The Works of Darkness
W. Carl Ketcherside
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In a thrilling statement addressed to God's people at Ephesus, the apostle Paul declares that unity in Christ is the purpose, will and pleasure of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, that unity is to be universal. It is to include all in heaven and on earth. "He has made known to us his hidden purpose--such was his will and pleasure determined beforehand in Christ--to be put into effect when the time was ripe: namely, that the universe, all in heaven and on earth, might be brought into a unity in Christ" (Eph. 1:9, 10). One who devotes his life to the promotion of unity among the saints acts in harmony with the divine purpose. He serves the will of God. He is responsive to the divine pleasure.
If the holy scriptures contain a revelation from God in which the mind of God is found expressed, it follows that they must be wholly in accord with the purpose of God. Any use of these writings to create, condone, or continue division within the family of God must be misuse and abuse. The sacred scriptures, like any other communication between rational beings, are subject to interpretation and application by those who read them, and one criterion of accuracy in both areas is whether our view formulated by study is conducive to the reduction or increase of tensions among the disciples of Christ.
No governing principle expressed in words, whether of divine or human origin, is proof against distortion by prejudiced hearts. Not all prejudice is deliberate and all of us are prejudiced in one degree or another. It is a temptation to use the scriptures in such a manner as to give credence to our traditional positions and attitudes. Men may wrest what God has said and do it without recognizing an ulterior motive. We should be ready always to investigate anew our views and explanations, realizing that while God's word is sacred, our deductions are not necessarily so. There is a danger that we will see in the scriptures what we want to see. Our predispositions are stronger than most of us like to admit.
If it be true that God has designed that all who are in Christ be one, it follows that there must be a separation between those who are in Christ and those who are out of Christ. If the first are citizens of the kingdom, the others are aliens from it. To justify division in Christ one would have to destroy such distinction. That which applied to the wall between children of God and children of the devil would have to be wrested to make it appear applicable to the children of God in their relationships, so that walls could be erected between saints. Nothing can be more contributory to confusion and disorder than such a course, yet nothing is more common among those who profess loyalty to the Lord.
Passages pertaining to the relationship
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In this is seen the difference between the Holy Spirit and the unholy spirit of the party. The former uses the word to draw us together; the other uses the same word to drive us apart. One regards the scripture as a divine cement; the other as a solvent. Although we have dealt with the schismatic abuse of the sacred oracles in previous issues we propose to add some observations to what has been said by reference to another passage in Ephesians (5:11) which has been used as occasion to lend sanction to strife and disunion.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
In the desire to find sanction for factional and exclusivistic attitudes, men have seized upon the expression, "have no fellowship," and employed it as the tool for fragmenting the saints. The "unfruitful works of darkness" are converted in the factional crucible into every point of difference arising among the brethren, and those who disagree with arbitrary opinions can be hounded out and treated with contempt and disdain as heathen and publicans. It is astounding that any one who poses as a Christian teacher could possibly make an application of this passage to brethren whose only ''sin" is that they cannot see every point of doctrine alike. Yet we find this verse used over and over in those journals whose editors mistake community with conformity.
Is not the whole tenor of the Ephesian letter against such a forced interpretation? Did not the apostle tell the brethren, "Be humble always and gentle, and patient too. Be forbearing with one another and charitable. Spare no effort to make fast with bonds of peace the unity which the Spirit gives" (4:2.3). Did he not urge them to "throw off falsehood and speak the truth to each other, for all of us are parts of one body"? Did he not command them to "have done with spite and passion, all angry shouting and cursing, and bad feeling of every kind"? (4:31). Did he not say, "Be generous to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you?" (4:32).
Surely one need not know the original Greek to determine that the apostle would not deliberately write an epistle to prove that we are one body, only to splinter and shiver it to bits with one sentence. The Ephesian letter is a magnificent document of unity and peace written to portray the fellowship of the mystery, and the mystery of the fellowship. Who can believe that after painting such a masterpiece that its author would hand us a knife and tell us to slash it into ribbons?
