Thomas Martin Lindsay, completing his course in 1883. His first and only pastoral charge was that of east Free church, Broughty Ferry (1886-1897). He married in 1886 Mary Carmichael, daughter of John Brown, of Glasgow. In 1897 he succeeded Candlish as professor of systematic and pastoral theology in Glasgow Free Church college; and, two years later, on the death of Bruce, he was appointed to the chair of New Testament language, literature, and theology. In 1915 he became principal of the college in succession to T. M. Lindsay, and held this position till his death on 15 June 1917. The death of his wife in 1907 had left him very lonely (all the more that he had no children), with the memory of a union of ideal happiness.
Denney did admirable work as pastor and preacher. He was not a ‘popular’ preacher, but he steadily grew in influence and power. The preacher’s duty was, he thought, ‘to make the obvious arresting’. He said, ‘Though it is my business to teach, the one thing I covet is to be able to do the work of an evangelist, and that at all events is the work that needs to be done.’ His volumes in the Expositor’s Bible, viz. The Epistles to the Thessalonians (1892) and The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (1894), remain to show how high a standard his expository preaching reached. In his later years he was drawn more and more into ecclesiastical affairs, especially after the decision given by the House of Lords against the United Free Church (1904). At great cost to himself he became in 1913 the convener of the central fund on which the maintenance of the ministers largely depended. He took a leading part in the negotiations for reunion with the Established Church of Scotland, abandoning his earlier objections to establishment on the ground that they had become obsolete in the new situation. On him more than on any man the result of the negotiations was felt to depend. The toils and anxieties of his later years probably shortened his life.
Denney’s chief title to remembrance will rest on his work as a theologian. Before his ordination he published an acute anonymous criticism of Henry Drummond’s Natural Law in the Spiritual World. His Studies in Theology (1895) gave him fame in the field of systematic theology, while his commentary on The Epistle to the Romans (1900) in the Expositor’s Greek Testament enhanced his reputation for exegesis. His chief writings were devoted to the doctrines of the person and the work of Christ. Jesus and the Gospel (1908), his most important work, argued that the estimate of Jesus formed by the Church was corroborated by the testimony of Jesus to Himself. His interest was especially concentrated on the doctrine of the Atonement, which he expounded in The Death of Christ: its Place and Interpretation in the New Testament (1902) and in his posthumous Cunningham lectures, The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation (1917). The doctrine he interpreted as purely substitutionary, laying an unusual emphasis on the physical death of Christ. He cordially disliked all mysticism, and did not shrink from denying that St. Paul taught a mystical union of the believer in Christ. Nor could he discern any meaning in the interpretation of the Passion as a racial act.
His theological outlook, which had tended to be ‘broad’, changed after his ordination, largely under his wife’s influence, into one much more definitely evangelical. He was liberal in his views of inspiration, and fully recognized the legitimacy of criticism, though his position on the New Testament problems was on the whole conservative. His faults of temperament made sympathy with his position more difficult. He had his own point of view very firmly held; and he surveyed the universe, so far as it could be seen thence, with a clear and penetrating gaze. He had a trenchant style and on great themes he wrote with distinction and power. What he could see he saw with exceptional lucidity. What he could not see, had for him no existence and no right to exist. His pungency of expression and his impatient contempt for those who differed from him seriously limited the range of his influence. Yet he was a man of lofty character, with great richness and depth of nature beneath his superficial austerity and reserve. Among his friends he was the most genial of men, full of humour, fond of hearing and telling good stories. And if his theology was expounded with a somewhat repellent harshness and narrowness, even in his latest and mellowest book, it must not be forgotten that his faith was held with an intense conviction, born of a profound and vivid religious experience, which was at once chastened and elevated by moral passion.
[No biography has been published. T. H. Walker, Principal James Denney, 1918, a slight and not always accurate sketch; Letters of Principal James Denney to W. Robertson Nicoll, 1920; Letters of Principal James Denney to his Family and Friends, edited by J. Moffatt (n.d.); personal knowledge.]
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