JOHN SUNG'S DOCTRINAL EMPHASIS AND METHODS

Text: I Pet. 1:23-2:1-8

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lor is gracious. To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner. And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed."

I

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His Purpose" (Romans 8:28). It is evident from a study of  John Sung's  life  that  God had sent  him  to Union Seminary,  to taste  the bitterness of  liberal theology  that he might find the grace and  truth of  the living Saviour the sweeter. From a failure to obtain salvation in the sages and sutras of the Orient,  it made  him treasure all  the more  the  Word of  God. Through all his conflicts  with a false Christianity  on one hand  and  human religions on the other, John Sung's solution to the problems of life, now and beyond,  was  the Bible. More than ever  a fundamentalist  after  conversion, believing the Bible to be the infallible and  inerrant Word of  God, he took a strong  stand against  the higher critics.  Once when  he  was confronted  by missionaries who denied the truthfulness of Genesis and the efficacy  of the Blood of  Christ,  he quoted Confucius by  way of contrast. Confucius (551-478 B.C.) said,  "If I hear the Truth in the morning, I am prepared to die in  the evening." Commented John Sung, "Had Confucius lived in Christ's day,  he  would  have  become a  Christian. "   With his  former encounters  with Forsdick, it was an old game to cross swords with liberal missionaries in the fields.

Though he had visions and dreams during the days of spiritual conflict, he rarely referred to them in his sermons, except his conversion experience. His emphasis was on God's Word and the reading of the Bible. Relying on the Holy Spirit as his Teacher through much time spent in prayer and meditation, he read eleven chapters of the Bible everyday and thirteen on the Lord's Day, making annotations as he went along. This holy habit he kept up without a break to the end of his life.

A thorough student of  the Bible,  John Sung knew  the  Old Testament  as well as the New. His sermon texts ranged through every book of the Bible. A Premillennialist, believing in the soon coming of Christ, he would expound Daniel or Revelation in his follow-up "spiritual nurture" meetings after every revival campaign. These Bible-study sessions, like the revival meetings, would last two hours each session, three times a day.

Though  the  Bible  was  his only textbook,   John Sung could  have  used  a Scofield Reference Bible, as reflected in the dates of authorship and other dates in his Homilies on the  whole Bible.  If he had consulted the Scofield Bible,  he did  not show  any  trace  of  Dispensationalism  in  his teachings.  He  strongly emphasised  the  holiness  of  God by quoting  the  Ten Comman­dments,  and denounced sins  by  their families  under  each Commandment.   And since the wages of sin is death, he spoke often on the theme of Heaven and Hell,  acting out the Rich Man and Lazarus.

When he first started to preach after returning from America, he spoke out against Government enforcement of thrice-bowing before the portrait of Sun Yat Sen, Father of the Chinese Republic. This, he declared, was breaking the Second Commandment and no different from ancestor worship. For so saying the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) ordered his arrest, but God delivered him. As to the modernist missionaries' argument that bowing is merely an Oriental way of showing respect, like saluting the flag in the West, Rev. Timothy Pietsch, now veteran missionary to Japan who supported John Sung retorted, "If the one you bow to can bow back to you, then you can bow."

In his theological position, John Sung was an Arminian. But he rejected the doctrine of "sinless perfection", nor did he quarrel with Calvinism and Predestination. He did challenge those who beguiled themselves, "Once saved, always saved," when they were living in sin. John Sung was sound in Christology. Making Christ Crucified, Risen, Ascended and Coming Again the centre of his preaching, his sermons were orthodox and well-balanced. So is his doctrine of the Church. While he was not slow to rebuke modernist ecclesiastical leaders, he loved the people and worked with the Church, having been nurtured in a parsonage from birth to manhood. A Methodist in upbringing as we have noted, he submitted to the laying on of hands by the Methodist Bishop to his ordination.

As to the mode of baptism, he naturally sprinkled. This he did to a batch of two hundred at their request while campaigning in Manchuria. In Hong Kong, however, he went under the water in a Baptist Church to identify himself with the Baptists, and for the sake of gaining entrance to Baptist territory. Now that he was immersed, the missionary of that Church asked him to baptise twenty-one women and twelve men, which he did.

