Under Orders

The following article, adapted from B. B. Warfield’s “Shorter Writings,” originally appeared in connection with the “New Theology” of his day. It is easy to see, however, how the principles and arguments forwarded have a ready application to a whole range of “Christian” thinking that is with us yet – from the Neo-evangelicalism that dominates in the “National” churches, to the kind of fundamentalism that is almost totally ruled by what Christians “feel” to be right, and “know” to be right, rather than by what God actually says. We recommend the reading, and re-reading, of Warfield’s words.

Rudyard Kipling, in one of his “Barrack-room Ballads,” expresses the inner nature of heathenism, from what may be called the soldierly point of view. The characterization runs thus:

The heart of these lines, of course, is found in the fine soldierly sense of the value of order and discipline, that they utter. The soldier is conscious of not standing alone in weak isolation, but of being rather a member of an organism. His place in the organism lends worth and dignity to his individuality. What symbolises his part in the great organism is the fact that he is “under orders.” Obedience to orders - which is his duty as a soldier – does not appear to him a hard necessity, but has come to appeal to him as the source of all that is good and valuable. His pride in being a soldier centres in this, that he is “under orders.” The principle of “authority” is thus one of his most precious possessions; it is not only an organizing, but an elevating principle.

And so, looking out on the religious world, the simple soldier strikes on this as the essential difference between Christians and heathens. Christians are like soldiers; they are under orders. The heathen are like the disorganized rabble; they have no orders to obey, but each man is governed by his own caprices. Obedience to orders has made the Christian a man.

The fact that he has orders to obey has been the chief elevating force in his life; it is this that has given all the dignity and value to his action that it has ever possessed. The source of all the Christian’s self-respect, dignity, force, and worth is thus to the soldier-man summed up in his having “orders” to obey.

Now it seems to us that this soldierly judgment really does cut, with curious precision, to the root of the matter. We commonly express this by saying that Christianity is the only “revealed” religion. That is to say, Christians possess a body of instructions covering both what men are to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man, by which they may order their lives. The heathen lack this body of instructions. In this fact lies all the difference between the two. And this fact cannot be better expressed than by saying that the Christian, like the soldier, enjoys the advantages which come from being “under orders;” and, like the soldiers, acquires not only thus a place in the progressive successes of the power which he serves, but also an inward dignity and worth not attainable in any other way. The principle of authority is inherent in the very idea of revelation. Thus, it emerges that the fact of being under an “external authority is the source of the dignity and worth of the Christian, and is ultimately the root of all the distinction between him and the heathen. The heathen obey no orders but his own. The Christian has orders from above to obey. He is governed by a power outwith himself; he is under obedience to an external authority.

This soldierly judgment runs oddly athwart much of the theological opinion of the day. Nothing is so little esteemed in our time as “external authority.” Voices are never louder or more harsh than when they are raised to denounce subjection to “external authority.” They demand that the Christan man shall emancipate himself from it and be a law to himself. Our barrack room philosopher finds this to be the very characteristic of heathenism. Historically this demand has been known in the Christian church as “rationalism.” “Rationalism,” in other words, is that tendency of thought which would discard all “external authority” in the government of Christian thought, belief, and action, in favour of the authority of man’s own self: - his reason, consciousness, ethical judgment, and what not. It has passed though many phases, and runs naturally through a wide range – from cold intellectualism on the one side, to the warmest mysticism on the other. But in all its phases, it is characterized by this fundamental trait: it scouts “external authority,” and makes its appeal to what is within the man himself. In other words, it refuses to be “under orders,” and declines to obey any order except the individual’s own. According to our barrack-room judgment, this is essentially heathen. And this judgment is right. The mark of Christianity is that it is a revealed religion; that is, its adherents march by order from without, and not from within; they are under “external authority,” and from this fact they receive all that gives them worth and value.

It is marvellous how subtly and persistently the essentially heathen attitude seeks to engraft itself on Christianity. Just now we are called upon to face it in that which calls itself “New Theology,” our appeal is to be made, not to an “external authority,” but to the “Christian consciousness,” as it is to be called. What is involved here is the surrender of the whole Christian position. For, after all, even a Christian’s consciousness is himself. Our “New Theology” friends may indeed seek to identify their “consciousness” not with themselves but with Christ. But an assumed Christ within us is too likely to be (and has always historically evinced itself to be) only another way of following our own leading. The issue for our “New Theology” friends – and for others – is stated in this question: “Will they point to a single teaching of Jesus which they accept simply because Jesus said it, and not rather because, in their judgment, it is true?” The finger is put here directly upon the ulcer. It is possible to talk much about Christ and yet to betray him. The point is not to whom we attribute our guidance. The point is from whom we receive our orders. Do we accept Jesus’ statements and obey his commands simply because Jesus affirms them and gives them? Or do we accept and obey only in so far as we judge them ourselves to be wise and true? Are we “under orders”, and do we look upon that as a source of dignity and worth to ourselves that we are under the orders of such a Leader? Or, after all are we in the position of the heathen, of whom it is said, that “They don’t obey no orders, except they is their own.”

B. B. Warfield
1851 to 1921