."

The foregoing has pointed up Machen’s reverence for the Confession and Catechism as they have been handed down, and that a true Presbyterian Church was one whose teachings officers subscribed to them without change. The question of pre-millennialism was not one defined in the Standards and, consequently, the issue was not a decisive one in a doctrinally true Presbyterian Church. But, on the other hand, dispensationalism was of such momentous concern for Machen that he would rather have no Church at all if it could not be a doctrinally true Presbyterian Church.

These extracts are from J. Gresham Machen and His Desire to Maintain a Doctrinally True Presbyterian Church, a Ph.D dissertation by
Dallas M.Roark