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This week, Ned B. Stonehouse’s biography of J. Gresham Machen is available at 30% off (£12.25 £17.50). Machen was one of the foremost defenders of orthodox Christianity in the first part of the twentieth century. Early on in his life, however, he was strongly tempted by theological ‘liberalism,’ and almost made a shipwreck of his faith. The grace of God sustained Machen and he would go on to contend with liberalism ‘as one who had felt its warm embraces, so that he grasped the nature of the conflict, as it were, from within.' (Nick Needham, Shapers of Christianity). Anyone wishing to find out about Machen, who had many of the qualities of Bunyan’s Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, will find much to stimulate and encourage in Stonehouse’s book. Buy J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir What is Faith? In What is Faith? Machen addresses one of the most fundamental questions about the Christian gospel. In his graceful style he expounds the biblical teaching on faith, combining the solid content of the truth with the personal challenge of the gospel. The result is a book of outstanding and permanent value. Paperback, 280 pages. £6.50 £5.85 Buy What is Faith? The Christian View of Man Machen explains, for Christians and non-Christians alike, how the Bible serves as a mirror to show us who we are. In simple yet careful language, Machen deals with such subjects as creation, man as the image of God, the fall, sin, God’s providence and care, and God’s restoring grace. Paperback, 256 pages. £5.40 £6.00 Buy The Christian View of Man God Transcendent In these messages, Machen expounds the greatness and glory of God, the wonder and power of the gospel and the exhilaration of serving Christ in the front line of spiritual warfare. They show why Machen fought so tenaciously for biblical truth against error: ‘It is impossible to be a true soldier of Jesus Christ and not fight’. Paperback, 208 pages. £5.10 £5.75 Buy God Transcendent This week on the Magazine Podcast: The Warrior Theologian N.B. We apologise for the mispronunciation of Machen’s name in this episode. It ought to be pronounced Gress-UM MAY-chen (the ‘h’ in Gresham being silent). Listen on Podbean © 2026 The Banner of Truth Trust. All rights reserved. View in browser · Update profile · Unsubscribe

Radio Broadcasts Brought Together

Since 2020 the transcripts of all of Machen's radio broadcasts have been available in one hardcover book. After a foreword by Sinclair B. Ferguson, a historical preface by Stephen J. Nichols and an introduction by Timothy J. Keller there are 50 items in three unequal parts. (An Afterword by Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. follows).

Part 1: The Christian Faith in the Modern World

The Present Emergency and How to Meet It
How May God Be Known?
Has God Spoken?
Is the Bible the Word of God?
Do We Believe in Verbal Inspiration?
Shall We Defend the Bible?
The Bible versus Human Authority
Life Founded upon Truth
God, the Creator
The Triune God
What Is the Deity of Christ?
Does the Bible Teach the Deity of Christ?
Sermon on the Mount and the Deity of Christ
What Jesus Said about Himself
The Supernatural Christ
Did Christ Rise from the Dead?
The Testimony of Paul to Christ
The Holy Spirit

Part 2: The Christian View of Man

The Living and True God
The Decrees of God
God’s Decrees and Man’s Freedom
What Is Predestination?
Does the Bible Teach Predestination?
Objections to Predestination
God’s Works of Creation and Providence
Works of Providence
Miracles
Did God Create Man?
How Did God Create Man?
God’s Image in Man
The Covenant of Life
The Fall of Man
What Is Sin?
The Majesty of the Law of God
Is Mankind Lost in Sin?
The Consequences of the Fall of Man
What Is Original Sin?
Sinners Saved by Grace

Part 3: The Final Broadcasts

The Progress of Christian Doctrine
The Creeds and Doctrinal Advance
God, Man, and Salvation
Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King
What Is a Prophet?
Prophecy and the Gospel
The Teaching of Jesus
Prophet and Priest
Christ Our Redeemer
The Doctrine of the Atonement
The Active Obedience of Christ
The Bible’s View of the Atonement

