144 Twenty-Eighth Annual Commencement
ing out to Him the terrible things that were happening to
others, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” He
said to Nicodemus, “Except a man be born again he cannot
see the Kingdom of God.” These two texts might well be
worn as frontlets between the eyes of the people of the
United Nations.
A second word of Jesus that would be rock in the founda-
tion of this new house is that concerning the supremacy of
God’s will.
II. HIS WORD CONCERNING THE SUPREMACY OF GOD’S WILL
Great boldness is required in diagnosing the world’s ills
in one sentence. And yet, listen to the message of the
Oxford Conference, which preceded the Madras Conference
by one year:
“Human life is falling to pieces because it has tried to
organize itself into unity on a Secularistic and humanistic
basis without any reference to the divine will and power
above and beyond itself.”
The Madras Conference expressed the same conviction
when it said: “Yet in the mystery of the freedom which
God has given him, man chooses to walk other paths, to
seekotherends. He defies his Father’s will. Heseekstobe
a law unto himself. This is the deepest cause of the evil and
misery of his life.”1
New Testament scholars recognize that in the teachings
of Jesus there is much that is transient. They also recognize
that there is much that is of eternal significance. Professor
Horton declares that the eternal in the teachings of Jesus is
His reference of everything to the will of God, a will that is
both righteous and loving.
Let us take only one illustration of Jesus’ exaltation of the
will of God. We take it from the Lord’s Prayer as found in
1Ibid, p. 14.