The Basis of Faith
W. Carl Ketcherside
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All religion grows out of a sense of dependency, which, because of our nature exhibits itself as a need. Without knowledge of God, and left to himself, man seeks to satisfy his need and develops a superstition. Those who believe in God and recognize him as a benevolent creator accept as a corollary to this belief that he will provide a means of gratification on the highest basis. Every other need of man has been supplied in a manner adapted to his state or condition. It would be strange indeed if this universal need were the only one neglected, seeing that it is the very one which establishes the closest relationship between the creator and his intelligent offspring. Those who acknowledge the existence of God must admit the possibility of his revealing himself to mankind; those who know the nature of man must recognize the probability of his doing so.
It would be impossible to conjure up a concept of a powerless God. Even those who have made idols which were impotent had to invest them with imaginary powers in order to conceive of them as gods. It was this prostitution of the faculty of imagination which made such worship superstition. In idolatry, man created a god by natural means and sought to bestow upon him supernatural ability. In this he exhibited his folly since the creator is always superior to the created and no one can bestow a power greater than he possesses. By the same token it is impossible for us to conceive of a loving creator who would deny to his creatures that which they needed most. If God would provide a means of satisfying hunger and could not, he is powerless; if he could do so and would not, he is merciless. In either instance he would not be God. Because of our need and his might we must conclude that he has revealed himself to mankind for our good.
The word religion is from the Latin re, back, and ligo, to bind. It is that which acknowledges man's need for direction and guidance from a higher source than his own reason and experience and binds his mind and heart to follow that source which he recognizes. It is here that the skeptic demonstrates
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Having said this much about religion we turn our attention to "Christianity" which has suffered a great deal from its enemies but much more from its friends. The former have attacked it openly as a foe worthy of their steel; the latter have sought to confine and enslave it as unworthy of being released in its purity. It has been dressed in such varied creedal garbs and exhibited in such diverse philosophical attire, that its true form has long since been forgotten. Those who argue learnedly about it, mistaking the cloak for the person, often know the least about its real nature. It shall be our purpose in this thesis to humbly explore some facets which seem to have been generally forgotten, with the hope that we may stimulate further research in our generation.
Reverting to our introductory sentence we propose to show why the nature of man required just such a revelation as God has vouchsafed to him. Man is a finite creature. He is limited by time and space. He can only be one place at a time. He enters this world at a given time and leaves it at a given time. He comes in with no previous experience and devoid of present knowledge. During his life span he is dependent upon the testimony of others for information as to what transpires where he is not and for what transpired before he was. Mankind has long since recognized the possibility of being deceived and the tendency of some to practice deception. Through bitter and tragic experience the human race has learned that the only thing that can be depended upon is that man cannot.
But all previous experience is necessary for the present good. No man is isolated from his own generation and no generation is unaffected by previous accomplishments and discoveries. The very essence of progress is the employment of the sum total of human knowledge to date as the foundation for new discoveries and greater accomplishments in the present generation. In view of the necessity for testimony and the possibility of deception, humanity from its earliest days, and as a means for its own protection and survival, devised or adopted certain principles related to testimony by which it could be determined to what extent reliance could be placed in the information conveyed. When testimony meets the requirements of these criteria it must be believed by a rational being or he lays the groundwork for rejection of all previous experience and by that act renders himself irrational.
God placed his stamp of approval on this law of evidence. "A single witness
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In addition to the requirement for a plurality of witnesses to establish a fact, every society sought to discourage deception by imposing sanctions and penalties upon those guilty of perjury. Thus we read, "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who utters lies will not escape" (Prov. 19:5), and again, "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who utters lies will perish" (Prov. 19:9). In man's primitive social state God ordained the principle of lex talionis, the law of retaliation, as the most effective deterrent to malicious injury. "The judge shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother" (Deut. 19:18, 19).