Letter to Miss Gushard, 1936

Machen was known to promptly and faithfully reply (much like Calvin) to the many letters he received. Here’s one from September 30, 1936 (from the PCA Historical Center’s J. Oliver Buswell Collection):

Dear Miss Gushard:

Your letter of Sept. 24th, addressed to me at the Seminary, which I do not visit very often in vacation time, did not come into my hands until yesterday evening. In reply to your inquiry, please let me say that I do not think it to be wrong to attend the theatre. My position regarding these matters is rather clear, and I have held it for a great many years. It may be set forth in part briefly as follows:

1. It is wrong to do things that are expressly forbidden in the Bible.

2. Where things are not expressly forbidden in the Bible, the individual Christian must determine, in the light of the Bible, whether they are wrong or not, and must act accordingly.

3. It is wrong for one Christian to tyrannize over the conscience of another in these matters.

That being so, I respect very greatly the conscience of a fellow Christian who cannot conscientiously go to the theatre. I should hate to see him do what he thinks is wrong. I certainly cannot ask him to submit his conscience to mine. On the other hand, he ought not to ask me to submit my conscience to his. With (regard) to the “separated” life, I should just like to say two things. In the first place, worldliness is a great danger to the Church and consecration is the thing for which we ought to strive with all our might. No mere man, since the Fall, has ever in this life been perfectly consecrated to God; but we ought to strive always to be more and more consecrated to Him. In the second place, however, there is also an opposite danger. It is the danger of a false asceticism. It is the danger into which those persons in Colosse fell when they said in a way which the Apostle rebukes: “Touch not, taste not, handle not.” We ought to strive against that danger also. Particularly ought we to avoid subjecting our fellow Christians to rules of our own choosing that go beyond what the Word of God contains.

Such are my principles. I do not claim to have followed them perfectly. Far from it. There have been times beyond number when I have fallen short of them. I certainly need to ask God daily to forgive me for my sins. But the principles that I have set forth do seem to me to be in accordance with God’s holy Word, and they are principles which I think we ought to keep before our eyes.

Very sincerely yours,

(Signed) J. Gresham Machen

Found here

New Biography

A new biography has appeared. It is called Machen's Hope: The Transformation of a Modernist in the New Princeton and is by Richard E Burnett.

Christianity and Liberalism 1923-2023

Perhaps we wonder at times how Christianity will survive in such a sceptical world. Modernists in the early twentieth century considered the solution to be clear. They thought the church needed to be modernised. They tried to rescue it from irrelevance, putting aside unpopular teachings from the Bible and recasting Christianity simply as a way of life. Resisting these attempts, J Gresham Machen gave an unbending response: Christian doctrine isn’t the problem - unbelief is.

A one-hundredth anniversary edition of Christianity and Liberalism has recently been published. It is intended to remind a new generation that God’s message of salvation is timeless. In defending essential Christian doctrines and exposing liberalism as a false religion, Machen reminds the church that we are entrusted with the truth that the world needs most.

See here.

Alternatively find the book in pdf here or here.

In a footnote in his essay on How Scotland lost its hold of the Bible (see here) Iain Murray says

Christianity and Liberalism (repr. 1997, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), p. 178. This has to remain one of the most important books of all times.

This refers to Machen's statement about Liberalism that it is ‘a movement which is anti-Christian to the core.’ (He also quotes Machen saying ‘There is sometimes a salutary lack of logic which prevents the whole of a man’s faith being destroyed when he has given up a part.')

Also see here.

