REPLY TO THE FOREGOING
W. Carl Ketcherside
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1. I do not believe that my obligation to take the good news of Jesus to all whom we can reach obligates God to damn all whom we do not reach. Our brother would not allow God to save a single Buddhist who had never learned of Jesus. But God regards no man as a Buddhist, Methodist, Presbyterian or Quaker. These are human distinctions. God regards every man on earth as an object of His love and an individual in his own right. Every person will be judged on the basis of his individual responsibility and on this basis God may save some who have never learned about Jesus. I have never thought of the good news as designed solely to keep us out of hell and I suspect it is to introduce us to a relationship which will help to keep hell out of us. To save means to make whole and we are obligated to share the message with all men regardless of circumstances. It does not nullify the great commission to conclude that those who are not reached under it may be saved by the grace and mercy of the loving Creator and Benefactor of mankind.
Certainly I have no right to promise salvation to any person who is not immersed into our Lord, nor to regard those who have not been immersed as in the fellowship which I share by God's mercy unto me, but by the same token I do not need to conclude that every person who is sprinkled in infancy and whose opportunities for learning better are impaired will be dealt with in the same category as those who know better and deliberately spurn the will of God. I am in no position to either save or damn those who have not learned better for I do not know the degree of their personal responsibility.
I am not so sure that God's grace is limited by God's word, and certainly not by my brother's interpretation of it. It was God's grace which gave us both our Savior and the word. I do not deny that all authority in heaven and on earth is given to our Lord Jesus but I do deny that it has been given to Brother Lemmons. Jesus has his authority as a gift and the
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2. The gospel is to be preached to the whole world to make believers; the apostolic doctrine was addressed to saints and faithful brethren. It was specifically designed to instruct men how to behave in the church. Brother Lemmons says, "Jesus preached doctrine to aliens." The word "teaching" can always be substituted for doctrine so our brother thinks Jesus preached teaching. Such a confusion of terms was not once made by the Spirit.
But were those whom Jesus taught aliens? Were they not in covenant relationship with God? If not, why did he tell them, "And you, like the lamp, must shed light among your fellows, so that when they see the good you do, they may give praise to your Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). They were told not to pray like the heathen and to address God as their Father in heaven, and they were promised that if they forgave others their Father would forgive them (Matt. 6:14). Our brother is hard pressed when he must resort to such an interpretation.
He does no better by his reference to Acts 5:28, when the High Priest who looked upon the disciples as merely another Jewish sect, that of "the Nazarenes," accused them of filling Jerusalem with their teaching. Sergius Paulus did not hear Paul "preach teaching" but "When the Governor saw what had happened he became a believer, deeply impressed by what he had learned about the Lord" (Acts 13:12).
Certainly God was able to strengthen the Romans on the basis of the gospel which had been proclaimed unto them, which they had received and wherein they stood. But if the Roman letter was part of the gospel, why did Paul write to them, "But they have not all obeyed the gospel" (Rom. 10:16)? How could they have obeyed it if he was just then writing it to them? In view of the fact that he wrote several of his letters after the one to the Romans, why did he say he had already "fully preached the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum" (Rom. 15:19). Did he not know there was more to come or could he distinguish between the gospel he proclaimed and the instructions he wrote to those who had obeyed it?
Our brother sadly misrepresents when he says I think one can obey the gospel without baptism. I do not believe any such thing. Baptism is the one act by which a penitent believer of the good news proclaimed by another demonstrates his personal faith in it and comes into the fellowship of our dear Lord.
3. Our brother has difficulty understanding what is meant by renouncing the lordship of Jesus in word or conduct. One comes into the fellowship by accepting the Sonship and Lordship of Jesus and he leaves it by denial of that which he affirms to enter it. Jesus says, "Whoever will acknowledge me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; and whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven" (Matt. 10:32, 33). One either disowns Jesus by word or conduct. Bro. Lemmons says Ephesians 5:5, 6 contradicts this. Instead, it confirms it. One guilty of fornication, indecency or greed rejects the lordship of Jesus over his life and verse 6 says, "Let no one deceive you with shallow
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True God threatened to remove His candlestick from Ephesus but what our brother needs to find is where God commanded the brethren to remove themselves from the candlestick. Our brother also warps and wrests what Jesus said to the congregation at Thyatira. Jesus commended them for "your love and faithfulness, your good service and your fortitude; and of late you have done even better than at the first." He did promise dire vengeance upon Jezebel, her lovers and her children. But to those "who do not accept this teaching and have no experience of what they like to call the deep secrets of Satan; on you I will impose no further burden." Was the congregation at Thyatira a "faithful church"? If not, why did Jesus commend them for their "love and faithfulness"? In spite of the doctrine of modern apostles of schism Jesus not once commanded division of either of His seven candlesticks. Isn't it surprising, with all of the division of congregations today, that despite all of the mistaken ideas and impure lives in those mentioned in the new covenant scriptures, not one was ever commanded to divide, and no one was commanded to split the candlestick in any community? Where did God authorize starting a rival candlestick?
Our good Brother Lemmons is in a real predicament. He does not know what to do with me. I will not count him as out of the fellowship because of his peculiar orthodox opinions and he cannot count me as out of his "fellowship," because, by his definition, I have never been in it. I never was a member of the faction with which Brother Lemmons is allied, and now that I have renounced all factionalism as sinful, I never intend to be, so he cannot "disfellowship" me as he so naively puts it. I regard him as in the fellowship because he is in Christ and he regards me as out of it because I am not in his party. I am free to love all who are in Christ, to move among them, and to commend what is good as I see it, and condemn what is not, as I see it!
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