Conflict with Caesar

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     Christians pass their life on earth, but they are citizens in heaven. They obey the established laws, but they out-do the laws in their own lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are not understood, and are condemned. They are put to death, and yet made alive.--The Epistle to Diognetus (2nd century).

     It still seems almost impossible. And the more I think about it, the more convinced do I become that its very success is proof that behind it all there was a divine power shaping its destiny. Of course I have never really doubted that, but I am merely saying that the proof of it lies within the fact itself.

     In Jerusalem, for example, the community was formed of Jews with their traditional prejudices and animosities. There were Hebrews and Hellenists, Pharisees and proselytes, and they brought with them their disputes and speculations, as well as their virtues and vices.

     In Corinth there were some in the number who were formerly adulterers, homosexual perverts, thieves, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers. Some of them still stood in awe of idols and some resorted to heathen courts in legal action against their own brethren.

     In Thessalonica they were drawn from the ranks of the lazy, shiftless loungers who hung out on the market square. They were adept at the art of subsisting on food scrounged from others.

     In Ephesus they had been pagans with beclouded wits and hardened hearts, living in ignorance so dense that they wandered in a world of intellectual darkness.

     And yet, in spite of all this, they were brought into a state of fellowship so powerful that it was described as one body. They composed an army that became unconquerable, a kingdom that was invincible, a stream that overflowed its banks and drove its waters all over the world. And they did this in the face of opposition so fierce that we can only imagine its intensity. They were bounded by political pawns, harassed by priests and hated by philosophers. They were misunderstood, lied about and falsely accused. Wherever they went they were forced to answer ridiculous charges stemming from falsehoods of such wild nature as to be revolting and disgusting.

     Perhaps the first charge ever hurled at them was that they were atheists, and enemies of the human race. The Christians denounced idolatry, refused to attend the festivals and celebrations in the pagan temples, and would not even purchase meat in the markets which had been devoted to the gods. To deny the pantheon of idols was to bring down upon one's head the charge of being an atheist. Justin Martyr, who was killed for the faith about A. D. 165, wrote:

     "Thus we are called atheists. And we

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admit that in respect of such supposed gods we are atheists: but not in regard to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and moderation and the other virtues, the God who is without a trace of evil. Him we worship and adore, and His Son, who came from him and taught us of these things, and the host of the other good angels who attend on God and are of god-like nature, and the Spirit of prophecy. These we worship with reason and truth."

     It was also alleged that the Christians constituted a cult devoted to clandestine practice of unspeakable immoralities. Several factors gave rise to this accusation. In the community of saints the women enjoyed greater freedom than in many other areas. They sat down together with the men at the same table for the "love feasts," an expression which was given a suggestive meaning by the pagans.

     Too, many of the meetings were held before daybreak or after sunset. This was made necessary by virtue of the fact that many Christians were slaves and were forced to spend all of the daylight hours toiling in the fields. However, their detractors circulated the report that the darkness was used as a cover for indulgence in riotous orgies.

     One of the widely circulated calumnies was to the effect that the Christians were cannibals, and that in their feast they ate human flesh and drank a libation of human blood. This is an indication of how statements with reference to the Lord's Supper were twisted and wrested by the enemies of righteousness. In order to show the problems faced by the community of believers in confrontation with the world of its day, let us consider the following from A History of the Christian Church, by the eminent Dr. Charles Hase.

     "Against Christianity was urged; its foreign and barbarous origin, to which all that was national must give way, all that was true or good in Christianity belonged still more anciently to philosophy, so that the only novelty which it possessed was a most repulsive outward form, its sacred scriptures were of doubtful origin, and had frequently been altered; Jesus was said to have been the offspring of adultery, instructed by magicians in Egypt, and surrounded only by wretched fishermen and abandoned publicans, to have died in the expression of unmanly sorrows, and finally to have given no proof of his resurrection except what was derived from his own followers. Against Christians it was urged: that they had deified a public malefactor; that they demanded a blind faith; that they invited to their society those who were sinners and criminals, while in the heathen mysteries, none were initiated but those who were pure in heart; that the various Christian sects were intolerant towards each other; that they were remarkably unfortunate; and finally, that if they were not secret criminals, they shunned publicity, and were enemies to the eternal city of Rome."