Christianity and Liberalism Legacy Edition

In 2019 Westminster Theological Seminary produced a now hard to obtain (except in e-form) legacy edition of Machen's Christianity and Liberalism with a number of interesting extras. Machen founded the seminary in 1929. There is a Foreword by Peter A. Lillback and an Introduction by David B. Garner. There are also a number of essays by the Faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, as follows:

“Machen and History” by Chad Van Dixhoorn

“J. Gresham Machen, Fundamentalism, and Westminster Seminary” by Peter A. Lillback

“Machen and Apologetics” by William Edgar

“Machen and Philosophy” by K. Scott Oliphint

“Christianity and Liberalism and Preaching” by John Currie

“Christianity and Liberalism and the Church” by Alfred Poirier

“The Value of Christianity and Liberalism to World Missions” by R. Kent Hughes

“Machen and Scholarship” by Sandy Finlayson

“Machen and Liberalism” by R. Carlton Wynne

“Machen on the True Christian Religion” by Lane G. Tipton

“Salvation’s Center: The Sufferings of Christ and the Glories that Follow” by Iain Duguid

“The Historicity of Adam: A Gospel Presupposition” by Jonathan Gibson

“Christianity and Liberalism and the Old Testament as History” by Elizabeth W. D. Groves

“Christianity and Liberalism and Biblical Prophecy” by Stephen M. Coleman

“Machen and Christ’s View of the Old Testament” by G.K. Beale

“Christianity and Liberalism and the Gospels” by Brandon D. Crowe

“Christianity and Liberalism and Hermeneutical Presuppositions” by Vern S. Poythress

I have now managed to get hold of a paperback copy of the work and have enjoyed reading the brief essays.

Fundamentalism

In his essay Haykin has a footnote with two quotations from Machen that clarify where be stood on the matter of fundamentalism.

The term fundamentalism is distasteful to the present writer and to many persons who hold views similar to his. It seems to suggest that we are adherents of some strange new sect, whereas in point of fact we are conscious simply of maintaining the historic Christian faith and of moving in the great central current of Christian life.

Thoroughly consistent Christianity, to my mind, is found only in the Reformed or Calvinistic Faith; and consistent Christianity, I think, is the Christianity easiest to defend. Hence I never call myself a "Fundamentalist." There is, indeed, no inherent objec­tion to the term; and if the disjunction is between "Fundamentalism" and "Modernism," then I am willing to call myself a Fundamentalist of the most pronounced type. But after all, what I prefer to call myself is not a "Fundamentalist" but a "Calvinist"-  that is, an adherent of the Reformed Faith. As such I regard myself as stan­ding in the great central current of the Church's life - the current which flows down from the Word of God through Augustine and Calvin, and which has found noteworthy expression in America in the great tradition represented by Charles Hodge and Benjamin Breckenridge War­field and the other representatives of the "Princeton School."

Both quotations are from Stonehouse's Memoir,. 

Dr Haykin on Dr Machen

In a recent festchrift for Dr Bob Penhearow, Michael Haykin has a helpful essay on History and faith in the thinking of J Gresham Machen. For the book see here. Dr Haykin also has a brief article here. Machen's own message on history and faith can be found here

Machen on church history

Check here for a summary of Machen's approach to church history - an episode of Steve Nichols' Five minutes in church history.

Machen's Theological Method

 An audio piece by William Deniston on the above subject can be found here.

How not to be an Erdman

 Nice link here

J Gresham Machen Bibliography

 Here is a good link that I don't think we've noted before

Quotation Divinity of Christ

“I ask you now to consider one great central part of the doctrine, the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the Bible says that Christ is God, it does not ask us to forget a single thing that it has said about the stupendous majesty of God. No, it asks us to remember every one of those things in order that we may apply them all to Jesus Christ.”

From an article found here.

Five minutes from Steve Nicholls

Check this link for five minutes on Machen and rethinking missions by Steve Nicholls.

Three Gutenberg Books

The three following books can be accessed here online.

A Brief Bible History: A Survey of the Old and New Testaments by J O Boyd/J Gresham Machen

The Literature and History of New Testament Times by J. Gresham Machen

The Origin of Paul's Religion by J. Gresham Machen

Ranking hymns on the cross

... The Christian doctrine of the atonement, therefore, is altogether rooted in the Christian doctrine of the deity of Christ. The reality of an atonement for sin depends altogether upon the New Testament presentation of the Person of Christ. And even the hymns dealing with the Cross which we sing in Church can be placed in an ascending scale according as they are based upon a lower or a higher view of Jesus' Person. At the very bottom of the scale is that familiar hymn:

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

E'en though it be a cross

That raiseth me.

