This is the final article in a series on the above topic. In all of these we have humbly set forth our convictions without regard to our past ideas and conclusions. We have not sought to bind them upon others. We respect and love those who disagree with the thoughts suggested. It is not at all necessary to concur with our statements to be received in the Lord, or to be loved and respected as our brother in Him. We trust that our readers have been stimulated to think, reason and discuss relative to the important problem that confronts us. Our views may not be so important but none of us doubt that fellowship in Jesus is very important. We begin herewith a summary of our views.
1. Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are divided and torn into warring sects, and these defeat the purpose of our absent King. But they are still believers. They have heard the good news proclaimed and have sought to reply to its demands upon their lives. Regardless of how far apart they may seem to be they differ as believers and not as unbelievers. It is this which makes the whole thing so tragic. They have been splintered by following the ideas which have crystallized in the minds of men. Not one of the divisive things has been created by God. It is not belief of the gospel which is the problem but the something else in each case.
2. His will is that all who believe in Him should be one, and for this He prayed on the night before His death. The thing of paramount importance to Jesus as He faced Gethsemane and Golgotha was the unity of all who accepted Him as the Messiah and God's Son. With the shadow of the cross falling across His pathway He prayed that all who believe in Him through the apostolic testimony should be one. He prayed that this oneness might be of the quality that existed between Himself and the Father. He wanted us to be one in them and wanted it to be a visible unity which the world could see. For he realized that the world could not be won to believe in Him until those in the world who believed in Him would be one. It may seem strange that God would condition the salvation of the world upon such a fragile thread but He did so. We pay the price of a lost world for our divisions.
In some indefinable way our unity is connected with the glory which Jesus dispenses and which Jesus had with the Father before the world began. He declares, "I gave them the same glory you gave me, so that they may be one, just as you and I are one. I in them and you in me, so that they may be completely one, in order that the world may know that you sent me and that you love them as you love me." That may yet be a mystery unto our human minds but the design of it is clear. Our disunity reflects against the glory of God and keeps Him from being magnified.
Just as the Shekinah, representing God's glory in the days of Israel and going before them as a pillar of cloud and fire, brought them together around the holy tent, so the glory of Christ draws us like a magnet to a common center and unites us in the greatest force on earth. The farther we get from the glory of God the more divided we come. The closer we come to it the closer we come to each other. It leads us in our pilgrimage and tells us where to camp.
3. Religious division and sectarian strife is not the normal condition of the body of Christ. Like cancer in a physical body it is a malignant growth and an abnormal state. If medical researchists ever accept cancer as a normal condition they will cease to dedicate themselves to research dealing with its cause and cure, and we will be doomed. Likewise, if we accept sectarianism as the normal state, declare there is nothing to be done about it and cease to labor to determine its cause and cure, we will be doomed to incessant warfare amongst believers, and none of us can be wholly guiltless.
It seems to me that we are in that state now. We have accepted division and agreed to live with it as long as we can, just like a man with an inoperable malignancy. No one becomes greatly exercised about it. No one is worked up over it. Each party is so busy proselyting and trying to grow larger and fatter that it accepts with nonchalance the cancer eating away at its inward being. There are no researchists carefully examining what has brought us to this sad state. We have resolved to go on, each in his own way, without reference to other believers.
Sickness is not normal for the human body. It is the result of sin, either directly or indirectly. Had man continued obediently before God there would have been no disease to plague him, no pain or discomfort. Likewise our sad state in the kingdom of glory is a distortion of the design of the Creator of the body of Christ, It is a hideous growth upon its fair face, making it the subject of odious comparisons by the world which beholds it. We need to see it as it is, revolting, disgusting, and an abomination unto God. We can never be complacent about it. We can never endure it
4. Moved by a fervent desire to help answer the prayer of our benign and blessed Lord, we have sought to investigate the subject of fellowship anew, and we have set forth our own findings in this series of articles. What we have suggested may help only if we do not accept these conclusions as final, but use them as foundations for future exploration and study. Not one of us has the last word to say on the subject of our disunity. It is so mixed and mingled with the temperaments of those involved, so deeply ingrained in their personalities, that it can never be solved by any one person.
I am not so naive as to suppose that everyone will take what I say and seek to implement it. I have become a controversial figure. Many will not read what I write because of their personal feeling toward me. It is impossible to take the position of neutrality on all of our issues as I have without incurring the displeasure of numerous ones who think those issues are all important. I have written with the view that others may stumble across what I have written after I am gone and find that it makes sense. They will not be motivated by prejudice or hatred toward me.
The walls will not be broken down in a day as were those of Jericho for we cannot perform miracles with ram's horn trumpets. But if we can carefully hack away at the structures created by men to keep us apart it may be that we can weaken them until in the after years they will be reduced to rubble and the people of God be restored to one another. If it is in His will that they be removed no one can forever stand against them. It is in this firm conviction we have written in love and without rancor.
5. The question of sectarian strife is a major one with many roots. There is no simple answer or solution. Casual and careless thinkers frequently demonstrate their immaturity by professing to have a glib answer for every problem. It is possible that over-simplification is one of the chief faults in our reasoning. Certainly, it generally ignores the thinking of the other person and his reason for so thinking.