Because of the awe and reverence with which sacred persons and things were regarded, men soon began to place themselves under oath in reference to these in giving testimony. By this means they called down punishment upon their heads if what they said was false. Although the very nature of God is such that it is impossible for him to lie (Heb. 6:18) he subscribed to the recognized law of evidence in his promise to Abraham. "When God made his promise to Abraham he swore by himself, for there was no one greater by whom he could swear." That this amounted to Deity accommodating to a recognized human custom is apparent by the language used. "Among men it is customary to swear by something greater than themselves. And if a statement is confirmed by an oath, that is the end of all quibbling. So in this matter, God, wishing to show beyond doubt that his plan was unchangeable, confirmed it with an oath" (Heb. 6:16, 17).
In view of these statements it is evident that any requirement of God, based upon belief of testimony, will conform to the recognized laws of evidence. He has demonstrated that these laws have divine approbation. We are not required of God to believe what is incredible, indeed we could not do so, for the rational mind is incapable of that. The revelation of God in its ultimate is a historical fact and the testimony as to this fact must be subjected to the same measuring reed as the testimony regarding any other historical event. The credibility of the history involved in the Good News concerning Jesus of Nazareth is to be ascertained on exactly the same basis as that of any other history.
It may even be questioned whether there is such a thing as a legitimate distinction between profane and sacred history. If God is the great king of all the earth and rules in the affairs of men there is no such thing as an unrelated fact. There may be, and we accept it as true that there were, men who recorded history under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, and others who wrote from purely human motivation and experience, but all history simply records the footprints of God in human affairs. The historians may be holy or profane but history cannot be so divided. Remember that there is a difference between history and the recording or interpretation of that history.
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This places Christianity definitely in the realm of history. There was either such a person as Jesus of Nazareth or there was not; he was either what he claimed to be or he was not. No one denies that we have certain historical records establishing the claim that there was such a person. It is admitted that these records are of sufficient antiquity to be admitted as valid testimony, if they are true. The question of credibility, then, involves only two questions, both of them related to the witnesses. If these questions can be answered satisfactorily the competency of the witnesses is established. If this is certified the testimony must be believed, or all historical records of every nature must be rejected. The first question must relate to the scope of knowledge of the witnesses, the second to their character. The first has to do with their accessibility to the facts, the second to their personal honesty and trustworthiness.
The Christian faith is not contingent upon any subsequent deduction from or speculation about the facts, nor is it specifically concerned with the inferences or doctrines growing out of or connected with the facts. These may be interesting fields for investigation upon the part of those who believe but they in no wise affect the historical facts which constitute the foundation of the Christian system. They may be related to the spiritual growth of those in the faith but they are no more the faith than the formula fed to a baby is the seed by which it is begotten. The whole proposition resolves itself into the problems (if there are such) related to the competency of the witnesses. Were these men in a position to know the certainty of the facts to which they testified? Were they the kind of men who would truthfully report what they knew?
It has been said that every supernatural act connected with the career of Jesus has been denied. This is a careless statement. No one at a later date can deny or disprove an alleged fact. To deny that a miracle has been performed one must be present at the time and submit the performance to the proper criteria. If not present he can only challenge the validity of the testimony. But before one challenges the veracity of another, justice demands that he give his reasons for doing so. It is not sufficient reason to say that the testimony runs counter to his preconceived notions and views. On that ground all scientific progress would be ruled out or nullified.
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The writers were not journalists attempting to produce works of literary worth. They did not write to gratify curiosity or to gain recognition for themselves. They were not striving to produce a best seller or to make a living by their pens. They simply believed that Jesus was the Messiah and God's Son. They recorded those things which convinced them in the full conviction that when the facts were known all other honest people would also acknowledge the divine Sonship.
They knew what they had seen and heard. One of them says in preparing to close his narrative, "It is this same disciple who attests what has here been written. It is in fact he who wrote it, and we know that his testimony is true." On one occasion when they had been imprisoned over night and were in court next day, they were threatened with legal reprisal if they did not "refrain from all public speaking and teaching in the name of Jesus." Their pointed reply was, "We cannot possibly give up speaking of things we have seen and heard."