     How did the community of saints become a force which could not be ignored? They had no structures or edifices to which they could invite the populace. They had no scriptures of their own, no "new testaments" to distribute. They were without newspapers, tracts or other literature. They possessed no printing presses or duplicating devices. There were no loudspeaking systems, no radio or television sets.

     They could not communicate with one another at a distance except by courier. Their overland journeys were made slow and laborious by foot travel. Their journeys to other lands depended upon the vagaries of maritime breezes. And they were always in peril, on land and sea. How can we account for the spread of the Way? What can we learn from these primitive believers which might enable us once again to recapture the vitality and virility of their lives. We cannot possibly go behind the curtain which time has drawn and reveal all of the factors, but we would like to suggest a few items of interest for the fellowship of the concerned ones. We do this very humbly in the hope that we may be helpful to those who read.

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     It was their complete and unreserved surrender to Jesus, their uninhibited pledge of allegiance unto him, which made them holy. The word "holy" simply means "different." Their difference was manifest and noticeable in speech, behavior and action.

     They never thought of Jesus as coming to start a new religion, but to give life. And they seldom engaged in the comparison of "their religion" with "other religions." They did not propagate a better religion as opposed to an inferior one; they simply proclaimed life as opposed to death.

     Since Jesus was the life, all life grew out of and was related to Jesus. One loved his wife as Jesus loved the church (Ephesians 5:25); slaves loved their earthly masters as slaves of Christ (Ephesians 6:6); all forgave each other as God in Christ forgave them. Life was measured by Christ. He was both the center and the circumference of existence. The saints reacted in every situation as he would have reacted. Thus they were never lonely, for they had no sense of aloneness. They walked in the light of his promise never to leave them or forsake them.

     (2) Every saint was a soldier, a runner, a fighter in the arena. There was no need to form a "Christian Athlete's Association." The entire community created by Jesus was just that. Every member was salt, every one was light, every one was a living stone.

     No one thought of paying another to fight for him, or of hiring someone else to be a light for him. No one sat in the bleachers or grandstand to watch a performance. The Way was not a dramatization to be presented for critical spectators by an actor, for the Way was not a play at all. It was for real! And those who were in it grew tired and sweaty and bloody. And some of them died for it!

     There was no missionary society because no one could have attended its meetings. They were all too busy fulfilling their mission to take time out to talk about it. There was no discussion about means or methods, plans or programs. Wherever one who was "in" met one who was "without" he encountered him with faith and love. "As for those who had been scattered, they went through the country telling the Good News." Here is the way Edwyn Bevan puts it in his book Hellenism and Christianity:

     "The track of Paul shines curiously in the mists of primitive Christianity, but it was for the most part by persons whose names were soon forgotten in this world-- undistinguished evangelists, or itinerant traders, or slaves-- that the Good News was carried from city to city, 'till the whole world was leavened.'"

     This host of the nameless ones, styled by the poet Vachel Lindsay, "an endless line of splendor," outlived, outloved and outdied the enemies of the cross. They penetrated every avenue of a rotten, corrupt and decaying society, and it was purged and purified by their passing. They were made courageous by the hope of his coming. And they loved not their lives unto death.

     (3) Their message was not a recital of decrees or a repetition of dogma. It was not the imposition of a systematic theology, for their theology was not documentary but personal. Jesus was the Word of God, the theos logos, the theology of God.

     One cannot confine life and love to a book, not even a divinely authorized one. He can write about life or love, but he cannot capture either in an ink bottle or within a leather cover. The saints of old never thought of a Bible saving the world. A lost world needs a Savior. Those who are sick need a physician.

     They did not confuse the physician with his prescription, the captain with his commands, the Father with his chas-

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tening rod, or the friend with his letters. To them, Christianity was not Jesus pointing them to a book, but a book pointing them to Jesus. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

     Grace was God stooping down, bending low, to become like man; truth is the lifting up of man to be like God. Neither is something to merely read about; both are what life itself is all about. Grace and truth can never be kept in wineskins that are either old or new. They elude every attempt to capture them; they overflow every container created to confine them.

