Acceptable Unto God
W. Carl Ketcherside
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Since all of us have certain prejudices, and none of us, being finite, are wholly free from distorted opinions, it is no cause for wonder that equally sincere people are frequently pales apart in some of their conclusions. This does not justify such conclusions. It only serves to explain their origin. All of the conclusions may be erroneous. Most of us like to feel that our own motives and attitudes are of the highest order. We tend to think disparagingly of all who differ. We credit them with insincerity and lack of integrity. But none of us have perfect knowledge and all of us are inclined to defend what we have always taught, and to question the intelligence of any person who disagrees with us.
In the spiritual realm, for instance, there are those who disregard the value and authority of positive ordinances, and who elevate the grace of God to such a degree as to make it appear ungodly for Him to require obedience of man as a requisite to the personal bestowal of that grace. At the same time, others elevate the positive ordinances to such a place as to render the attribute of mercy a useless facet of God's character. The first become unsafe theorists; the latter unwise legalists. One seeks to loose man from all restraint; the other to bind God with the same law which he gave to bind us. Both are equally dangerous as leaders in the realm of religious thought, but I shall deal with the latter in this article.
In doing so, I am not minimizing any requirement of God. One of the greatest of my discoveries in the sacred scriptures has been the fact that God has chosen in all ages to make His blessings available to man through positive ordinances. Why he chose this manner I do not know, but the fact that He did so, argues that it is superior to every other means, and any other method is, therefore, inferior. To speak slightingly of any ordinance of God would be to sit in judgment upon the divine wisdom.
It would be folly for one who reveres God and loves His own soul to seek to soften God's requirements. What would one gain by broadening his personal concept to include other men in a fellowship, if by doing so, he excluded God and Christ? Can any sane man who loves his children and his children's children, deliberately plot a course which would destroy their souls and damn his own? Our only aim should be to seek for truth. It is the summum bonum of all research. Having found it, we must be willing to purchase it as "the pearl of great price." Truth is never cheap! "Buy the truth and sell it not," said the wise monarch of Israel. What I say on this subject, as well as what I write on any other, I offer because I believe it is the truth. I may be mistaken in what constitutes truth, but if so, it is a sin of the mind and not the heart, for if I know my heart, I love the
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In that vein, let us enquire concerning the basis of God's dealings with man. Are we judged by Him on the amount of our knowledge and understanding, or upon our affection for Him and our attitude toward His will? If upon the first, how much knowledge of His revelation must I have at a given time to be sure I am in His favor? Can I ever have any assurance that I am accepted of Him? Is it not possible that there is one thing more I ought to know today which I do not know, or one more passage I ought to understand which I am not able to explain? If my acceptability depends upon my love for God and my willingness to learn of Him, because I love Him, then I may know very little, and I may be frail, weak and ignorant, and still He will not cast me out. It is a common thing for men to judge others on the basis of knowledge, using their own personal attainment as the standard. You must understand all they understand, in just the way they understand it, and if you do not have the knowledge they possess, they will consign you to condemnation. But is that God's basis of judgment?
Here is one scripture for your serious study. "If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he aught to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him" (1 Cor. 8:2, 3). This teaches us that God's recognition of us is not based upon our degree of knowledge, which is imperfect, but upon our love for Him. A man who loves God a lot, but has little knowledge, is better off than one who knows a lot but loves God but little. You may say that one who loves God a great deal will learn as much as possible about His will. That is true, but learning is a slow and tedious process. All of us have different intellectual capacities. All come from different backgrounds and environments. Many of us have much more to unlearn than others, before we can begin to learn. But it is our love that counts, and not our present understanding. Perfect knowledge without love would avail nothing! "Though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not love, I am nothing." Love with little knowledge may qualify for God's acceptance when all knowledge with little love would not.
Does God, who knows the heart, credit us with what we would do if we had the opportunity? Jesus said, "I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." This demonstrates there is sin in spirit when opportunity for the act is lacking. Does love for God produce the same effect of righteousness? "As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, 0 God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God" (Psalm 42:1, 2). If lust for a woman can become so intense that one commits adultery in his heart who may never have opportunity to do so in fact, can love for God become so intense that one will obey in heart what he might never have opportunity to do in fact? The only thing which would keep the panting deer from quenching its thirst at the stream would be lack of opportunity. May the thirsty soul be in the same state?
True, Jesus declared, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15), and "If a man loves me, he will keep my word" (verse 23), but even these passages show that love precedes the keeping of the word, and one cannot keep the word until he knows it, and has the opportunity to do it. Does a willing mind count for anything in the realm where man is lacking? Paul sets forth this principle, "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not" (2 Cor. 8:12).