Of those who wrote, one was a Greek physician. His account was addressed to a high official in the government as the form of address, "Your Excellency," demonstrates. It is written in the cultivated language of one trained in the "Materia Medica" of his day. This narrative was produced after careful research and detailed investigation. It was prompted by a desire to provide authentic knowledge at a time when many writers were recording their versions as gleaned from original testimony. Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate some of these written accounts may have been, it is important to realize that Jesus of Nazareth had made such an impact on men that, in an age and among people not renowned for literary skills, many were hastening to put into permanent form the material available unto them. It is even more important to know how widespread was the tradition handed over by original eyewitnesses and which could serve as a criterion for judging the written accounts. It is significant that of all the written accounts mentioned, the one preserved for us is the work of one who made a meticulous and detailed study in order to provide authentic knowledge to a government official.
"The author to Theophilus. Many writers have undertaken to draw up an account of the events that have happened among us, following the traditions handed down to us by the original eyewitnesses and servants of the Gospel. And so I in my turn, your Excellency, as one who has gone over the whole course of these events in detail, have decided to write a connected narrative for you, so as to give you authentic knowledge about the matters of which you have been informed" (Luke 1:1-4).
The physician was a close friend and traveling companion of Saul of Tarsus, a former rabbinical student of the Hillel School in Jerusalem. The personal encounter of this man with Jesus while enroute to Syria to persecute his followers had turned him into a proclaimer of the Good News. Luke came to Jerusalem with him and when the apostle was arrested and held in custody in Herod's
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The connected accounts of the circumstances surrounding the conception and delivery of John and Jesus are straight-forward and factual. There is no apparent embellishment of the record. It is just such as would be written by one who interviewed the principals involved. These are carefully identified by name, place of residence, and time of the events. "In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town in Galilee, with a message for a girl betrothed to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David; the girl's name was Mary." Certainly the first person on earth who would be concerned about the virgin birth would be Mary, and Joseph would share in that concern. In both cases nothing short of divine reassurance would have sufficed, and in both cases such reassurance was given as was satisfactory to the two of them.
The news that she was to have a child would evoke one primary question in the mind of a humble maiden. "How can this be," said Mary, "when I have no husband?" It is remarkable how this question still troubles our contemporary scientists and speculative theologians. Because they are unwilling to face up to the fact, they conclude that Mary must have had a husband and concealed the fact. But the investigator who sought to determine the truth so that he could convey "authentic knowledge" records, "The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy child to be born will be called 'Son of God.'"
What motivates learned men in our day to spin theoretical webs of thought to obscure this simple account? Is it that they cannot accept it or that they will not? We have no inclination to make a sweeping indictment or blanket accusation but we suspect that the implication of this event comes with such devastating force against the modern theory of the origin of man, that to protect this theory they must deny the origin of the Son of man. It is significant that in Luke 1:3 Jesus is called "Son of God" and in Luke 3:38, the earthly lineage is traced back to Adam who is also called "son of God."
If it is true that all things were made by the Logos and that without him was not anything made that was made, it follows that not only was the first man truly a "son of God" but the seed in his body and the ova in the body of his counterpart were the creation of the Logos and "life came from life." When the Creator deigned in the fulness of time to send the Logos that his creatures "might have life and have it more abundantly" it required no greater miracle to unite the Logos with an ovum from the body of one who was directly descended from the first "son of God" than
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Perhaps, in the final analysis, the denial of the incarnation is an attempt to rid oneself of the thought of responsibility to God. The philosophers of our generation have only attempted an evasion and escapism on a grander scale than their less sophisticated contemporaries who have to be content with cruder methods. For if we are all descended from "a son of God"' and the "Son of God" descended to show us how sons of God ought to be, his life stands as a constant rebuke to our selfish and sinful existence. His own generation could not understand his thinking and sought to put him out of their world on a cross; our generation cannot stand under his thinking so we seek to cross him out of our world of thought. We have refined our methods of crucifixion.
