A SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY by William Barclay. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 1975. 122 pp., $5.95 Reviewed by Rev. Jerome Julien, pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church of Pella, Iowa.

I am glad that I have had an opportunity to road this little volume. I am glad for several reasons. First, it is delightfully easy reading, you need not feel weighted down with heavy scholarliness. Besides, some of Barclay’s insights are very thought-provoking. Though we would not put them in the words Barclay uses, he gives some worthwhile comments on prayer. Also, he has some interesting thoughts on preaching. For instance, he is opposed to “topical” preaching. He says, “Nothing has done more harm to the pulpit than ‘topical’ preaching” (p. 24). Nor is he in favor of editorializing in the pulpit. Elsewhere he gives some cautions to remember in preparing to preach.

What makes the reading of this volume delightful is the regular reference to writers of various kinds. Barclay uses a type of illustration not often used by men of our own circles.

Second, I am glad I read this book because now I know something about William Barclay. For years I have seen his commentaries and hooks—and on occasion I have looked into them. F’Or years I have heard his name praised. In this book he bears his soul and makes his theological position abundantly clear. This is not a hook that gives a rundown of everything—great and insignificant—author ever did. It is a book in which he exposes himself. Now, I know him a little bit, by his own introduction, and I know how tn react to his name and books.

When you read this book, it becomes clear why this former member of the Divinity Faculty of the University of Glasgow was considered less than orthodox by his father and a heretic by his fellow Britishers. Here are just a few quotes (hopefully they will not be taken out of context):

“. . . In Jesus I see perfectly and completely and finally, and once and for all revealed and demonstrated, the attitude of God to men, the attitude of God to me. In Jesus there is the full revelation of the mind and heart of God” (p. 50).

“Jesus reveals to men the illimitable, the unconquerable, the literally infinite love of God It cost the Cross to tell men of the love of God. The pain and the agony of the Cross was the price that Jesus had to pay, the sacrifice he had to make to set before men the love of God.”

“I did not always think of the Cross and of the death of Jesus like this. Like most people brought up in an evangelical home I did not at first know that there was any other way of thinking of the Atonement except in terms of substitution, in terms of God laying on Jesus the punishment that should have been laid on me. Of course, I felt the fascination of this. Anyone must feel it.

. . . Slowly it began to dawn on me that apart from the love of God there would have been no Atonement at alL And then I began to see the tremendous thing, that fact that Jesus came, not to change God’s attitude to men, but to demonstrate God’s attitude to men, to show men at the Cross what God is like” (pp. 51, 52).

“. . . To be honest, I find it very difficult to distinguish between the Holy Spirit and the ever present Risen Lord.

. . . In a fine phrase G. H. C. Macgregor said that the Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ’s alter ego. And I think that Paul felt the same way. I am content to think of the Spirit and ‘Of the Risen Lord as one at least in action” (p. 109).

“In sipte of everything that can be said I believe in the essential goodness and nobility of man” (p. 112).

Is it any wonder that Barclay will confess on page 92, that he has difficulty with saying that the Apostles’ Creed expresses his faith?

If you use Barclay’s commentaries you ought to read this book with care. It will not be a time of hard labor. However, it may be a time when you will get a bit sick to the stomach.