The greatest fallacy of the latter part of the twentieth century is the either/or fallacy. It is appealing because of its ease of application, but it is just as wrong as if it were hard. It ignores the gray areas and brushes away the fog, without seeing what is involved. Our divisions were mostly inherited. They are sanctified by our fathers, now dead and sleeping in the cemeteries. It appears to us that to be true to them we must maintain the status quo. I challenge this. Our fathers were mistaken about many things. Mine was and so was yours. The best way to be true to their memory is by being honest with ourselves and with our God. It will avail nothing to hide truth in order to honor traditions. No skeleton hand reaching out of the grave can point the way for me to walk. New occasions teach new duties!
6. We have suggested that the issue of fellowship is confused because we now use the term in a sense in which it was never employed by the Holy Spirit. It is frequently equated with endorsement of another's position. But fellowship is a state or condition into which we are called by God through the gospel. Our entrance into that relationship which is described as being "in Christ" is contingent upon the belief of one fact, and obedience to one act. That one fact is that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. The one act is immersion of such a penitent believer in water. This act inducts one into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Such an one is added to the body of Christ.
We do not fellowship things, but persons. The word "fellow" demonstrates this. It is sheer ignorance to ask if one fellowships instrumental music, and folly to ask if he fellowships cups, classes, or colleges. The question is whether or not he is called into the fellowship of those who share the opinion that such things are right or wrong. He is really called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ, and in that fellowship he can hold an opinion contrary to the general norm about all of the above and a hundred other things and this does not affect his standing with Jesus. The great question is "What think ye of Jesus, whose Son is he?" You can be right about Jesus and wrong about a dozen other things and still be saved, but if you are wrong about Jesus you can be right about everything else and still be lost. Is Jesus Lord of your life? That is the real issue.
7. Unfortunately, and in opposition to the will of the Father of all light, those who believe in our precious Lord are divided and scattered over the hills of sectarianism. They are kept apart, segregated and separated by human creeds, interpretations, and opinions, which have been made tests of fellowship. To alleviate the abnormal condition we must eliminate these factors. We should guard against any future division among believers by resolving never to make anything a test of fellowship which God has not made a condition of salvation. This one principle accepted and adopted now, will guarantee that no other cleavage will ever occur among earnest believers in the Savior.
8. The problem of offsetting divisions already in existence, some of which are of long standing, will not be so easy. The peacemakers will be called compromisers. Those who plead for unity of all believers, and are devoid of the party spirit, must be prepared to endure misrepresentation, abuse, and false accusation. They must steel themselves against retaliation when their motives are judged as evil. They must never allow themselves to cease to love and pray for those who try to undermine and overthrow them. But the healing of schisms and repairing of breaches is so important to the work of God that it must be dearer than wealth, prestige or even life itself. A restoration must be preceded by a reformation--a change in attitude. The work can only go forward in love, an all pervading love which knows no limit so far as humankind is concerned.
There can be no recovery of the lost ground of fellowship without association. This means association with those whom we once regarded as unfaithful. And this means making oneself vulnerable. It means going among others and openly sharing with them, doing as Paul did at Corinth, commending what you can and refusing to commend what you cannot. It does not mean arguing or debating with them. Sometimes it means deferring judgment. At other times it means withholding it until a later time. "The rest will I set in order when I come." But the repair of every rupture begins with the resumption of associations, whether it be in the domestic, political or religious world. Men must sit down and talk, and to do that they must meet. The peace-makers are the ones to initiate such talks. Gradually, the party spirit will erode away as each gains confidence in the good intentions of the other.
9. There must be a willingness to examine past acts which have resulted in division, and a readiness to admit mistakes. There must be a heart yearning for oneness, a fervent desire to see the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven. Division did not come over night. Unity will not be achieved in a day. Patience and forbearance are prime requisites. We must be willing to plant the seed: the increase will be given by God.
Much of our problem has been augmented by our exclusiveness through the years. Division generally began with a small matter but it has gathered accretions through the years because of ignoring it. It is like a wrecked vessel on the bottom of the ocean. When a salvage crew dives down to bring up treasure, the thing rescued from the briny depths may have all kinds of accumulation clinging to it. There must be care not to neglect something that is really precious. Our task is to get together and scrape away a lot of rust. We may find ourselves much closer to each other than we suspected.
10. If it be true that all who have accepted Jesus as God's Son, and have been immersed by His authority, are children of God, and by this fact constitute a brotherhood, we can regard each other as brethren while we discuss our differences in humility and seek a solution to our problems. We lose nothing by being kind, considerate and courteous to those who disagree with us. A recognition of brotherhood is not evil. But we must want unity. We must wage peace as others wage war. And this means the development of a strategy for peace, and its proper implementation. Many have no such strategy at all despite the fact that it is one of the most important things in the midst of a divided world.
Those who prefer to maintain the status quo will never answer the prayer of Jesus. They stand athwart His path and hinder the accomplishment of the divine purpose. We must be discontent to perpetuate human parties with human names and human aims. These but pamper our pride. We must sigh and cry for something better than what we have. We must pray for unity and toil to achieve it. We must agonize in prayer, and bombard the ramparts of heaven night and day with our petitions.