We are aware of the contention that a belief in the virgin birth is not essential to a recognition of the sacrificial virtues of the cross. It is argued that the death of an innocent man for a great ideal presents to us a sufficient pattern for a god-like life. But this is not enough! An ideal may prevent us from sinning in the future but it cannot purge out our sins of the past. One can never have a pure conscience until it is purified. For this reason it makes a difference who died on the cross. Any theory which begins with the Logos as a man who became God is in direct contravention of the divine purpose which begins with the Logos as God who became man. The emptying of the blood from his body has significance only as the culminating act of an emptying process which began when he was in the form of God and "emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:7). That the connection we make is valid is evidenced by the succeeding verse, "And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross."
Those who deny the virgin birth pose as benefactors of mankind, seeking to release us from the thraldom of ignorance and superstition. Unable to derogate the moral ethics of Jesus they emphasize his humanity. I confess some skepticism as to their purpose for it would appear that all too frequently the opposition to the virgin birth is not so much an attempt to establish his humanity as to get rid of his divinity. My skepticism proceeds from the methods employed. Assuming the impossibility of such a miracle they make all testimony to the contrary conform to the assumption. This is directly opposed to the scientific method and the laws of evidence. It is the very basis of all superstition. The virgin birth either happened or it did not. It is a fact or it is not a fact. Whether we believe it happened must depend upon testimony. We were not present to examine the alleged fact; we are now limited to acceptance or rejection of the testimony. To reject it on the basis of a preconceived notion is purely prejudicial.
Certainly the methods and motives of Luke cannot be questioned for these are the very ones employed by all true scientists. There can be no question of his accessibility to source materials for many
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The very design of his account argues against it being a forgery. Remember that it was written when its contents could be inspected by many whose names were mentioned in it. An impostor always avoids specificity. He deals in generalities. He carefully guards against giving names or dates. Contrary to such procedure, Luke seems to go to every length to date events, provide the names of government officials, and designate geographical areas. Let us cite only two of the many examples. The first has to do with the birth of Jesus. "In those days a decree was issued by the Emperor Augustus for a general registration throughout the Roman world. This was the first registration of its kind; it took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria" (Luke 2:1, 2). Since all of these things would he recorded in the public annals of Rome and open to inspection it is evident that the writer must have known whereof he spoke.
Even more explicit is the documentation relative to the time when John the Immerser began his proclamation. "In the fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, when Herod was prince of Galilee, his brother Philip prince of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias prince of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness." Even the distinctions involved in the words translated "emperor, governor, and prince" would be significant to "His Excellency" to whom the record was addressed.
We cannot refrain from mentioning an undesigned statement which seems to us to indicate the fidelity of Luke as a historian. All of us are aware of the professional pride, so often mis-called "ethics," which forbids any reference to another engaged in the same profession in such a manner as to reflect against the profession. As a physician Luke was obligated to investigate circumstances related to alleged miracles of healing. One of these had to do with a woman who was troubled with an aggravated case of hemorrhage. True to his profession, Luke records the incidence of the disease as of twelve years duration.
When journalistic ethics conflict with professional ethics, the truth must be recorded regardless of consequences. One might be astounded at the difference between the report on a case as stated in a professional medical journal and that given to the family of the patient. So Luke the physician, acting as historian, writes of the woman, "She had spent all of her available funds on physicians, none of whom did her any good."
While we are dealing with this case I should like to remark about another fact or two. It is apparent that the unfortunate woman was motivated by a desire to escape publicity due to the nature of her affliction, as well as by superstition with reference to the garment of Jesus. Because God had ordained that the people of Israel were "to make tassels on the corners of their garments...and to put upon the tassel of each corner a cord of blue; and it shall be to you a tassel to look upon and remember all the commandments of the Lord" a special significance was attached to the hem of the garment. The unlearned and ignorant came to regard it as sacred or holy, and there is little doubt that the woman thought of it as possessing curative value since it was worn by one regarded as "a healer of diseases."
