Part 7 (2/2)
The special manifestation of evil was both effect and cause. It was the natural tendency of the system to make tyrants, and tyrants perpetuated the system. So also with sectarianism. Though all can realize a theoretical difference between the sect spirit and simple denominationalism, yet the very tendency of the system itself is to create party interests and to introduce party rivalries, which naturally foster the sect spirit. Without that devotion to party and party interests--a devotion almost equal to their devotion to the gospel itself--sects would perish. _If sect-members should become so universal in their love and sympathy as to devote themselves to the work of Christ alone--forgetting party interests--sects would die. The sect spirit is, therefore, essential to the maintenance of the life and individuality of the sect body._
[Sidenote: What is the remedy?]
The remedy for sectarianism is not a return to imperialism. The world-church idea as exemplified in the papal church is not the goal of Christianity. Such might hold dominion over men in the barbaric ages of the world, but its universal sway has ceased. The Inquisition will never be reestablished. The unity of the church is not to be found in an imperial hierarchy.
Nor is Christian unity to be obtained by adherence to the historic creeds. These doc.u.ments may express many n.o.ble sentiments respecting Christ and his truth, and they may express the fullest knowledge of the truth known in the days when they were written. But knowledge of the truth is progressive, while creeds are stationary. No human doc.u.ment, therefore, can serve as a permanent basis upon which to build our faith. And then, too, we have seen that creeds are in their very nature divisive. Hence they can not be made the basis for the realization of unity.
Nor is the unity of the church to be found in some particular form of exclusive church polity, as Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism, or Congregationalism. We have conclusively proved that that conception of the church patterned after the forms of political government, in which government and authority are vested inherently and exclusively in human hands, is foreign to the original conception of the church as it existed in the minds of its Founder and his apostles. The government of the New Testament church is a theocracy. Christ is head. He rules through his Holy Spirit by moral suasion and spiritual influence, and the ministers and helpers whom he calls and qualifies share in that oversight and responsibility to the same extent that they are able to wield the same moral and spiritual power. _This is the only church authority and government recognized in the New Testament_.
[Sidenote: The perpetual theocracy]
Here I shall digress long enough to point out by way of contrast the true form of divine government. Every one is familiar with the theocratic government of Israel under the Old Testament dispensation.
G.o.d ruled. He who carefully reads the New Testament can not fail to discern the same type of government in the church before the rise of human ecclesiasticism. The first preachers of the gospel spoke with an authority not derived from a human source. When Peter and John were threatened before the Council and commanded not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus Christ, they gave the sublime answer: ”Whether it be right in the sight of G.o.d to hearken unto you more than unto G.o.d, judge ye. For we can not but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4: 19, 20). The same principle stands out in bold relief in the experience of Paul. Although that great apostle was forward to cooperate with other apostles and ministers of Christ, one can not fail to see that his whole career exemplified the principle of theocracy. He ”was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.”
[Sidenote: An important parallelism]
Permit me to call attention particularly to an important parallelism between the government of Israel under the theocracy and the government of the New Testament church before the rise of ecclesiasticism. G.o.d led his people out of Egypt by Moses and Joshua.
These men are a type of Christ, who leads his people. After the Israelites were settled in Canaan, they had no central government, but each locality or city was autonomous, having its local judges or elders. In a time of crisis G.o.d raised up a judge to lead the people in the necessary cooperative efforts to preserve or regain their liberties. Their miseries Were always the result of their own sins, not a failure of the divine form of government. Their appointing a king and thus setting up a centralized human government was called _rejecting G.o.d as ruler_. And this is exactly parallel with what ecclesiasticism has done and is doing with the same results. G.o.d's government of the church is set aside and rejected.
