The Restoration Principle

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     A little child was playing with a fragile china doll. Suddenly the toy fell to the concrete floor and shattered into a hundred pieces. Its owner was convulsed with grief. The mother, seeking for some means of consoling the child, placed her arms around the shaking little shoulders and said, "There, there, don't cry. We'll put the pieces back together again and it will be just like it was before." But the child cried out, "No, no, it will never be like it was before."

     "Everything has changed!" These were the words of Albert Einstein upon hearing of the first atomic test. They were prophetic. The age of nuclear fission and fusion is also one of indecision and contusion. Men who live under the threat of the mushroom cloud are a different breed than their predecessors. This is as true in the field of religion as in any other area of existence.

     Ours is an era when the values of the past are downgraded, discounted and discarded. God is declared to be dead by decree and that which belongs to the faith of the past is obsolete, outworn and passe. In such a time one who pleads for recapture of a previous position or for an ancient order of things is regarded with an amused smile of forced tolerance such as is generally adopted for the hopelessly senile.

     I happen to be an heir of a restoration movement, an attempt to progress in the Christian walk by returning to the beginning. It was not the only such movement. There have been many of them and all of them admittedly came to the same inglorious end, bogged down in a welter of division, their later adherents fighting each other with no common foe to cause them to rally together around the same standard. Because of this unexceptional experience, many of philosophic bent have opposed the restoration principle as being inherently divisive and invariably destructive of every semblance of unity.

     It is with full recognition of this that I offer this apology for that principle. I propose to define and outline it, to analyze and describe it, and to tell why I believe it is a valid approach leading to a solution of the very schism it has been alleged to help promote.

     Jesus has never been a head without a body, a king without a subject, a shepherd without a sheep, a vine without a branch, or a captain without a soldier, since his coronation and ascension. Res-

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toration does not mean raising the dead.

     Restoration does not mean the reproduction in our day of any congregation alluded to or addressed in the new covenant scriptures. It does not mean the revival of the Jerusalem congregation with its legalism and race prejudice; or the Corinthian church with its division and carnality, or the Ephesian church with its first love abandoned.

     Indeed there may never have been a model congregation at all save as it existed in the ideal of God.

     Nor does restoration mean the renewal and duplication in our day of the customs and conventions, the fashions and vogues of a long-departed generation. It is not the re-establishment of the mores and cultures of another part of the world in an ancient day. It is not the reaching forth from a theological sepulcher of a skeletal hand with vise-like fingers in which to hold men in a stereotyped establishment. Then what is restoration in the sense in which we use it?

     A short time ago the curator of a large museum of art decided to restore a work of one of the old masters. The painting was turned over to specialists who carefully and methodically removed the accretions and grime of generations until the picture appeared once more in its pristine and undimmed beauty. The message of heaven has become obscured by an accumulation of philosophic opinion, metaphysical speculation and theological interpretation. These are confusing, distorting and blurring. We propose to strip them away and let the simple communication of God speak to us "without benefit (or distraction) of clergy."

     In Saint Louis the drinking water is taken from the Mississippi River. At its inception this stream is clear and cool. Its waters are pure and invigorating. But on its rolling advance through the states it picks up filth and sediment until by the time it reaches our city it is a chocolate-colored body laden with foreign matter. Huge pumps take the water from the channel and direct it into filtration plants. Here it is restored to its original purity. Thus it is with the water of life as I conceive of restoration.

     We are wholly sympathetic to "the call for renewal" as voiced by our religious neighbors in ecumenical circles. We congratulate and commend them for their recognition that our present state is abnormal and for their concern which prompts them to want to do something tangible to remedy it. What they have said and written has affected a great many of us who would not like to credit them for an impact upon our thinking, but they have dragged and pulled some of us into the twentieth century quite against our wills.

     However, we would speak one word of caution. The very word "renew" implies a backward look, a peering into the past to see what the thing was like when it was new. Unless one knows what a thing was like originally he can never know whether he has renewed it or not. He might create something new, but this is not renewal at all. Renewal requires a return to a previous state but this is the very thing many who call for renewal condemn us for wanting to do.

     It is our conviction that renewal can only come by recapture of that which gave existence to the structure originally. We like the word "recovery" and in the case of the church renewal comes through recovery of the apostolic proclamation, purpose and power. The first gives decision, the second direction and the third dynamic. Without the first there would be no start, without the second there would be no objective, without the last

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there would be no power to carry through to the goal. Confidence, continuation and consummation--these are the three elements of any successful movement.

     If we believe this is a "post-Christian era" we will be little concerned with renewal for we will not consider that there is anything vital which needs to be renewed or recaptured. But if we believe that Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God and will continue to sit there until the last enemy is destroyed, we will recognize that the Christian economy must exist throughout the Christocracy, that is, until he turns the kingdom back to the Father. I believe this.

     I also believe that before Jesus retired to the position he now occupies he called, qualified and commissioned certain men to act as his ambassadors. This leads me to the following elemental statements.