The charge frequently made by the critics of Jesus that he invaded the privacy of the woman and exposed her to public gaze for exploitation of personal power is wholly unwarranted. Upon this initial announcement that someone had
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The system called Christianity has as its foundation the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. Belief of this one fact is all that is necessary in so far as faith is concerned, to secure pardon and enter into fellowship with God and Christ. When one submits to the act of baptism in proof of the validity of that one faith he becomes a partaker of all the privileges of the divine family. "For through faith you are all sons of God in union with Christ Jesus. Baptized into union with him, you have all put on Christ as a garment" (Gal. 3:26, 27).
We have a perfect right to enquire of those who question the divinity of Jesus what manner of confirmation it would require to convince them. Let them be very specific at this point. Only two alternatives are open to them. They must either admit that no amount of proof would convince them or that supernatural demonstrations would be required. If they take the first they reveal that they are gross materialists and sensualists, impervious to change and adamant in heart, unaffected by facts. If they admit a willingness to consider facts and the testimony related to such facts, irrespective of previous opinions, it is evident that only supernatural confirmation can establish beyond controversy the divinity of one under consideration.
But what kind of confirmation of the claim of divinity would be best adapted to create faith in the hearts of mankind? This would depend upon the type of men to be affected and the purpose of thus affecting them. There would be a great deal of difference in the presentation of a claim of divinity to the top intellectuals of the world for the purpose of creating a satisfactory human-divine philosophy, and the presentation of such a claim to the universal mass of mankind, steeped in ignorance and immorality, for the purpose of saving them from their sins. The nature of the confirmation would be the same but the demonstration would of necessity be altogether different.
Now it must be remembered that Jesus of Nazareth made no claim of coming to effect a new social order, create a new philosophy, or present a new approach to problems of international relationship. He stated his mission in terse sentences. "The Son of man has come to seek and save that which is lost." "The Son of man came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." Certainly the confirmation must, like the testimony, be adapted to the state or condition of those
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We unhesitatingly affirm that if all men are expected to believe the confirmation must be such as is related to universal human experience. It cannot be limited to those who reside in a certain area of the earth. Those supernatural works which are done must be in the realm of common human experience. There are many such experiences--suffering, disease, hunger, fear of the elements, and death, to name a few. Not only must supernatural claims be confirmed by supernatural acts, but these must be performed in such a manner as to be obvious and certain.
It is our contention that if an unbiased committee acting in advance had drawn up a list of the confirmatory acts required to establish the claims of Jesus of Nazareth, taking into consideration the persons and purposes related to his claims, their report would have had to include the very type of deeds he performed. Jesus recognized the nature of the evidence required to prove his claims. When John sent to enquire, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect some other?" Jesus made no appeal to his doctrine or ethical teaching. He said to the emissaries, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind recover their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the poor are hearing the good news" (Matt. 11:4, 5). That this was valid confirmation is evidenced by the statement of the Jewish Council member, "We know that you are a teacher sent by God; no one could perform these signs of yours unless God were with him" (John 3:2). It is significant that the record says, "Yet among the people many believed in him. 'When the Messiah comes,' they said, 'is it likely that he will perform more signs than this man?'" (John 7:31). That is still a pertinent question!
In view of these things it comes as a little strange that men in our day would seek to discount the miracles on the ground of their nature. Unable to attack his devoted life and pure character they must seek by other means to whittle away at his life in order to reduce him in stature to the purely human level. But there are some things which cannot be ignored. Jesus claimed a preexistence with the Father. He claimed to be the Son of God. He was willing to meet the logical requirement for confirmation of the claims. We have accounts of his miracles as preserved by eyewitnesses and investigators. The witnesses had adequate access to the sources of information. They were honest in their records. We are either forced to believe them or to reject the only basis upon which any historical account becomes credible.
