6
A.- What? Do you mean to say that the extracts just read were written by the Editor of The Berean Expositor?
B.- Yes, see for yourself. I have been reading from The Berean Expositor Vol. 16, pages 33 and 69. After
nearly twelve years, this same epistle is still under consideration, and at the time of writing, the current issue of the
magazine contains article No. 66 on Romans 9:4,5.
A.- I can hardly believe my eyes. How then can you account for the condemning criticisms that have been made
of this magazine in connection with the Epistle to the Romans?
B.- I think I could account for a great deal of it, but I prefer to leave it with the Lord and to `that day'. I am more
concerned for you, and for the truth, that no prejudice or misunderstanding should prevent you and others like you
from realizing the truth as it is set forth, in all its clearness and glory, in the epistles of Paul.
A.- But surely there is some foundation for this critical attack?
B.- Yes, false charges are sometimes truth misunderstood. For example, the cry that was raised against the
Apostle in the Temple was truth distorted :
`This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further
brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place' (Acts 21:28).
A.- I am afraid I have done you an injustice, but there is still something about your attitude to the Epistle to the
Romans that I very much wish you would make clear. Perhaps we could meet again and go more carefully into the
matter.
B.- We will; and as a parting word I should like to quote from a still earlier volume of The Berean Expositor
(Vol. 5, page 9) :
`A believer needs to be fairly well grounded in the doctrinal portions of Romans before approaching the
Mystery'.
CHAPTER 2
THE
`DOCTRINAL'
AND `DISPENSATIONAL'
TRUTH
EXPLAINED.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
A.- The sentence that you quoted as we parted last time has been in my mind since our last talk. I gather that
you see a difference between `the doctrinal portions of Romans' and `the Mystery'. Perhaps it is just here that my
problem is to be found. Why does the writer quoted stress `the doctrinal portions of Romans'? Is not doctrine
simply teaching, and is not every chapter and every verse full of teaching that is of extreme value whether in the
gospel, the practical outworking of the truth, or in God's dealings with His people Israel?
B.- In every branch of investigation the question of names is important. Every advance in Science must be
accompanied by the application of names, and if new things or new laws are discovered new names have to be
invented. The history of human investigation is largely a history of names. Such words as `electricity', `radium',
`wireless', `television', `photograph', `gramophone' will illustrate my meaning. Many, if not all, of these names are
used in a restricted sense, which has been agreed upon for the sake of clarity.
When we turn our attention to Theology, we are confronted with the same recurring need for names. There is,
for example, no such word as `Trinity' in the Scriptures, but the necessity for the name must be admitted whether we
endorse all that it is intended to cover or not. Such expressions as the `Deity of Christ', `Eternal Sonship',
`Perfectionism', `Antinomianism', `Pre-Millennial' and the like are all necessary labels for belief, whether the
beliefs themselves be true or false. And so there arose in the minds of some students of the Word the desire to be
able to differentiate easily two aspects of revealed truth, and the labels they adopted were `Doctrinal Truth' and
`Dispensational Truth'. You must remember, however, that those who selected these terms would agree with you
that in one sense all truth is doctrinal and in another sense all truth is dispensational. They must, therefore, have had
some special reason for coining these terms.