It can be concluded from what he humorously said in a sermon  in Singapore, which is  recorded by Professor Liu Yih Ling in his Chinese publication of "John Sung's Sayings and Anecdotes", that the doctor was badgered by controversialists on both sides of the Baptism question. I can still see him with that impish smile, "Well, if you want it from me, More faith, less water; less faith, more water." Now, I hope you of Spurgeon's Tabernacle will not duck me under, being a John Sung follower, but John Sung's stance, I believe, was right. He was primarily an evangelist, like Paul, putting soul-saving by the precious Blood above ordinances. He could say with Paul, "For Christ sent me not to baptise, but to preach the gospel . . ." (I Cor. 1:17 ). Well could he also recite with the Apostle, without prejudice to Baptist brethren, "And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ), that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." (I Cor. 9:20-22). That Evangelism is of paramount importance to his ministry over denominational distinctions is further attested by a Chinese couplet in his handwriting, published in Leslie Lyall's book on John Sung. The couplet reads, "With united heart and will, Let us promote the Gospel." （ 同 心 合 意 ）

II

In 1885, Edwin Joshua Dukes, a Church Missionary Society missionary to Fukien Province, wrote, "One needs to be a Chinese to think as a Chinese, and to use such illustrations and references and phrases as will make public speech effective... China will never be converted through the lips of the foreigner.... Not thousands of Englishmen or Americans are needed, but thousands and tens of thousands of Chinese with consecrated lips and hearts. Not so much scholars as men are needed. If the scholar is tacked on to the man, well and good, but it is the man that is needed, the brave, true-hearted, consecrated man who can stand alone.... It is time to look lot China's apostle. He has not given signs of his coming. When the apostle comes, he will be a Chinese and not a foreigner. Will he come out of the theological colleges or will he come from some unexpected quarters, as God's ambassadors often do? We cannot tell; but may he come soon! and may he shake the nation as did the Baptist the desert!"

What that Anglican missionary to China has said above is true to a great extent. Highly educated missionary teachers and pastors could liberally quote Confucius' sayings to find common ground with their Chinese hearers, but how much could village old women and letter-blind farmers perceive of the profound doctrines drummed into their ears?

Once I attended a Dutch Church in Amsterdam. All that I could grasp at were recurrings of "Jesus Christus" and "Paradox"; "Paradox" and "Jesus Christus". The high-nosed Calvinist preacher with all the profound doctrines of a sovereign God paradoxically could not make Christ known to me apart from his name. Since I do not know Dutch, I am also to blame. The point is, we preachers sometimes talk a lot, but I am one who after a sermon would sometimes wonder what I was telling my people all about. When a good old theme  like  John   Three  Sixteen  is  repeated  and  repeated  in  the  same old phrases and its exposition is not mine but copied from some one, does it not fall on deaf ears?

Once a young preacher had no message to deliver on a Sunday evening. In desperation, he brought along a Billy Graham sermon to read it out. He was honest to acknowledge its authorship, but there are those, as in Jeremiah's day, "that steal my words everyone from his neighbour" (Jer. 23:30). John Sung was no plagiarist, nor was he a phlegmatic preacher. He was one more than what that Anglican mission­ary to China had hoped for. Yes, John Sung, above any other Chinese preacher, could speak the people's language, to both old and young, to the educated and the uneducated, to ancient women and underage children. Although the doctor's sermons invariably lasted two hours, there was never a dull moment, not like the dry-as-dust lecture-type sermons droning from many a Sunday pulpit, sending many off to Slumberland. Dr. Sung clothed the doctrine he was putting across in vivid, lively figures, like Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress. During his campaign in Singapore, some foot-bound old ladies were overhead saying of the doctor, "lie can make us laugh, and also make us cry."

Dr. Sung excelled in allegorical and biographical sermons. Though Wang Ming Tao did not like his allegorisings at first, he saw the effectiveness of that type of sermon construction for the common people. Those allegorical sermons I had heard in Singapore were not only sound as a bell, but struck a responsive chord in my heart. Oftentimes he would act out his sermon on the pulpit platform. On other occasions, he would draw cartoons on the blackboard. Like the prophets of old, now told to carry a yoke, and now to smash an earthern vessel before their hearers, he used many visual aids of his own innovation. Apart from a French loaf and a miniature Chinese coffin which I have mentioned earlier, I can recollect him wearing the rags of a Chinese gown to represent sin and a linen-white one for our righteousness in Christ. For the Holy Spirit he would use a little bell which he rang vigorously to show how a born again person is disturbed by  sin  under conviction.  As he fanned a little charcoal stove he would lead the congregation to sing, "Let it breathe on me, Let it breathe on me."