     1. The apostles occupy a unique place in the program of Christ as ambassadors.
     2. The apostolic message occupies a unique place as the message of the ambassadors to the citizens of the kingdom.
     3. That message relayed to the one body from the head must be accepted as authoritative by that same body so long as it exists as that body.

     The apostles were not ordinary ministers, but ministers plenipotentiary, empowered fully to dictate the terms of the King and enforce them as necessary. Since they were representatives of a supernatural regime their credentials were of a supernatural nature. These are called the signs, or marks, of apostleship. "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you in all patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works" (2 Corinthians 12:12).

     The very ministry of reconciliation for an alien world was entrusted to them. God made his appeal through them. They spoke in behalf of Christ, or in his stead. "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation...and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:19,20).

     Although popular sermonizers apply this to every Christian we deny that the word implies it. The context carefully weighed demonstrates our contention that we are not ambassadors. We are not empowered by the Sovereign to dictate terms of a treaty with aliens nor to establish a constitution for the citizenry. We are not proclaimers, but re-proclaimers. In the very nature of the divine arrangement we are made to be dependent upon apostolic testimony. If we must revert to that testimony for knowledge of the source of life why should we balk at accepting it as the sustenance of that life?

     The message was authoritative. It was commissioned upon all authority being granted to Jesus (Matthew 28:18). It was proclaimed with authority. "He who receives anyone whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him

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that sent me" (John 13:20). The apostles acted under direct authority from the Lord. "I write this while away from you in order that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority which the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down" (2 Cor. 13:10). Can any person doubt that the apostolic writing was intended to serve as authoritative instruction and discipline during the personal absence of the envoys? Will it not apply now under the same conditions?

     We are asked why, if apostles are so necessary, we do not have them today? We reply that we do have them. We have the same apostles and prophets that the church has always had. The church still has the same foundation exactly as it still has the same cornerstone. The apostles did not abdicate their office. They had no successors for the simple reason that they needed none. They fulfilled their function. It was their role to receive and give to the church and the world the divine revelation intended for each. It is the revelation, not the men, that is important.

     They gave the gospel, the good news, to the world, and it requires no addition to save any man in the twentieth century. It is God's dynamic to save all who believe it.

     They gave the apostles' doctrine to believers, and those who continue stedfastly in it will grow in grace and knowledge of the truth.

     That the apostolic authority was not to cease with the death of the men is proven by the following considerations.

     1. Jesus promised them, "I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28:20). The age was the gospel dispensation which they were to inaugurate by their proclamation.

     2. Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say unto you, in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28).

     3. When Babylon the great was pronounced fallen, the apostles and prophets, as distinct from other saints, were given judgment or vindication against the city (Revelation 18:20).

     4. The identity of the apostles will be maintained until the coming down out of heaven from God of the holy city Jerusalem, and their names will be inscribed in the twelve foundations.

     It is impossible to achieve renewal in the Christian frame of reference without recourse to the power and content of the gospel message. All spiritual energy must be sparked by plugging into the word which is God's dynamo to save. There never was a reformation of any consequence started on any other basis, nor will there ever be.

     Renewal does not mean the restoration of any congregation of bygone days, not even the first one at Jerusalem. It means the recapture of the importance and relevance of the message from heaven

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and a seeking to know its meaning. There is every evidence that the community of saints at Jerusalem was produced by whom they knew, rather than by what, or how much, they knew. We are in the same position since we also are caught up in the human predicament.

     Our hope of heaven is not at all dependent upon being free of error, but upon having a correct attitude toward truth. It is not contingent upon knowing truth perfectly, but rather upon knowing Him who is perfect Truth. We will not reach heaven, because of a way of life but because we have the life of the Way. Our task, then, is not to restore dead congregations to life, but to be restored to the Living Word so that we may have life. The congregations had their day and departed. The Word of God endureth forever. It outlasts heaven and earth. It also outlasts the congregations upon the earth.

     "Our concept of our mission, our plea as a people, is such that many will cry, If restoration goes, must not everything go?'...Yet I am convinced that the principle is no longer tenable in any meaningful form to those who take seriously the findings of modern biblical and theological scholarship; I believe the principle to be not only untenable but pernicious, a stumblingbiock to sincere Disciples on the pathway to the renewal of the church and the recovery of its unity in Christ."

     What are the objections to renewal through recovery of the apostolicity set forth, as we believe, in the new covenant scriptures? It is argued first that this is going backward contrary to all laws of growth in any organism. This would come with greater force if those who offered it acted with some consistency. Some, for instance, in the field of polity, are preparing to adopt the episcopate, or diocesan bishopric, in order to secure union. They are willing to go back to where the church departed but not willing to go back to where it started. With them, the sin is not in going back. Rather it is in going back to the ambassadors of Christ.

     What is wrong in going back to the source of power? If a line is short-circuited you cannot just go on from there and ignore it. You must retrace your steps until you locate the impediment between your present position and the dynamo. And when you find the stumblingbiock you should not adopt it as the normal condition but act to remove it.