Above all, we must love every soul for whom Jesus died. The love of God must be shed abroad in our hearts. It must be the motivating principle of our lives. Then, regardless of what men may do to us, we will triumph over hate and envy. We will serve those who would destroy us, help those who would ruin us, and do good unto all men. Love never fails. It never quits either. If we stand upon love, we will stand forever. Nothing can shake us. And this will work as leaven, for it is the leaven of God. It is our only hope of survival. It is the key to future happiness and security. There is no other alternative. We must love all men or perish! We must find the way to oneness, or miss the way to heaven.
One thing essential to offsetting division is fairness and justice. The mind of an editor must not become our criterion of scripturality. The voice of dissent must be heard. We are not like Russia where men are sent to Siberia for voicing something different than the party line. Let those who disagree be allowed to speak up. Truth has nothing to fear by presenting both sides of an issue so that honest and qualified readers may study them side by side. Through equity and kindness we may be able to heal schisms of long standing. Every tendency toward unity of the Spirit should bring rejoicing. Love is the golden key to unlock for us the store-house of God's grace. Let us make use of that key!
If Christ were to come back and walk the streets of any of our great cities today, the heart that bled for the sin of mankind, would bleed afresh because of the condition existing among those who believe that He is the Son of God. He would behold the party spirit parading under the guise of faithfulness, see hate wearing the livery of love, and selfishness enshrined as sacrifice. In the name of Christianity, he would hear men bear false witness against brethren, and behold the malignant spirit stab character and defame reputation. He would see church buildings rising as temples of pride, and visualize the haughty spirit of the Pharisee in modern dress as men still pray in effect: "Lord, I thank you that I am not as other men are."
Sectarian division is our modern scandal. It has raped the church and pillaged God's sanctuary. And because all of us are a part of the Christian realm we are shamed and debased by what has transpired. Because I am a human being I cannot be unaffected by man's inhumanity to man. The tortures and barbarity of Dachau and Buchenwald must rise up to torment my dreams, for all humanity suffered in the gas chambers of those German prisons. The stiff fingers of those who died in the Holocaust point straight at the heart of every person on earth. In the same way, every division that has ever occurred in the Christian world, every rent in the fabric of brotherhood, cannot leave me untouched, even though I do not consciously acknowledge it, and though I seek to disavow it.
Every new schism that appears, every sect that is spawned, every faction that is created must affect me, whether remotely or otherwise, for it makes the task of arriving at unity a greater one, it postpones by so much the answer to the prayer of the blessed Lord, it increases the pressure of endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. I cannot be unmoved or untouched by religious dissension anywhere on earth, for, being a follower of the Nazarene, I am partaker in the momentous effort which cost his life. When a little congregation in a far away place, kindled by jealousy and inflamed by passion, erupts, until those who walked together now walk apart in their partisan spirit of self-righteousness, this pebble flung into the pool of Christianity, creates ripples which will not only break against the shores of my heart, but will not spend themselves until they foam out their mire upon the beaches of eternity.
No one of us can be utterly free from a sense of shame while bigotry, intolerance and factionism exist in the name of religion. We are Christian, and the rents and tears in the Christian fabric reflect against us all, as surely as injustice, inequality and cruelty to human beings in any part of the earth reflect against us as human beings. We cannot disavow our responsibility by arrogantly enquiring if we are keepers of our brethren. We cannot, like Pilate, wash our hands, and be free of the fatal guilt of the mangled body of Jesus, so long as we have made no attempt to pour in ointment and balm and bind up the wounds.
I am impelled by a sense of urgency, because I believe that our civilization staggers today on the brink of a precipice. I think we are doing a crazed and drunken dance on a narrow ledge above the valley of destruction. Unless we can make the Christian concept work, our children, or our children's children, may become mere statistics in an atomic holocaust, their burned, scared and charred bodies mingled with hot steel and choking rubble. Time is running out. The sun is setting. Day is ending. Gog and Magog are gathering for the fray. There is but one thing that can save our world from disintegration. Jesus said that his disciples were the salt of the earth. If that salt loses its strength the earth cannot be preserved. There is no other alternative. We must restore the saving quality of the salt, or we shall all perish.
It is this which prompted me to begin to plead that we increase our labor in love to heal the breaches in the walls of Zion, that we wage peace as diligently as others wage war. Only the peacemakers will be called the children of God. Happy are the peacemakers, says the prince of peace. We must find the way to unity or our boasted glory will lead to the grave. We must recapture the sense of spiritual kinship with all sincere believers in the Messiah. We dare not compromise truth. We dare not forsake principles. But we must find the solution to the problem of division. We cannot fracture ourselves into strength, nor split ourselves into the unity of the Spirit.
Unity will not come by accident. We will not simply stumble into it. We cannot ignore the causes of disunity and restore it. But time is of the essence. The shadows are lengthening. The storm clouds gather. The winds of destiny are moaning and rising. Brethren, do not tarry much longer or it will be too late. "Now is the accepted time, today is the day of salvation."