The two memorials connected with the Christian system are directly related to these facts. One is an initiatory rite by which we enter the fellowship created by the gospel. In it we re-enact the facts of the Good News and thus identify ourselves with the Message. By this identification we are enabled to procure for ourselves as individuals that which was made available to the world by his death. We become incorporate with him. Just as the man Christ Jesus brought life to the world through his crucifixion, so we enter into that life by our crucifixion
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Jesus had to die only once and we need to be baptized but once. When Jesus was raised he was free from the dominion of death, when we are baptized we become dead to sin. We are no longer slaves of sin. Baptism need never be repeated. There is one baptism as there is just one faith. The one faith is the substance of the gospel message. It is the conviction that God has raised Jesus from the dead and made him both Lord and Christ. This is the thing that the first hearers of the Good News were told to accept as certain (Acts 2:36). It is that faith which is a foundation for reformation of life and baptism (Acts 2:38). It is that faith, the one faith, which is a foundation of our fellowship in Christ Jesus the Lord.
The Good News is universal in extent because it is to meet a universal need. All men are sinners and all stand in need of salvation. Because it is a historical message and consists of testimony to facts, all men may believe it just as all may believe any other historical fact which has been confirmed. The Good News is not the exclusive possession of any sect, party or faction, regardless of how sincere or earnest its adherents may be. Any person on earth who has heard it may, and ought to, share it with every other who will listen to him. "Let him that heareth say, 'Come.'" The power to save lies in the Message and not in the messenger nor in any splinter group or segment to which he belongs. "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel. It is the saving power of God for every one who has faith" (Rom. 1:16).
Because the power to save is inherent in the Good News the effect of the Good News is not vitiated when the facts are announced, regardless of error in doctrine maintained by those who announce it. The power is in the nature of the Message and not in the character of those who proclaim it. Facts are facts regardless of men's attitudes or motivations. The facts have never been announced by a perfect man and never will be. But wheat sown by a blind man will produce a crop if sown in the proper place the same as if it were planted by one whose faculties are unimpaired. The power to produce is in the seed and not in the sower. Whether wheat or Good News is planted "it is God that giveth the increase." "But the others, moved by personal rivalry, present Christ from mixed motives....What does it matter? One way or another, in pretence or in sincerity, Christ is set forth, and for that I rejoice" (Phil. 1:17, 18).
The response to a divine message should be divinely ordained and God
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Since baptism is the divinely ordained response to the Good News, no party, sect, or segment, can invalidate its effect when a believing penitent submits to it. Baptism is not the response to a doctrinal position, to abstract propositions or to a creedal compilation. Regardless of the mistaken views upon such matters, held by either the penitent believer or the administrator, baptism is not invalidated because it is not related to these things. There never was a perfect man immersed since the death of Jesus and there never was a perfect man who did the immersing. Every believing penitent has been ignorant of many things and every baptismal administrator, without exception, has been wrong about many things. When one believes the facts which constitute the Good News and is immersed because he believes them, he receives remission of sins whether he understands that blessing or not. Remission of sins is a judicial act which takes place in heaven. It is a divine act of clemency bestowed upon proper response to the fundamental fact of the Christian system and not upon perfect knowledge of all that is involved in the divine will.
The Good News is not and can never be made a sectarian message because it is the proclamation of God to a sinful world. Men who are sectarian may proclaim it and may even flatter themselves that it is their exclusive possession, but it is no more so than the life-giving air which we breathe is a national possession. Baptism is not and can never be a sectarian possession because it is the divinely ordained universal response of believing penitents to a universal message. Men who are sectarian may administer it and even flatter themselves that because they do so it introduces a proper subject only into their exclusive partisan fellowship, but the over-ruling power of God unites the subject not to the sect to which the administrator belongs, but to the one body composed of all the saved on earth. No man has the power to immerse a man into a sect when that man truly believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and is immersed because of that faith. God frustrates the designs of men when they seek to exploit his universal mercy for sectarian purposes and partisan pride.
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The church is a divine creation. There is only one church on earth now, there never was but one, there never can be another. No man can create a church nor can any group of men acting in concert do so. God created only one church and if a man is not in it he is not in a church at all. The church is composed of the called out ones. They are all in it, there is not one of them out of it. Only God can call men out of sin so only God can create a church. Man can no more invent another church than he can invent another Spirit or create another hope. "There is one body and one Spirit even as you are called in one hope of your calling."
