The Divine Provisions

W. Carl Ketcherside


[Page 152]

     As a functional being man operates in three realms--faith, knowledge and performance. The scope of the last will be determined by the other two. That which one believes and that which he knows will govern what he does. There is a difference between faith and knowledge. Knowledge is based upon personal experience, faith is based upon the experience of other persons. Both are based upon testimony, but knowledge is derived from the testimony of our own senses, while faith is based upon the testimony of other witnesses. If such witnesses meet the criteria of credibility demanded by our rational processes we proceed upon the basis of their testimony as confidently as we act upon the basis of our own experience. I know there is such a place as Saint Louis and I believe there is such a place as Beirut, but I would buy a plane ticket for either with the same degree of confidence.

     God's design for man is to bring him into a fellowship perfected in love. He does not want a part of man but the whole man. In order to accomplish this he has provided all that is essential to a man's salvation and growth in grace. He has given him a perfect object of faith, a perfect source of knowledge and a perfect sphere of labor. This does not mean that man in his limitations of the fleshly nature will ever attain unto perfect faith, perfect knowledge or perfect performance. The provision is perfect, being divine; the apprehension of it is imperfect, being human. The supply will always be greater than the capacity. The wells of salvation will not be drawn dry by our human buckets. But we can quench our thirst and sustain life by what we daily assimilate.

1. The Person of Christ

     The object of our faith is not a proposition, a dogma or doctrine. It is a person. All life, traced back to its source is personal. The ultimate of life is a person. It is not belief of a truth about Jesus, nor belief that a proposition related to Jesus is true, that produces life, but belief in Him as God's Son. It is not belief that he will show us the right way, but that he is the Way; not belief of a truth about him but that He is the Truth; not belief that He will give us life, but that He is the Life. When we give ourselves to Him we give ourselves to life. Life is not a thing given to us but a person to whom we give ourselves. "In him was life." When one of the apostles asked, "How can we know the way?" Jesus did not point to a book, an outline, chart or map. He simply said, "I am the way; I am the truth and I am the life; no one comes to the Father except by me."

     It is a difficult thing for many to distinguish between the Savior and the scripture, since both are a divine revelation. The danger is that we will trust in the wrong one for salvation and this amounts to substituting knowledge for faith as the basis of our justification. The distinction lies in the fact that scripture is a revelation from God but Jesus is a revelation of God. There is a difference between a person and his thoughts. The scriptures reveal unto us what God thinks. Jesus reveals unto us God. It is the difference between what and Who! In the scriptures God communicates His thinking, in the person of Jesus He communicates His divine Self. He is Immanuel, that is, God with us!

     The purpose of the scripture is not to give life but to point to Jesus as the Life. It is not through diligent study of the scriptures (although this is very important) that one has life, but by coming to Jesus. Jesus did not condemn study of the scriptures, but he placed the scriptures in proper perspective when he said, "You study the scriptures diligently, supposing that in them you have eternal life; yet, although their testimony points to me, you refuse to come to me for that life" (John 5:39, 40).

2. Perfection of Divine Communication

     The scriptures contain a perfect revelation from the divine mind. I use the word "from" because I think the word "of" conveys a wrong impression. The perfection lies not in the idea that God has completely uncovered for us every thought in his mind. This would have served no purpose for the finite cannot comprehend the infinite, nor the limited embrace or encompass the unlimited. The perfection lies in the fact that every requirement essential to fulfillment of the divine purpose related to our salvation and spiritual growth has been met in the new covenant scriptures. All that man needs to know in his present state in order to please God he may learn from this revelation.

     The new covenant scriptures set fourth a new way of serving God. The old way was by law. This was adapted to the state of men before faith came. Law exercises custodial care. It keeps men confined by prescribing limits. But grace holds us in by love for Christ. It keeps us together by drawing us to a common center. One acts as a police force, the other as a magnetic force. "But now having died to that which held us bound, we are discharged from the law, to serve God in a new way, the way of the spirit, in contrast to the old way, the way of a written code" (Romans 7:6). The greatest problem in every generation is with men who want to make the new covenant scriptures a written code. This is a sign of immaturity. There is a psychological basis for it.

     Adolescents crave freedom and yet are frightened by it. Fearful of their inability to apply self-discipline, they crave inwardly for arbitrary discipline imposed by parents even as they appear outwardly to resent it. When God's people were minors he ruled them by law. "And so it was with us. During our minority we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe, but when the term was completed, God sent his own Son...to purchase freedom for the subjects of the law, in order that we might attain the stature of sons" (Gal. 4:3-6). Many apparently do not know that "the term was completed." They regard the old law as nailed to the cross and a new law as tacked on to Christ.

     The new covenant scriptures are not a law of God imposed, but the will of God exposed. Our pattern is not a written code but a living Person. The scriptures tell me what God thinks and thus how Jesus would react if he were in my place. Their purpose is to help me develop that divine nature which will freely and automatically respond in every situation with the divine answer. God is not law but God is love. He has not given us a law but He has given us love for He has given Himself. His purpose is not to make of us great lawyers but great lovers. Law achieves its aim by crushing the spirit. Love fulfills its ideal by breaking the heart. The holy scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation by pointing us to Him who "became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him" (Hebrews 5:9).

3. Purpose of Divine Community

     God's called ones constitute a body. Every saved person is a member of this divine organism, a living, vital, functioning part of it. All that one needs to do to please God he can do as a member of this body. He need not create another organization, constitute another body, nor join a club, clique or clan, to further the purpose of God on earth. There is one body because there is one head. It is not the body which gives validity to the head, but the head which gives validity to the body in the service of God. "He is the head and on him the whole body depends" (Eph. 4:16). There is no spiritual validity in any body of which Jesus is not the sole head.

     It is not as one works in conjunction with some of the members of the body in an exclusive organization that he fulfills God's purpose, but as he works in har-

[Page 154]
mony with all of them in the divine organism. The one body has parts, not parties. One need never join anything after God adds him to the church in order to function acceptably and walk well-pleasing before his God. All that God wants done in converting sinners and sanctifying the saved can be done by the one body. That which cannot be done by it is something God does want done in these areas. That which is not entered by baptism is not the one body and is not created by God to fulfill the divine purpose. "For indeed we were all brought into one body by baptism, in the one Spirit, whether we are Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free men, and that one Holy Spirit was poured out for all of us to drink" (2 Cor. 12:13).

     The ekklesia is the brotherhood of all God's children, the temple built of all the living stones, the flock containing all of the sheep, the priesthood embracing all of the priests, and the body containing all of the organs. "For Christ is like a single body with its many limbs and organs, which, many as they are, together make up one body" (1 Cor. 12:12). Ponder long upon that statement, "Christ is like a single body."


Next Article
Back to Number Index
Back to Volume Index
Main Index