Another observation I have made of John Sung's homiletics is the employment of music. If Martin Luther has regarded music as being next to theology, John Sung made it at one with theology. For every message he preached he would have an appropriate chorus to sing at intervals. For example, for the topic of the new birth, he had, "Ye must be born again". For the joys of the heavenly home, he would choose "In the New Jerusalem". In commissioning the Preaching Bands, there would be that chorus of the Japan Evangelistic Band, "I Will Make You Fishers of Men". Preaching on the woman taken in adultery, he had composed by himself "Shine Forth for Jesus Everywhere," borrowing the tune of "Brighten the Comer". In a message calling weary ones to rest in Jesus, he has a most touching tune as published by my brother Dr. Tow Siang Hwa, No. 507 Revival Hymns and Choruses. So Dr. Sung knew how to use audio-visual aids long before this generation.

Dr. Sung believed that an evangelist is like a midwife whose job is to deliver babies. As he preached for a verdict, he must help the believing and repenting sinner in the rebirth process, which he acknowledged to be entirely the work of the Holy Spirit. This procedure he had learned in the first storming of Shanghai, China's megapolis. He said, "An evangelist must help a troubled soul to come to Christ by giving him an opportunity to make public profession, and to confess his sins. He must then follow up with words of comfort and assurance for the broken-hearted." Attorney James E. Bennett, a Bible-Presbyterian elder and soul-winner of New York City, agreed with John Sung's method. When challenged by hyper-Calvinists, Bennett quoted the case of Jesus asking Martha, "Believest thou this ?” in respect of His Resurrection Power as the basis for calling for a decision at the end of a Gospel message. This precious truth I learned from Bennett when he visited our Church in the fifties.

John Sung believed in further counselling after confession for those with deeper problems. This he would do all by himself during his revival campaigns once a day after the morning sermon. At such sessions there would be those with grievous sins needing spiritual surgery. Restitution of stolen sums of money would be made, for example. To further relieve the heavy-hearted, the doctor would read from anyone who cared to write him. The writer was requested to affix a passport size photograph to his letter. Thousands were sent to him and he would pray over each one. Such follow-up we do not see today! By reading thousands of these letters John Sung entered into the problems of his "parishioners". "Truth being stranger than fiction," he gathered many wonderful testimo­nies and illustrations which he used most effectively in his sermons. His messages which anticipated the individual problems of his hearers never missed their mark.

While the Chinese Church fifty years ago had no national woman pastor or teacher and very few even now, we were quite familiar with women missionaries from England who spoke in our Churches. When John Sung held his first campaign in Singapore, a male government Chinese language teacher interpreted for him, from Mandarin into the local dialect. As this man was too slow to keep up with him, he had him stand down after one or two sessions. No other person could fill the gap except the interpreter's sister. This lady, Miss Leona Wu, interpreted so well that she became his assistant in his extended campaigns to Malaysia and In­donesia.

This same lady, a graduate of Girding Women's Theological Seminary, Nanking (whose principal was Dr. Chia Yu-ming), was moved to start a Bible school for John Sung converts desiring deeper training in the Word. The result was the founding of the Golden Link (Chin Lien) Bible Seminary in Singapore which today is 50 years old with several hundred graduates. While we believe in the institution of presbyters over the Church, God is sovereign to use women in times like these. Does He not at the first Pentecost say, "I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and daughters shall prophesy...." (Acts 2:17)? In those days did He not call from the house of Philip the evangelist "four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy" (Acts 21:9)? While holding to certain set practices in the Church, we learned from the John Sung Revival that there are exceptions. "A higher law overrides a lower law" is one principle of Church administra­tion we have learned thereby. (In this regard, "No Respector of Persons" by Lois G. Dickie, Ph.D., my English teacher at Faith Seminary, USA, is worthy of our study).

We have made a brief study of the preacher's doctrine and emphasis and we have made a brief survey of his methods. Though right doctrine and good methodology are important, it is the man who has totally devoted his life to His Saviour that counts. God had given John Sung fifteen years, or five periods of three years, to serve Him. Knowing the days of His service were numbered, he laboured for Him with all His might, like running a hundred-metre race. His devotion to his Lord might be expressed with Paul in his letter to the Philippians in which he avers, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended :but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:12-14). If you say that Paul the Calvinist sounds rather Arminian here, John Sung the Arminian had more perseverance in following Christ than many Pauline disciples who talk Calvinism.

As an evangelist, John Sung's doctrinal emphasis was above the denominational. His methods, whatever have been dis­cussed, flowed from his own understanding of how best he could put across to his compatriots the doctrine of salvation he had received. Dynamic Calvinists are not afraid of innova­tions !     Amen.