That is a perfectly good hymn. It means that our trials may be a discipline to bring us nearer to God. The thought is not opposed to Christianity; it is found in the New Testament. But many persons have the impression, because the word 'cross' is found in the hymn, that there is something specifically Christian about it, and that it has something to do with the gospel. This impression is entirely false. In reality, the cross that is spoken of is not the Cross of Christ, but our own cross;...

...the verse simply means that our own crosses or trials may be a means to bring us nearer to God. It is a perfectly good thought, but certainly it is not the gospel. One can only be sorry that the people on the Titanic could not find a better hymn to use in the last solemn hour of their lives.

But there is another hymn in the hymn-book:

In the cross of Christ I glory,

Towering o'er the wrecks of time;

All the light of sacred story

Gathers round its head sublime.

That is certainly better. It is here not our own crosses but the Cross of Christ, the actual event that took place on Calvary, that is spoken of, and that event is celebrated as the center of all history. Certainly the Christian man can sing that hymn. But one misses even there the full Christian sense of the meaning of the Cross; the Cross is celebrated, but it is not understood.

It is well, therefore, that there is another hymn in our hymn-book:

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.

There at length are heard the accents of true Christian feeling - the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died. When we come to see that it was no mere man who suffered on Calvary but the Lord of Glory, then we shall be willing to say that one drop of the precious blood of Jesus is of more value, for our own salvation and for the hope of society, than all the rivers of blood that have flowed upon the battlefields of history.

Thus the objection to the vicarious sacrifice of Christ disappears altogether before the tremendous Christian sense of the majesty of Jesus' Person. It is perfectly true that the Christ of modern naturalistic reconstruction never could have suffered for the sins of others; but it is very different in the case of the Lord of Glory. And if the notion of vicarious atonement be so absurd as modern opposition would lead us to believe, what shall be said of the Christian experience that has been based upon it? The modern liberal Church is fond of appealing to experience. But where shall true Christian experience be found if not in the blessed peace which comes from Calvary?

Christianity and Liberalism Chapter 6

Machen Book available on Audible

I'm not on commission here but I thought you might like to know. Link: AudibleMachen

Vern Poythress Preface

Check here for a preface to Christainity and Liberalism by Vern Poythress

Machen and Warfield

Writing of Warfield, W J Grier said this

One of the many thousands who felt indebted to Warfield was Dr J. Gresham Machen. Of all the teachers at Princeton it was he who left the deepest and most lasting impression on Machen. This influence was not felt so much as a student nor in Machen’s early years as an Instructor in the Seminary. Evidence of it can indeed be seen as early as 1909, the year of the 400th anniversary celebration of Calvin’s birth. Machen wrote to his mother of Warfield’s address on ‘The Theology of John Calvin’ as ‘the feature’ of the Celebration at Princeton. In this address Warfield spoke of the vision of God in His Majesty as ‘lying at the foundation of the entirety of Calvinistic thinking’. It was through Warfield that Machen came to see that a broadly based evangelicalism was not enough — it was the full-orbed Reformed faith which alone was consistent Biblical Christianity and consistent evangelicalism.

Warfield saw the drift which had set in at Princeton — the drift which was eventually to destroy the witness of the Seminary which had stood for over a century as a bastion of the faith. Dr Machen tells of an extra­ordinary conversation which he had with Warfield shortly before the latter’s death: ‘In the course of the conversation I expressed my hope that to end the present intolerable condition there might be a great split in the Church, in order to separate the Christians from the anti-Christian propagandists. “No”, he said, “you can’t split rotten wood”.’ He had small hope for the major denominations of the time. (Stonehouse’s Biography of Machen, p. 310).