What are "the unfruitful works of darkness"? Are they opinions which differ from the party norm opinions about the validity of instrumental music, missionary societies, the millennium, orphan homes, centralized support, institutionalism, organization, individual cups, Bible classes, qualification of elders, the work of evangelists, fermented wine, a method of breaking the bread in the Lord's Supper, or owning a television set? Are these to become our criteria for cleaving the fabric of brotherhood and reducing the divine family to the status of warring tribes "hated and hating one another"? Are they the grounds upon which we shall callously rive, rend and rupture the one body, until it is lacerated and bleeding at every pore? What thoughtful man among us, knowing the spirit of Paul, can even imagine that he would approve our crazy-quilt pattern of division, much less
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Would the apostle of grace set at nought a brother simply because he had a divergent view about instrumental music, the millennium, cups or classes? Would he refuse such a person the right to pray to the Father or coldly disdain to call upon him to do so? What spirit of evil has possessed us that we can set at nought a brother for whom Christ died, and seek for justification in the words of the very one who condemned such arrogance and haughtiness of spirit?
Our trouble is that we are so muddled and confused we cannot distinguish between God's family and heathen. We mistake our brethren for barbarians. We cannot tell the difference between an honest difference of opinion and a barren work of darkness. In our factional derangement we cannot differentiate between error and sin. We think that every error is a sin simply because every sin is an error. This is the wilderness of perplexity into which we have been led by the party spirit and we have been left entangled in the thicket of our own meandering thoughts. We are trapped in a maze of legalism and dogmatism and we have forfeited our freedom through fright and fear.
I unhesitatingly affirm that no man can be true to Christ and make a test of fellowship out of either the pro or con of any of the motley multitude of those things which have disturbed the saints. He who sets at nought his brother simply on the basis of an opinion or idea of any of these, or all of them, judges another man's servant, does not walk charitably, and destroys with his own judgment one for whom Christ died. No honest opinion about cups, classes, colleges, methods, music or the millennium, regardless of how mistaken it may be, is a work of darkness in the context of Paul. We should not use the word of God deceitfully but by manifestation of the truth commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
The works of darkness constituted the perverted practices of pagans and not the varied rationalizations of the called saints. This becomes obvious from any angle of approach to the Ephesian letter. Let us analyze a few of the ways which incontrovertibly prove it.
1. The use of the pronouns "ye" and "them." Certainly the first refers to the addressees and recipients of the letter as opposed to others. The letter was written to "the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus" (1:1). They had believed the gospel and been sealed by the Holy Spirit (1:13). Their faith in the Lord Jesus and love to all of the saints was an occasion of thankfulness upon the part of the apostle (1:15). They had been quickened together with Christ (2:5) and saved by grace (2:8). Thus, the admonition to "be not therefore partakers with them," is not a warning to have no part or lot with others who are under the lordship of Jesus, but with those outside the pale.
2. The contrast between the regenerate and unregenerate state of the Ephesian saints. "For though you were once all darkness, now as Christians you are light" (5:8). They were "in time past Gentiles in the flesh" (2:11). "In time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (2:2). In times past they behaved "in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind" (2:3). Now the apostle testifies they must "henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of the mind" (4:17).
Works of darkness are the deeds of those who abide in darkness. Since there is no fellowship of light and darkness, those who have abandoned paganism with its vice have nothing in common with those who remain in its sordid and degenerate state. They are to have no fellowship with the barren works of darkness.
3. The terms of address employed. The saints are called children of light (5:8), and are told to be imitators of God, as dear children (5:1). Those who abide in darkness are called children of disobedience (5:6) and have no inheritance
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4. The remote context describes the former life of darkness from which they were called, and which must be laid aside completely. There can be no compromise of their present with their past. Read Ephesians 4:17-24.