     So the early disciples did not seek to become great lawyers like the scribes, but great lovers like the Christ. The Word was not a repository of texts to be searched, scrapped and scrutinized to build a case with which to belabor an opponent. There was no attempt to formulate doctrines of the faith. Not once did they ever use the word in the plural to signify that which was revealed from heaven.

     They knew nothing about developing "a theology of the Spirit," or "a theology of the nature of God," so they refused to wrangle or dispute about the bones of contention which have been dug up to be strung together to form the skeletons in our sectarian closets.

     (4) They knew the value and power of the fellowship created by the Spirit and found comfort and strength in an association composed of those who rejoiced at the great salvation wrought in their behalf. There was no question but what something had happened to them, all of them, something so breathtaking that it is still a thrill to read about it.

     They described what they had been when allied with God's rebel subjects in these words, "We too were of their number: we all lived our lives in sensuality, and obeyed the promptings of our own instincts and notions. In our natural condition we, like the rest, lay under the dreadful judgment of God."

     The very next sentence throbs with hope. "But God, rich in mercy, for the great love he bore us, brought us to life with Christ even when we were dead in our sins; it is by his grace you are saved." Mercy, love, life, grace, salvation--they shared in them all, and their union was one of life-given and life-giving experience.

     They were participants of a supernatural condition. Creation is always a miracle, and the new creation is no exception. In the natural condition they were under dreadful judgment, but there is no condemnation to those who are united with Christ Jesus, because in Christ Jesus the life-giving law of the Spirit has set you free from the law of sin and death!

     They were a fellowship of the free, a company of the committed, and a community of the consecrated. They belonged together simply because together they belonged to him. They were one body and thus were of one heart and of one soul. As members of a common body they functioned in unison, prayed in unison, and performed in unison. And the cold, cruel, callous pagan world said in tones filled with awe, "Behold how these love one another."

     The soldiers of the Lamb are a minority group as they were intended to be. It must be made apparent that the power to overcome is of God and not of men. But if we are enlisted under him we are the forces of ultimate victory. True, these forces are misunderstood, falsely accused and even maligned. This is but a part of their discipline. "It gives you a share in Christ's sufferings, and that is cause for joy; and when his glory is revealed, your joy will be triumphant." We should regard insult and innuendo like the soldier does an obstacle course. It is part of the training.

     There are some changes we must make if we are to recapture the power to triumph. "It is time for judgment to begin and it must begin with God's own household." I should like to suggest a few steps necessary to recapture the dynamic. These are musts; not mights or maybes.

     (1) We must cease to equate our sectarian structures and their supporting organizational machinery with the one body filled with and impelled by the Holy Spirit. The one body is composed of individuals joined to Jesus as their head, and every person on earth who has pledged allegiance unto him and been born into the realm of the new humanity is in the one body. They are joined together in him precisely because they are in him and for no other reason. They constitute a divine organism because of the ties of the Spirit and not because of organizational ties devised as party bonds.

     (2) We must cease to judge the loyalty of men to the King by their attitude toward secondary matters in the kingdom. Just as citizens of the United States of America may honestly differ over the tariff, public aid to private educational institutions, and the draft law, and still be loyal citizens, so those in the kingdom of heaven may hold varied views about many things without being traitors to Christ. No honest opinion about instrumental music, the millennium, cups, classes or colleges, makes one an apostate. One may be right or wrong about any such matters without forfeiting his family relationship. Those who make tests of fellowship out of such issues do far more harm to God's purpose than these things themselves do.

     (3) We must stop trying to deceive and hoodwink men by false claims or weasel words. For example, such signs as "The Church of Christ--God's Ecumenical Movement," when taken in the sense meant by those who erect them, project an image that is patently false. They represent a brazen attempt to capitalize on current ecumenical concerns, but in reality they mean simply that a specific group of a particular branch of the noninstrumental segment of a nineteenth century restoration movement contains all of the people of God, and that these are ecumenically minded. That is just not true as those on the inside know all too well.

     (4) We must start "leveling" with our generation. Men frequently engage in a great deal of double-talk, leaving the impression that they are more open and receptive to all of God's children, but when the chips are down they are just as narrow and intolerant as they always were. Journals which are edited as partisan mouthpieces often conceal in clever phraseology their factional bias, but it is there just the same. When they talk of unity they have only one idea in mind and that is complete surrender to their opinions and unwritten creeds. We need to "tell it as it is."

