Walter Scott (1796-1861) is without a doubt one of the most influential persons in our Stone-Campbell photo album. Though his DNA flows through our spiritual veins he is often marginalized in our history. The literature on him is small compared to Alexander Campbell. Scott's influence is seen in that it was he that suggested the title to AC's Christian Baptist. He became the evangelist for the Mahoning Baptist Association in 1827 which made him a legend. His pen was prolific sending out his Discourse on the Holy Spirit, The Evangelist (1832-1842 with breaks), The Gospel Restored, The Protestant Unionist, and The Messiahship, The Union of Christians on Christian Principles.
Walter Scott was more than an evangelist, he was a theologian. He was a poet in love with the Lord Jesus. He was, it seems to me, torn between two worlds, Enlightenment rationalism and his emotions. I like to call him an Emotive Rationalist. Scott was baptized by George Forrester, a Haldanean preacher, in 1819. In 1821 visiting a "Scotch Baptist" church in New York City he came into contact with Henry Errett's booklet On Baptism that played a key role in his (and Campbell's) theological development. He would serve as the first president of the first college in the Stone Campbell Movement, Bacon College {named for the Philosopher Francis Bacon}.
In 1827, Scott accompanied Alexander Campbell to the annual meeting of the Mahoning Baptist Association. At this meeting Campbell nominated Scott to be the evangelist for this association for the coming year. Thus at the age of 31 Scott embarked on an adventure that would alter the SCM. On November 18, Scott preached near New Lisbon, Ohio and William Amend was the first person to respond to the "Ancient Gospel."
Scott believed that Jesus the Messiah was the Golden Oracle of the Christian faith. Jesus was to be lifted up and people called to respond to him. Jesus the Messiah was the creed of Christianity. Faith in him was the requirement of entrance and the term of fellowship for Christianity. In a nutshell the Ancient Gospel, was according to Scott, arranged into Six Items:
Faith
Repentance
Baptism
Remission of Sins
Gift of the Holy Spirit
Eternal Life
This two fold division is important (more about this in a moment). Scott was immensely successful. So successful that a worried Alexander Campbell asked his father to visit with Scott and listen to him preach. Within a year Scott would baptize a thousand people with his new order of salvation. For the rest of his life he averaged around a thousand baptisms a year, which translates into about thirty thousand folks confessing the Messiah in response to his preaching. Scott cut through the confusion and agony of many seekers who never received an assurance that they had been "elected" by God to his Family. We could simply believe the creed in Scott's preaching. It was a fresh wind blowing on the Western Reserve. It is one of our greatest gifts to the wider Christian world.
As with all schemes however mutation often takes place over the course of history. Scott's formulation never looses sight that Christ is the object of our faith, adoration and love. Scott's formulation tells what God has done, is doing and will do in the future. We have respond in Faith to the Golden Oracle. We repent of our sin to God. We in our Faith are baptized in the name of the Messiah. As a result God Forgives/Remits our sin. God grants the gift of himself in the person of the Holy Spirit. And God seals us to his for Eternity.
As others adopted Scott's method the Ancient Gospel markedly shifted emphasis however. As my friend Jeremy Folding once said what we have now is the Five Finger Discount! The formulation is as follows in most 20th century Churches of Christ and even today:
Hear
Believe
Repent
Confess
Be Baptized for the Remission of Sins
Even a cursory glance shows this is a radical "departure" from the original formulation. It is a human centered formula. In Scott the emphasis is on what God does in response to faith in the Messiah. The Holy Spirit and Eternal life (critical gifts of grace in Scott) simply disappear altogether. Remission of sins has been converted from a divine gift to being part of a command to be obeyed. This is more than a subtle shift in Scott's Ancient Gospel.
Walter Scott was not oblivious to this diminishment of his formulation. Some focused in on baptism "for the remission" and it became the Golden Oracle rather than Jesus the Messiah. An incipient legalism was creeping in and clouding the vision, or so Scott believed. It had been "watered" down.. In 1844 he writes to Jacob Creath, Jr these words
"Our main thought at that time [1827] was to push back the christian [sic] profession on to its original basis--the Messiah. We did this, and the people were received to the remission of sins on the primitive faith of Jesus as the Son of God. But although this was the actual and practical restoration of the central truth in our religion to its proper place in the christian system, many failed nevertheless to see it, and were carried away wholly by the easier and more popular generalization of faith, repentance, baptism, &c., till, in fact, they do not know their own principles when they are advocated." [1]
Hearing, Believing, Repenting, Confessing, being baptized should not be misconstrued as the Golden Oracle or the gospel. Scott pointed us first to the WHO of our faith and never let his hearers forget what God had done, is doing and will do for us. Remission is the gift of God not some command we can humanly fulfill. The Spirit is essential to our lives and the eternal hope ... how did we loose sight of it all?
Perhaps we should think afresh what is the creed of Christianity ... Christ, not baptism ... and just how we present the ancient message of Faith.
[1]Union, Protestant Unionist (25 September 1844), p. 292.
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