This then is my word to you, and I urge it upon you in the Lord's name. Give up living like pagans with their good-for-nothing notions. Their wits are beclouded, they are strangers to the life that is in God, because ignorance prevails among them and their minds have gone as hard as stone. Dead to all feeling, they have abandoned themselves to vice, and stop at nothing to satisfy their foul desires. But that is not how you learned Christ. For were you not told of him, were you not as Christians taught the truth as it is in Jesus-- that leaving your former way of life, you must lay aside that old human nature which, deluded by its lusts, is sinking towards death. You must be made new in mind and in spirit, and put on the new nature of God's creating, which shows itself in the just and devout life called for by the truth.
4. The adjacent context describes the works of darkness indulged in by those who lived in the Stygian blackness of the heathen world where depravity drew a sable curtain across the moral planet and plunged it into total eclipse. Whatever else may be said of these works they consisted of such secret perversions practiced under nocturnal concealment that one who was in the light dared not contaminate his lips with the bare mention of them. "For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret."
Although it is impossible for the apostle to give the lurid details of the conduct of those "who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness," he does mention the generic categories of the works of darkness. These are fornication, uncleanness and covetousness (5:3.5). Uncleanness refers to a state of heart which is dissolute, depraved and profligate; covetousness to a state of mind filled with insatiable desire. While all of these seem frightening to contemplate, they become even worse when we recall that this was an expression of religion, the very manner of worshiping the gods.
For this reason, these things were "not to be once named among you, as becometh saints" (5:3). The saints were not to engage in filthy or suggestive conversation, foolish talking or low ribald jesting, about the sex deviates and their vices for this was not befitting or proper for those who had been delivered into the light. Instead, they were to substitute the giving of thanks for the fact that "God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ" (2:4, 5). They must never be deceived with vain words or shallow arguments "for because of these things (the works of darkness) cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience."
The opposite to the "unfruitful works of darkness" (5:11) is the "fruit of the Spirit" (5:9). Just as the former is portrayed in a threefold aspect of fornication, impurity and greed; so the latter demonstrates itself in the threefold virtues of "goodness and righteousness and truth." One product is unfruitful; the other is fruitful for our growth and development.
5. The tenor of God's revelation shows the nature of the darkness and its works. The universe of intelligent beings is divided into two great domains. One is the power of darkness (Col. 1:13); the other the kingdom of light. Over the first, Satan presides as the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air. Allied
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These have not yet reached perfection, but press on, hoping to take hold of that for which Christ once took hold of them. They are reaching out for that which lies ahead. They are pressing toward the goal to win the prize which is God's call to the life above, in Christ Jesus. They all make mistakes, they are all imperfect, and none of them have reached their goal. But the mistakes they make, they make in Christ. They are imperfect in Christ. They are not in the darkness nor of the darkness. "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness" (1 Thess. 5:4).
It is a consideration of all of these factors which makes me realize how tragically many of the brethren err in our day in their application of such passages. Before me as I write are two journals edited by members of the "Churches of Christ." One of these champions the cause of those who make a test of fellowship out of the number of containers used in the distribution of the fruit of the vine in the Lord's Supper. A writer urges the members of the faction, when traveling, not to "attend worship" with a "cups church" as he so quaintly and singularly refers to those who use individual containers. His advice is that it would be better to remain in the solitude of a hotel room on the Lord's Day and read the Bible alone, than to compromise "the truth" and meet with "a disloyal and sectarian group," who have departed from "the pattern." He closes with the stern admonition, "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them." Thus the word of God is invoked to bless the partisan counsel.
The other paper is several years old. A subscriber raises a question to the editor. The reader is perturbed about a situation which occurred during his vacation. Due to difficulty with his automobile he found himself stranded in a certain city in the northern part of the United States on the Lord's Day. Intensive investigation revealed there was no "loyal church" meeting in the area, but there was "a group calling themselves Church of Christ which used the instrument." The brother and wife attended but with some misgivings. They ate of the Lord's Supper when it was passed around. The group was so kind and friendly and exhibited such hospitality that the visitors from the south found it difficult to understand why they could not "see the truth as we do." They expressed the hope that one of "our preachers" might go and "convert them and set them right." But the brother wanted to know if they had sinned in worshiping with them as they did.