No splinter, segment, fragment or fraction, parading under the title "church" is "the loyal church" or "the faithful church" in our decadent age. So long as schism exists among us we have all fallen short of the divine ideal, and to "miss the mark" is to sin. We will never attain to the ideal of God by blinding ourselves to the reality of our status and demanding that everyone else confess to us. We will never attain to it by advertising our segment or exploiting our party as "the one body" and implying that no one else belongs to Jesus because he does not belong with us. The party spirit is a sin. Factionalism is a work of the flesh. We can sooner become what God wants us to be on our knees than standing over others "cracking the whip."
We are neither infinite nor infallible. Every exclusivist party on the earth has its written or unwritten creed and it is this creed which makes it sectarian and exclusive. Any party which does not contain within its confines all the saved on earth today is a sect pure and simple. Any group which debars any of God's children and refuses to regard them as brothers is sectarian. Any group which creates traditional positions, explanations, interpretations and opinions as the basis of its fellowship is a sect regardless of how boastful and arrogant its claims or how loud and clamorous may be its disclaimers.
The Good News is a universal Message. The response to it when proclaimed is a universal response. Those who respond in faith to the accredited testimony of the ambassadors become, by divine act, members of the one body. By coming into him who is the head they constitute the one body over which he is the head. No man can bring them into it, no man can exclude them from it. One man can bring another to Christ Jesus, only God can bring him into the divine relationship. Fellowship is not something extended or withdrawn by men but a divine state into which we are called by God.
Men may conspire to put out of their synagogues those who truly acknowledge Jesus (John 9:22) but no man can amputate a member from the body of Christ. Jesus will come to those who are cast out by men and test them with the one question that really counts. "Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him, he said, 'Do you believe in the Son of man?'" (John 9:35). If one is right about Jesus he may be wrong about many other things and still be saved; if he is wrong about Jesus he may be right about all else and still be lost. Salvation is not a relation to things but to a person, Jesus Christ, and because it is a relation to this one person there is only one faith. God has made him "our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30).
One may be a member of the one body and something else He did not enter the "something else" by the one baptism and God did not add him to it. God never adds those who believe in Jesus and are baptized into him to any-
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The Good News divides none of God's children from each other. It is a statement of simple facts about Jesus of Nazareth. It is to be received upon the basis of credible testimony. Because belonging to "something else" divides us into warring segments and pits the members of the family against each other in unholy fratricidal strife, all sectarianism is sin. We can only fulfill the real purpose of God in our generation when we become and remain just Christian--and Christians only! This involves a recognition of all of God's children as our brothers regardless of the partisan barriers they have erected. To recognize the walls men have created as legitimate is to make ourselves sectarian.
Because God recognizes that there is only one church and cannot be more than one, he never regards anyone as "belonging to another church." He treats all men as individuals and will judge them as such. In this respect we need to be like the Father. We should acknowledge all truth as held by any man and we should use the truth discovered as a foundation upon which to build additional truth. Using the truth we ourselves have as a foundation we should welcome additional insights regardless of the source of transmission, realizing that in its ultimate all truth comes from God. This will enable us to flow together without anyone having to surrender any truth to which he has ever held himself addicted. If we can disregard all sectarian barriers which men have erected, if we can forget the creedal dams which they have thrown across the stream of thought and regard them all as persons striving to learn more of the divine will, we can rise above our sectarian bias and the Holy Spirit will enable us to overcome the divisions which have plagued us through the centuries.
The Christian system was designed by heaven "as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph. 1:10). It was never intended to sever, sunder, or split the believers into warring tribes or rival camps. Our problem has been one of false emphasis. Each party has waved its banner aloft while each has cried "Lo, here!" or "Lo, there!" But the day is past when God's people should encamp about the tabernacle under tribal symbols of identity. We are the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. Let us emphasize the Good News "in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast--unless you have believed in vain."