The Gospel is simple to you and me, but it cost
Him everything.
In death, the bondman is “freed from his master” (Job 3: 19), and in
Christ’s death, the believer is set free from the bondage of sin
(see Rom. 6: 7, 18).
If each believer in a locality can form his own individual circle of
fellowship with saints elsewhere, then true fellowship has been
given up.
Gideon’s question, “Ah my Lord, if Jehovah be with us, why then is
all this befallen us?” (Judges 6: 13) is just as relevant now as
when uttered.
Always look on our fellow believers here as we shall look on them in
heaven.
Those who think the law has a place in Christianity need to ask
themselves this question: Is the law for the new man or the old man?
Many believers expect little from God, ask little, receive little,
and are content with little.
The ruler and teacher of the Jews (see John 3: 1, 10) expected a
high seat in the kingdom. What a shock to be told to expect nothing
(see vs. 3, 5)!
When man chooses of his own ‘free’ will he always
makes the wrong choice.
A Salutary Tale
Many
years ago, some Christians left the various communions they were in,
because they judged them to be sectarian in character, and the forms
of worship and ministry as not being in accord with the Word of God.
It was not because they thought they were better Christians, but
because they understood sectarianism to be heresy (airesiV—see
Gal. 5: 2), a work of the flesh. From then on, they met together
simply and humbly as Christians, seeking to govern all that they
did, not by tradition and the word of man, but by the Scriptures.
Their aim was not to be yet another sect but, standing apart from
all sects, to use diligence to keep the “unity of the Spirit” (Eph.
4: 3). In this they were not unmindful of the peculiar limitations
of the day, and they were, regrettably, marked by much failure and
inconsistency, but this non-sectarian character was their
raison d’etre (or reason for existing).
As the generations
passed, the old convictions were lost, and the children of the
fathers began to look longingly on the sectarian marketplace from
which their fathers had separated themselves. Certainly, that
marketplace was not the same as their fathers knew it, although the
competition of opinions and personalities remained. Intercommunion
between the various denominations was now much more frequently
practised than formerly, and this was eagerly trumpeted by the new
generation as a positive development. They failed to see that this
was really only a perpetuation of the old denial of true fellowship
in a new and more subtle form. Enthused, the new generation
commenced a process of fraternization, oblivious to the fact that
their very reason for existence was bound up in standing apart.
Whereas their fathers would have been uncomfortable in sectarian
circles, the children were at ease, and any pretence of separation
was soon abandoned in order that they might invite preachers and
teachers from wherever they might choose. At the same time, but
gradually and imperceptibly, ‘what other churches do’ rather than
what the Scriptures teach, began to be their dominant guiding
principle. Much to their surprise, however, being like ‘other
churches’ did not give lasting success in the marketplace. Indeed,
the haemorrhaging of numbers to their competitors became so serious
that eventually there was no option but for things to be ‘wound up’
and the remaining communicants to look around for sectarian homes
suited to their taste. Having abandoned the raison d’etre
of the original company established by their fathers, the children
found to their cost that they now had no reason for existing,
and so it proved to be.
Questions of Baptism
When the
apostle Paul encountered some disciples of John the Baptist in
Ephesus, he did not ask them when they had been
baptised or how they had been baptised, but “To
what then were ye baptised?” (Acts 19: 3, my emphasis).
Christians who find all kinds of reasons to fall out over baptism
perhaps need to heed the lesson here, namely that when and
how are nowhere near as important questions as to what.
Of course, these disciples (genuine believers as they were), had
only received John’s baptism, and needed to be “baptised to the name
of the Lord Jesus” (v5). They were not baptised again because of
when or how, but because of a defect in to what.
In Acts 8 we read
of a different situation in which the Samaritans had been “baptised
to the name of the Lord Jesus” (v16), and yet the heart of one of
their number was afterwards found “not upright before God” (v21).
Let us suppose that this individual subsequently repented as charged
to do so by Peter and became a genuine Christian. Are we to suppose
that he would be baptised again? Certainly, an error
in the question of when had been made by Philip, but there
was no defect in how or to what. For most of the
Samaritans, baptism followed conversion; for Simon (if he got
converted), conversion would follow baptism. What exactly would
re-baptism do? He had already dissociated from
Samaritanism and associated himself with Christianity.
Christendom today
is full of anomalous situations, and the how or when
of a person’s baptism may not be as we wish. However, to make these
issues into a question of a Christian’s fitness for
fellowship is to lower Assembly character to the level of a school
of opinion (see Gal. 5: 20). Leaven is to be purged out, but the
cases Scripture supposes are extreme.
To exclude any believer who had been baptised to the name of
the Lord Jesus, purely because of questions of how and
when, is sectarian.
A Man
The world seems to be descending into chaos on
every level, and men are actively seeking for a man to bring about
stability, peace and prosperity. Twenty centuries ago, Pilate
presented a prisoner with the words “Behold the man!” (John 19: 5)
but those before him rejected the just and chose a man who was
wicked. Soon the same moral generation will choose another man—an
attractive, capable, wonderful personality, but a “man of sin” (2
Thess. 2: 3).
Is God seeking a
man? No, not at all, for He already has Him: “This is my beloved
Son, in whom I have found my delight” (Matt. 3: 17, my
emphasis). What does God say to mankind about this Man? “This
is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight: hear him”
(Matt. 17: 5, my bold emphasis). It is to Him that we are to take
heed—His voice is the One to which we must listen. The Psalmist asks
the question, “Why are the nations in tumultuous agitation, and
[why] do the peoples meditate a vain thing?” (Ps. 2: 1). It is
because they have rejected God’s anointed king, the Man that God has
“crowned with glory and honour” (Heb. 2: 9). The days are perilous,
and things move on with inexorable rapidity to the great
confrontation between God’s Man and the man of sin. How is it with
you dear reader? To which man are you looking? Is God’s Man
your man? O may it be that you are waiting for the Man
Christ Jesus from the heavens (see 1 Thess. 1: 10)!