The editor advised that they had sinned in going but he did not think they ought to "go forward and acknowledge it" and ask forgiveness back home where the brother was a deacon, as this might upset some of the weaker members. He suggested that it would be satisfactory if they would repent in private and ask God to forgive them "for compromising and endorsing evil by their presence," but he warned them that God might not overlook their error if they did it a second time. His closing remarks were very significant, "We cannot be too careful about our association, because we are distinctly told to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them."
My memory is haunted by these two papers. I cannot eradicate them from mind. Both claim to represent the spirit of the restoration movement yet both are diametrically opposed to it. Both contend they are faithful to Jesus yet the unloving spirit exhibited toward brethren is the very opposite of the attitude of Jesus. Both
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I deny that this modern Babel with its confusion of tongues, which we have built upon the shattered ruin of the restoration movement is pleasing unto God. The revelation from heaven is not responsible for the jumbled mess which has gone into a legalistic labyrinth to discourage the devout and stifle the spirit of the saints. How long will we continue to lift up discordant voices shouting "Lo, here!" or "Lo, there!" How long shall we squat behind our factional barricades and breast-works and bomb our brethren with accusations of "Liberal," "Anti," "Digressive," and "Apostate." Can we convert thinking men and women with such a farrago of chaotic claims? If not, are we willing to settle for only unthinking partisan proselytes who find refuge for their discontent and parochialism in our dogmatism and bitter denunciation of all but our arrogant selves?
Is it not time that we still the seething ferment of sectarianism in our own ranks before we are engulfed. Can we longer afford the luxury of division over a millennial position, or over cups, classes and colleges, when the whole world totters on the brink of destruction? Shall we continue to disown and denounce our brethren, rending ourselves into rival ranks, when it will take all that all of us can supply to survive the dread holocaust which licks out fiery tongues to devour all of us? How long can we indulge the insane tendency to confuse pandemonium with paradise and still survive? Do we not tempt God with our elevation of trifles and our denigration of timeless truths which alone can afford solid ground for eternity?
Let men of integrity in every party among us examine anew every scripture which has been used to foster and foment division. Why should we perpetuate the feuds of our fathers and slash each other with traditional interpretations forged in the heat of passion and hammered out on the anvil of debate? Have we learned nothing in a hundred years except how to gather new fuel to keep flames crackling under a witch's cauldron of steaming hate? Are we to be the only people in the twentieth century who refuse to sit down at the council table to explore avenues leading to oneness?
Let men of courage move back and forth across our fanatical patchwork of party fences, ignoring the threats of their own factional custodians and the challenges of the self-appointed sentinels who guard the sacred portals of rival claims staked out on the kingdom commons. Why should a free man in Christ be told by anyone else where he may attend, to whom he may listen, and how he shall participate in services with his other brethren? Did Jesus die to free us from sin only to place us in durance vile and under slavery to men who will regulate our movements and chain us behind party doors which will swing only in one direction?
Let men of daring arrange conferences with dissenting brethren in every community where all may meet as equals in failure to keep the peace and none may come in the arrogance of self-righteousness to bluster and boast as if they held a special commission from the king to browbeat and deride His other subjects. The sands are fast trickling from the upper glass. We cannot afford to tarry much longer. Too long already we have held ourselves aloof from the other children of our Father. Now is the time to build bridges instead of barriers, to span chasms instead of to plan schisms.
I pledge myself to lend my meager influence to the cause of unity wherever I can serve any of my brethren. Regardless of the party or faction with which they
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(This is the twelfth and last of a series of articles dealing with scriptural passages which have been wrenched from their context, warped into weapons of division, and woven into a web of partisan pretexts. These will now be presented in a 192 page volume printed on English book paper, bound in cloth, and fully indexed, under the title, "The Twisted Scriptures." The volume will be ready for delivery on March 1. Only 2000 copies will be printed and you may reserve as many as you wish at the pre-publication price of $2.49 per copy. After March 1 the price will advance to $2.95 per copy. We urge you to send your order for these at once).