The subject ‘Papacy and Scripture‘ is of great importance today for two main reasons:

1. Reformed Theology itself requires that we must not be satisfied with the theological standpoint reached at the time of the Reformation but should submit ourselves to continual questioning by the Truth, and so move on to a position more in accordance with the dictates of the self-same Truth which is Jesus Christ. The very fact that we are ‘Reformed’ theologians itself raises the question of whether the anti-Roman arguments legitimately used by the Reformers still hold good; which means that, as a matter of urgency, we must reappraise our relationship with the Church of Rome.

For the ministerial fundamentalist the yardstick is the ministry. … There is no doubt that this is the crucial issue in reunion today. So Canon Fison wrote ten years ago and the same might be written in the same context today.

This yardstick is bound up with validity and so some attempt to consider its meaning may help; but first we shall define the word and then mention some relevant discussions. ‘That is valid which, by virtue of satisfying certain conditions laid down by competent authority, is actually entitled to everything to which it appears or claims to have a title.’ Much argument has centred on the exclusive claims made for episcopacy in The Apostolic Ministry, though, after the introduction, there is only one reference in the index of that work to validity. The late Bishop Rawlinson dealt with ‘validity’ in Problems of Reunion; he used certain arguments Canon Quick had outlined in his contribution to The Ministry and the Sacraments and also in The Christian Sacraments. Historical considerations on the topic have been ably summarised by Professor S. L. Greenslade in his Schism in the Early Church. Useful contributions have been made more recently by Dr A. L. Peck in Anglicanism and Episcopacy. All these writers are Anglicans.

Contemporary concern with the problems, exegetical and theological, relating to the nature and significance of the historical Jesus, is receiving widespread attention. Paul Althaus in his book The So-Called Kerygma and the Historical Jesus puts the matter thus: ‘… Certain though it may be that dogmatic theology is forbidden to try to get behind the Kerygma and the Christ proclaimed by it, the question still arises whether in another sense theology must not go behind the Kerygma; i.e. whether it must not inquire what is the relation of the Kerygma to the history, about which it informs us, and to which it bears witness.’ Althaus' book is useful in reminding us that we cannot properly emphasise the fact of Jesus' historical life without concern for the actual content of this life and the concrete character of the converse of Jesus with men. Althaus points to preservation of the Synoptic records in the canon as the reflection of the significance attached to the teaching and healing ministry of the historical Jesus.

At the beginning of 1917, there was published The Jesus of History by T. R. Glover, and it would be difficult to overestimate the influence that this book had on students and others of my generation. It seemed to bring Jesus down from the stained-glass existence in which our youthful piety had pictured Him, to make of Him a person real, vibrant and responsive to our twentieth-century needs—‘a man living upon victuals’ as Carlyle said of Richard Cœur de Lion. Glover too dispensed with all the theological jargon that seemed to us to stand as a barrier between the Jesus of the Gospels and the common man, and we heard Him speaking to us in a language that we could understand. Besides, this Jesus of History was a Jesus that could be preached, and the Gospel that was proclaimed by many younger men from their pulpits in the years following the 1914–18 War was the Gospel according to T. R. Glover. Glover has gone very much out of fashion today, and there were indeed limitations in his portrait of Jesus as there are bound to be in every such portrait made by man. Yet when I read this book again a few months ago, it seemed to me that almost everything that Glover said—and how well he said it!—was true in the sense that it fitted into the picture that any honest historian would make of the Jesus of the Gospels.

There are almost as many problems connected with the study of the Dialogue as of the Synoptic Gospels. This is hardly surprising when one considers how comparatively little attention the Dialogue has received, and that in size it is comparable to the four Gospels. Among the main issues to be considered are, the aim and authenticity of the Dialogue, the mutilation of its text, the OT text which is used, and the interpretation of the OT, which is the chief interest of the present writer.

The New Testament contains a very considerable amount of material bearing on the political responsibility of the Christian—much more, I think, than someone who has not yet questioned it seriously on the subject would be likely to expect. It will, therefore, be wise for us, before attempting to draw out the New Testament teaching, to try to get a general idea of the various ranges of material which ought to be taken into account.

There is good hope that the present year will see the appearance of the English translation of IV, 3 of the Church Dogmatics, and with it the conclusion of the doctrinal treatment of the atonement1 and the publication of all the Dogmatik thus far available. Necessarily divided into two halves because of its great length, this third part is devoted to the prophetic work of Jesus Christ in reconciliation. It thus represents an original attempt on the part of the author to work out in detail a theme which has often been suggested in earlier theology, but which has never been given the treatment accorded to the priestly work on the one side or the kingly work on the other.