E. W. Bullinger
E. W. Bullinger
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
September, 1897 | Vol. IV July 1897 - June 1898 | Main Index
The Official Organ of Prophetic Conferences.
E. W. Bullinger
September, 1897
"The Logia (or sayings) of Jesus"
Most of our readers have heard of the recent discovery of a small Greek Papyrus in Egypt, containing some seven sentences purporting to be sayings of our Lord.
A learned disquisition has been published discussing the various problems connected with them. The date of the writing seems to be pretty certainly fixed at the end of Century II or the beginning of Century III.
They present no difficulty to one imbued with the language of the Gospels or having an insight into the history of the early ages of Christianity.
On the one hand we have to remember that before the death of the Apostle Paul the professing church had departed from his teaching: and that the last words of Christ from the glory to the individual overcomer were to "hear what the SPIRIT is saying to the Churches" in the epistles specially addressed to them. On the other hand we must remember that the Church took up with and corrupted "the teaching of the Twelve" and soon confined its attention to ordinances and morality.
So that the Epistles became neglected for the Gospels; and the testimony of the Spirit who came to form and teach the Church, gave place to the testimony of Christ who "came unto His own" in fulfillment of old Testament prophecy.
The sayings of Christ soon became perverted, as did the teaching of the Twelve, or these Logia would never have been written down or received as being authentic.
Genuine they are, being what they purport to be as to date, &c. but authentic they cannot be except so far as any of them may reflect the actual inspired words of the Gospels, as some of them do. Who, for example, could ever imagine the Lord Jesus as saying, "Except ye fast to the world ye shall in no wise find the kingdom of God; and except ye keep the Sabbath ye shall not see the Father"?
But we can understand modern Christianity readily receiving such a "saying" and using it to support its own departure from the primitive teaching of the Holy Spirit by Paul.
September, 1897 | Vol. IV July 1897 - June 1898 | Main Index
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