     (5) We must begin practicing congregational autonomy in honest fashion. To profess to believe in such autonomy and then exclude those congregations which do not line up with the party program is rank hypocrisy. If congregational autonomy extends only to those who conform to us in every particular under penalty of exclusion, it is neither congregational nor autonomous. The right to self-government entails the right of choice, and unless one has the possibility of being mistaken, he has no choice. Any congregation that does not recognize another congregation of saints simply because they believe in instrumental music or the pre-

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millennial coming of our Lord, does not believe in congregational autonomy, and it is sailing under false colors when it pretends that it does.

     (6) We must find a way to implement in meaningful fashion "the priesthood of all believers." Our vocabulary related to ministry must become scriptural. As it is, we pay lipservice to a divine ideal while we practice a human substitute. The world is no longer ignorant. It can tell when we support a clerical caste even while we condemn the division between clergy and laity. Every man and woman in Christ must be a minister, every one must become a priest of God. And we must create opportunities for them to function effectively.

     (7) We must cease to think of what is done in our religious edifices as a service. Our service is not held on Sunday morning, but may be rendered on Monday morning. Service is not carrying out a ritual, but meeting a genuine need. It is entering into the life situation with others in a sharing experience, because God shared with us by entering into our life situation. It is the Word being made our flesh to dwell among men to participate in their sufferings, and thus in his agony.

     (8) We must stop dividing life into sacred and secular compartments. In the Christian life nothing which God has made is secular. Unless everything is sacred and spiritual, nothing is. Jesus abolished the artificial lines which men had drawn to separate life into neat little properly-labeled pigeon-holes. What I do in my own home, or in an office or shop, is as important to God as what I do in a temple or synagogue. God is not worshiped in temples made with hands. For instance, it is not partaking of the Lord's Supper which makes my life acceptable unto God, but it is my life which makes partaking of the Lord's Supper acceptable unto God.

     (9) We must cease talking about holy days, holy places and holy liturgy. Life itself, when consecrated to God, is the only sacred liturgy. Christianity has no special sacred places or sacred days. The human heart is God's only sanctuary. Those who talk about dedicating a building to God have fallen victims to what Elton Trueblood calls "the heresy of brick and mortar." God cannot be captured in the traps we build. He cannot be confined in the boxes we construct. It is silly to see a community with thirty edifices all "dedicated to the one God," whose members have nothing to do with one another, and who have piled up brick and stone in an endeavor to commandeer God so they may be the sole dispensers of divine grace.

     10) We must revive the message of vibrant hope and proclaim anew to a tired, jaded, weary and forlorn world, the resurrection. This is the way out of all that is distressing and the way into every eternal blessing. Men cannot be kept from suicide by well-arranged arguments on doctrinal distinctions. That which has no power to produce life should not be used to promote death.

     Our gospel is not null and void whether the coming of Jesus is premillennial or postmillennial; our faith is not in vain whether Bible classes prove to be right or wrong. No one who is mistaken about one cup or individual cups will turn out to be a lying witness for God. But, "if there be no resurrection, then Christ was not raised, then our gospel is null and void, and so is your faith; and we turn out to be lying witnesses for God, because we bore witness that he raised Christ to life."

     Jesus was not raised from the dead to preside over either a class faction or an anti-class faction; nor was he raised to form a one-cup party or a multiple-cups party. Christ was raised to life and for life. He was raised to give life, and "it it is only for this life that Christ has given us hope, we of all men are most to be pitied." How long shall we continue to major in minors, persist in pettifogging, and fool with the frivolous, while the world goes to hell all around us? Has our course of action saved mankind? Have we populated heaven by propagating division?

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     Which is greater--the power of selfish lust or the power of unselfish love? We are met on a great battlefield testing for our generation which of them is supreme. The course we take will affect generations yet unborn, as our own conflict is influenced by those long since dead. One thing is certain, the issue is so tremendous that we cannot afford to maintain those systems, methods and structures which will place the outcome in doubt.

     Let us free ourselves from every hindering encumbrance, and rid ourselves of every weight that restrains us. Let us fight the good fight of faith regardless of consequences. Abraham Lincoln said, "The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of the cause we believe to be just." And Lincoln also said, "The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise high with the occasion."