[Sidenote: Not church federation]
Nor will an organic union of all the sects solve the problem of unity. In the first place, the tendency of such a union is toward imperialism, the creation on the federation plan of another world-church. In the second place, such a federation would strengthen rather than lessen the authority of human rule, while the compromises necessary to make such a project possible would lessen in the same degree that freedom of the Spirit by which alone the full gospel can be given to the world. And in the third place, such a federation would not be the church of G.o.d, for the very framework on which it would rest, human ecclesiasticism, is foreign to the original conception of the church. It would be only a human arrangement patterned after the model of a world-empire. And for another reason such would not be the church. The divine _ekklesia_ includes in its members.h.i.+p the whole family of G.o.d. Thousands of men and women who are united to Christ and in fellows.h.i.+p with all the saved are not members of the formally organized sects. Therefore the union of all such churches in one federation would not include the whole family.
[Sidenote: Back to the Bible standard]
Thus, the remedy for sects is not church federation, nor a return to the historic creeds, nor the adoption of one of the exclusive forms of church polity; neither is it an attempt to hide the sin of the obnoxious sect system by covering it with a mantle of charity and patience--as a sort of necessary evil. What, then, is the real remedy for sects? It is the absolute rejection of every foreign element that has crept into the Christian system and the return to that primitive conception of the church as made up of the entire brotherhood of Christ, organized and controlled by the Holy Spirit. For true unity we must turn from hierarchies and apostolical successions and priestly corporations and church synods and human creeds to THE CHRIST who alone is the head of the church.
[Sidenote: True members.h.i.+p]
Such a movement requires a moral revolution with respect to the att.i.tude of G.o.d's people toward members.h.i.+p in sects. It requires the obliteration of sect lines and the recognition of no other bond of union than that of a common brotherhood through union with Christ.
Divine life secured through repentance and faith is the sole condition of members.h.i.+p in the church of Christ, and this relations.h.i.+p is maintained by obedience to the commands of Christ and consistent Christian conduct. ”If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellows.h.i.+p one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
[Sidenote: Elimination of ecclesiasticism]
Such a movement and such a standard of church relations.h.i.+p require the elimination of all ideas of priestly ecclesiasticism. The Christ of the New Testament church is not an absent Christ. He has never resigned his position as head of the church and vested the governmental authority in a self-perpetuating clerical caste. His government is theocratic. He administers it himself through his Holy Spirit. Hence no men or set of men can confer any power or authority whatsoever upon any individual to act for Christ. Christ calls his own a.s.sistants, and any man unto whom the Word of the Lord comes is divinely authorized to proclaim His message. The only sphere of human operation respecting this administration of divine government is simple recognition of what G.o.d has done, and this recognition in the last a.n.a.lysis belongs to the whole body of G.o.d's people. The basis of every man's authority and responsibility is, therefore, not human appointment or official position, but the divine call, gifts, and qualifications, that he possesses. If, for example, he is called to apostolic work and endowed with gifts and qualifications fitting him for such service, he has apostolic authority and responsibility, and there is nothing for other ministers or Christians to do but to _recognize what G.o.d has done_. ”Now hath G.o.d set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him” (1 Cor. 12:18). Such, in short, is the divine organization and government.
[Sidenote: What of the future?]
The realization of this grand ideal of the restoration of the New Testament standard of church members.h.i.+p, government, and authority, is impossible within the sect system. For the sects to turn all the people of G.o.d loose from subjection to every foreign yoke and make them free to a.s.sociate without restriction with all the saved of G.o.d, would be an act of suicide. _Only by division and by holding the grasp of ecclesiastical rule can sects survive._ But he is blind to the signs of the times who can not see that the grip of ecclesiasticism is slipping and the bonds of true catholicity becoming strengthened.
The true people of G.o.d are becoming more and more dissatisfied with present conditions and are beginning to think in terms of a universal Christianity. The rising tide of evangelism among such is already beginning to overflow the lines of sect. What may we expect in the future?
Things can not continue as they have been in the ecclesiastical world. A sweeping reformation is imperative and imminent. In fact, the vanguard of this great movement is already visible. What will the future bring forth? Will the sects themselves fade away and gradually become dissolved? or will the powers that rule in the ecclesiastical world finally set themselves against the spirit of catholicity and thus practically force the true people of G.o.d to ignore absolutely all sectarian lines and step out on the broad platform of truth and universality, united in Christ alone, knowing no head but Christ and no creed but His truth? Who can tell?
[Sidenote: A fundamental difference]
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