Voluntary ignorance is a sin; involuntary ignorance is not! A man cannot walk in more light than he has, but if he shuts his eyes to the light he has, he shows the disposition which would dis-
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Our readers will be anxious to know how we apply this reasoning to baptism. Can any one on earth be saved who has not been immersed into Christ? That is not for us to judge or determine. We are instructed, under the reign of the Messiah, to enroll students in His school by immersing them; and to announce salvation from past sins on the basis of faith and immersion. Any who have received this announcement and deliberately reject the terms are in rebellion against the King. They will be last. What he will do with those who do not receive the message, or do not have the opportunity to enforce it in their lives, remains in the realm of His mercy. It is my opinion, based upon my feeble understanding of the scriptures, that such will be accepted of Him. Does this not weaken the command? Not at all. If a judge, recognizing mitigating circumstances, tempers judgment with mercy, he does not thereby undermine a sovereign statute. A law or commandment takes its force from the authority which orders it, but that authority is superior to any law which it creates, and may suspend or modify it in any given circumstance. Such suspension or modification in no sense affects the validity of the law or commandment in its general application.
It is the tendency of all who would squeeze and refine God's grace and mercy through their own legalistic strainers, to make our hope dependent upon knowledge and understanding, almost to the exclusion of love, motive or intent. This is evidenced by those who disregard, flaunt and set aside, the immersion of all who did not understand at the time it was to secure a certain blessing. A sincere, conscientious believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is immersed because it is a command of God, later learns that he is attached to a human party, and hearing of those who claim to be the Lord's people without sectarian affiliation, seeks to identify himself with them. He is told he must be baptized again. He insists that he believed with all his heart that Jesus was God's Son and the Messiah, and was immersed because of that faith. He is told that the human error he was taught negated God's grace, and even though he believed and was immersed, his ignorance cancelled God's promise, rendering it null and void. If he refuses to be immersed again, he is regarded as a heathen or pagan by this modern "undenominational sect."
But does not the word teach that we must repent and be baptized unto the remission of sins? Certainly so! And when a man believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, repents of his sins, and is immersed an the basis of that faith, it is unto the remission of sins! It makes no difference if he has same wrong notions, or if he has received same false impressions, when he complies with God's positive ordinance because of his faith in God's Son, he is inducted into all the blessings and privileges attendant upon the state into which such immersion introduces him, whether he knew what they were or not. But suppose one thinks he is saved before baptism? He is mistaken as to when God remits his sins and is in error as to the relationship of immersion to remission, but this ignorance does not invalidate his relationship unto God, for the simple reason that it is based upon faith in Jesus--not faith that baptism is for remission--but faith that Jesus is the Christ and God's Son.
Remission of sins is a judicial act which takes place in the mind of the God of heaven. It becomes effective to a penitent sinner upon belief of one fact and obedience of one act, conditioned upon that belief. This is the merciful arrangement of God who always conditions his requirements to our state. Since salvation is freely offered to every creature,
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When the Holy Spirit commanded the Pentecostians to repent and be immersed unto the remission of sins, He was not specifying the degree of knowledge essential to the validity of the act, nor assigning a motive for it. Careless and factional reasoners conclude that to be baptized "for the remission of sins," is the highest and noblest motive for the performance of the act. That means Jesus was immersed for an inferior motive. Actually, to be immersed, simply to receive remission of sins, as that is taught by many, might well be selfish, for it is the doing of an act purely with the view of receiving something of greater value in return.
Our Lord always acted from the highest motives. He based his submission to immersion upon a desire to "fulfill all righteousness." When any person yields himself to the same act on that basis, he acts from the highest motive, and we have no right to set ourselves up as an inquisition or judicial court, and interrogate him as to the degree of his knowledge or understanding of God's plans, purposes and promises at the time. A lot of folk cannot understand the difference between "baptism unto remission" and "knowing that baptism is unto remission." We are commanded to be immersed unto remission of our sins, but we are not told that the validity of the act depends upon our understanding that what we do will enable God to do certain things in our behalf. We need only to act in faith, doing what He told us to do, in order to fulfill His righteousness, and whatever blessings are in store for us, He will grant. His mercy is not made available to us on the basis of our knowledge, nor is His power limited because of our ignorance. It is possible that if all of us admitted our ignorance and cultivated our love we would be better off. "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up" (1 Cor. 8:1).