     Again it is argued that the restoration approach quenches the Spirit in our day and keeps Him from being on-going in revelation. A brother has written:

     "We would want to point out that the church is more than 'passing on historical revelation'; indeed, it is that plus the continued revelation of God in the midst of our own time. For, we cannot but believe that the Holy Spirit is still working and that this is the manifestation of God in our modern times."

     We also believe that the Holy Spirit is still working and active but we do not believe that he is revealing the will of God as he did to and through the apostles and prophets. Our brethren overlook the fact that the admonition to not quench the Spirit was given to those to whom the revelation was addressed and not to those to whom it was directly given.

     The Spirit produces unity which we must maintain, but those who profess to be recipients of modern revelations, have so many different and varied views that they add to the confusion rather than to the peace of the one body. Since God is not the author of confusion, we must conclude that these diverse views and ideas are not the fruit of the Spirit. It is easy for one to convince himself that what he desires is what the Spirit wants

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him to have, and he may confuse the spirit of his will for the will of the Spirit.

     The apostolic message provides a consistent, uniform and regulated approach to the problem of unity, and we must never forget that he who prayed that we might be one was talking only of those "who believe in me through their (the apostles') word." We should at least allow him to define and describe those whose unity he desires.

     Every person who responds in God's own way to God's own gospel is made a member of the one body, and is thus united to all others on earth who make the response. These will be varied in degree of knowledge, temperament, disposition, social status and race. Still they will be one--not in these things but in Christ.

     That which is not a condition of unity at its creation can never be made a condition of unity in its continuation. This means simply that as there was diversity in arrival at unity there must always be unity in diversity. But that diversity must not be in relation to the person or identity of Jesus for it is in this fact that our unity becomes reality.

     Then what is to be the relationship and responsibility of those in Christ toward the apostolic doctrine or teaching as revealed in the epistolary writings? Every person who submits his will wholly unto Christ thereby submits himself wholly to the will of Christ. This involves three things: an attitude of respect for the apostolic word; an intention to ascertain the meaning and implication of that word for one's own life, and the implementation of that word in one's own life and conduct.

     All of this must be done in perfect liberty without any compulsion except that created by the lordship of Jesus. This liberty must be the prerogative of all of the saints which means that error must be allowed to remain self-correcting under the three rules of involvement. The members may share their divergent views of doctrine but may not sever themselves from one another over them, for this would violate the will of Christ as regards schisms and schismatics, or factionalists. They may correct but cannot coerce; they may discuss but not disrupt the relationships. Differences must always be grounds for discussion but never for division.

     Brotherhood must be maintained in love. This is the prime consideration of the restoration principle, for if all else is restored and we lack this, we are still nothing. Regardless of what gifts we may hope to recover this remains the more excellent way. It follows then that we should concentrate our immediate effort upon the recapture of the spirit of mutual love which transcends honest differences in understanding. This tends to place all else in proper perspective. It is in this spirit I offer the following.

     1. Each congregation is free under God to order its own affairs and conduct under the lordship of Jesus, and is not amenable to the direction or discipline of any other community, or combination or coalition of communities.

     2. The offices of the community are functions and not honorary or titular positions. They simply fill needs growing out of the nature of the community, and those ordained for them are selected by the community in which they serve. This

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provides a bulwark against a developing ecclesiasticism, a constant threat!

     3. The greatest function is to be one of several bishops in a local community and it is a flagrant corruption of this function to create one bishop over several communities.

     4. The Lord's Supper is the public exhibition of fellowship in the one body and the table should be set for every baptized believer whose moral conduct does not render him unworthy of Christian association, in spite of divergencies of opinion or degrees of knowledge.

     5. The several communities may refer to themselves by any term. of designation used in the sacred scriptures, but may not bind this term upon any other congregation, nor exalt it to the position of a sectarian title.

     6. Congregations of saints may cooperate together in such projects as they mutually agree upon, but may not require or demand that other congregations enter into such cooperative endeavors, and should not create such structures as will inhibit or destroy their own autonomy. Communities of saints which combine their resources to carry on a certain work cannot censure such communities as choose to abstain, nor can these latter censure those who enter. Each congregation, as each member, must stand or fall to its own master.

     7. Love, as the crown of all virtues, must govern in all areas of spiritual life, and love for the brotherhood must include every brother on earth. Love for those who constitute a party or sect, with discrimination shown against the great body of other believers, is a burlesque upon the Way, and constitutes hypocrisy and Pharisaism of the most damnable kind. It is specifically said of those who show partiality among those brethren who enter the assembly of saints that they "are inconsistent and judge by false standards" (James 2:4). "But if you show snobbery, you are committing a sin and stand convicted by that law (the sovereign law of love) as transgressors" (James 2:9).

     In closing we simply say that we believe that renewal can only come through recovery of the apostolic proclamation, purpose and power. We are committed to laboring for renewal on that basis, and to this end we humbly beg an interest in your prayers.