Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 99:396 (Oct 1942)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

BSac 99:396 (Oct 42) p. 500

Book Reviews

Invitation to Pilgrimage. By John Baillie, Litt.D., D.D., S.T.D. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. 134 pp. $1.50.

Dr. Baillie is now Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. It has been my privilege and pleasure to read and review for BIBLIOTHECA SACRA other writings by Dr. Baillie. I again call attention to the almost inimitable style and culture of his writings. Dr. Baillie is in his class and associations related to great scholars and modern minds. He writes with them in view, and, while he may belong to their company, he is also serving as a modifier of modernists. For them he has a constructive message. Invitation to Pilgrimage is the strongest declaration I have seen from his fascinating pen. Every preacher, especially those who have drifted into social ideals, will be advantaged by the careful reading of every page of this book. I am not claiming to agree wholly with Dr. Baillie, but this volume has warmed my heart as few books have done. Three quotations will serve to verify the estimation of this book:

(1) Defining the way of salvation, he states: “At the root of all human spirituality there lies some understanding of this fact, but it is only in Christianity that the fullness of its meaning has been revealed. The essence of the Christian Gospel is that the demands of the law under which we were held have already been fulfilled for us by Him whose the law is. The righteousness which is demanded of us, and which we are unable to achieve, has been achieved for us and is now freely offered to us. God Himself, in the person of Christ the Son, has satisfied His own claims upon us. When Christ died on Calvary, the sacrifice we could not offer was offered for us, the debt we could not pay was paid for us-both figures have had large place in the history of Christian thought. The Christian good news is that all that is demanded of us has already been accomplished for us-was for ever accomplished when Jesus Christ, as He died, said ‘It is finished.’ Our salvation is already secured. It is there for us to take.

BSac 99:396 (Oct 42) p. 501

We must not try to win it; all we need do is to receive it. Or again, as the New Testament so often expresses it, all we need do is to believe it-to believe that it has already been won. Salvation, we are told, is not by works but by faith. Christ Himself said, ‘All things are possible to him that believeth.’ And St. Paul said, ‘For Christ is the end of the law to everyone that believeth.’ ‘And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.’ ‘The gospel of Christ...is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.’ But the two ways of stating the matter are...