CHAPTER IX
THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE
What about the church of the future? Is the modern sect system the ultimate goal of Christian attainment in this world? While the sects contain much truth and many of the people of God, their ecclesiastical constitutions are foreign to the true church of Jesus Christ, and it is inconceivable that the great Founder would make no provision either in his Word or in his plan for the correction of the evils which have grown up around the Christian system during the dark ages of the world and which have in a great measure perverted the gospel itself and lessened its wholesome efficiency as the universal remedy for human ills.
Since no sect can make good a claim to being exclusively the church of God, a general feeling of toleration at least (if not in all cases of sincere respect) has come to prevail respecting the different denominational churches. Men have come to look upon the sects as a mere matter of fact, not to be seriously questioned, and we are supposed to cover the whole scene with the mantle of patience and charity and make the best of a bad situation.
The Protestant truce
Dr. J.M. Sturtevant has expressed this general attitude so well that I shall quote his own words: "It has long been true in this country that no Protestant can freely expose the errors and superstitions of the papal church, especially from the pulpit, without incurring the charge of intolerance, bigotry, and uncharitableness. Religious controversy itself has been placed under the ban, as in its own nature uncharitable. When once any religious opinion has organized itself into a sect, it is thought to have acquired a sacredness which, in the name of Christian charity and in the interest of the tranquility of the community, defends it from any open assault. We have come into the condition in which Rome was when she had extended her conquests from the British Isles to the Euphrates and had transferred to Rome the divinities of all the countries conquered. People of every nationality might worship their own divinities, but must respectfully tolerate the worship of every other. In this way only could religious conflict be avoided. The chief reason why Christianity was persecuted was that from its very nature it could accept no such truce. It is either a universal religion or no religion at all. It is, like all other systems which claim to be the true, in its own nature exclusive."
It is because of its universal character that truth can accept no such truce as has been declared by the modern sects. Truth is exclusive, and hence can make no compromises. The church of God is universal or it is no church at all. The whole truth concerning the church question must and will come out. The times demand it; the people of God demand it; the Spirit of God demands it; and, as we shall show, the Scriptures declare it.
A new awakening
It is very evident that the people of God are not satisfied with the present sectarian situation. Everywhere there is manifested a restlessness and uneasiness respecting the arbitrary lines of sect which separate between those who have a recognized spiritual affinity—recognized except formally by the ecclesiastical powers that be. The Christian consciousness is becoming awakened. Men are coming to see that Christianity is to be measured, not by sect lines, but by that broader, Scriptural rule of the divine family embracing all true disciples of Jesus—those who possess his life and bear the appropriate fruits of righteousness. This awakening, with its logical consequences, is what I have termed THE LAST REFORMATION. It will give form and character to the Church of the Future.
Apologies for sects
Sectarianism still has its defenders, however. In the midst of the rising tide of spiritual fellowship and love, there are those who bring forward a few sickly apologies for sects, apologies which generally impress the earnest student of the Scriptures with the thought that the apologist has a hard case to make out. The excuse most commonly advanced is that the sect system is a useful arrangement for accommodating the variety of tastes and feelings found among Christian people. It is assumed that some are natural-born Episcopalians, with an innate fondness for formal liturgies and ecclesiastical vestments, and that others are so constituted by nature as to require certain other particular forms of worship.
Diversity of taste and culture
If there is any such fundamental demand in human nature for a variety of sects, as different climates are required to suit different orders of life on our planet, it is strange indeed that the apostles overlooked such an important point and failed to provide for it. Why was not the primitive church constructed so as to bring into existence at once a variety of human sects to accommodate the different classes of people then existing? From the modern point of view they had an excellent excuse for starting with at least two churches—one for the Jews and another for the Gentiles; and if these had not been sufficient, before the end of their personal ministry they could have brought into existence a whole brood of sects.
Now, the student of the Scriptures knows that the apostles proceeded exactly in the opposite direction. They labored earnestly to bring all classes into love and fellowship in one body. This course was not in accordance with the wisdom of the world, but the twentieth century is beginning to see that it was "the wisdom of God."
The reason why men have a liking for formal liturgies, stately ceremonies, and ecclesiastical vestments is because of environment. They have been trained that way. Here again we see the natural tendency of sects to make sectarians and thus reproduce their kind. When particular forms and ceremonies, which are not required by Scripture, are enforced upon men by a self-constituted, self-perpetuating ecclesiastical authority, the inevitable result is to stamp the same principles upon succeeding generations and thus perpetuate the sect system exercising such authority.
The sect spirit
In a final effort to lessen the odium attaching to what is now widely recognized as an evil, some assert that the cause of mischief is the sect spirit. This statement contains truth, but it does not tell the whole truth. One of the worst evils of human slavery was the extreme tyranny which some slave-masters exercised. But the real fact was that the system itself tended to convert good men and women into tyrants. The special manifestation of evil was both effect and cause. It was the natural tendency of the system to make tyrants, and tyrants perpetuated the system. So also with sectarianism. Though all can realize a theoretical difference between the sect spirit and simple denominationalism, yet the very tendency of the system itself is to create party interests and to introduce party rivalries, which naturally foster the sect spirit. Without that devotion to party and party interests—a devotion almost equal to their devotion to the gospel itself—sects would perish. If sect-members should become so universal in their love and sympathy as to devote themselves to the work of Christ alone—forgetting party interests—sects would die. The sect spirit is, therefore, essential to the maintenance of the life and individuality of the sect body.
What is the remedy?
The remedy for sectarianism is not a return to imperialism. The world-church idea as exemplified in the papal church is not the goal of Christianity. Such might hold dominion over men in the barbaric ages of the world, but its universal sway has ceased. The Inquisition will never be reestablished. The unity of the church is not to be found in an imperial hierarchy.
Nor is Christian unity to be obtained by adherence to the historic creeds. These documents may express many noble sentiments respecting Christ and his truth, and they may express the fullest knowledge of the truth known in the days when they were written. But knowledge of the truth is progressive, while creeds are stationary. No human document, therefore, can serve as a permanent basis upon which to build our faith. And then, too, we have seen that creeds are in their very nature divisive. Hence they can not be made the basis for the realization of unity.
Nor is the unity of the church to be found in some particular form of exclusive church polity, as Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism, or Congregationalism. We have conclusively proved that that conception of the church patterned after the forms of political government, in which government and authority are vested inherently and exclusively in human hands, is foreign to the original conception of the church as it existed in the minds of its Founder and his apostles. The government of the New Testament church is a theocracy. Christ is head. He rules through his Holy Spirit by moral suasion and spiritual influence, and the ministers and helpers whom he calls and qualifies share in that oversight and responsibility to the same extent that they are able to wield the same moral and spiritual power. This is the only church authority and government recognized in the New Testament.
The perpetual theocracy
Here I shall digress long enough to point out by way of contrast the true form of divine government. Every one is familiar with the theocratic government of Israel under the Old Testament dispensation. God ruled. He who carefully reads the New Testament can not fail to discern the same type of government in the church before the rise of human ecclesiasticism. The first preachers of the gospel spoke with an authority not derived from a human source. When Peter and John were threatened before the Council and commanded not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus Christ, they gave the sublime answer: "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we can not but speak the things which we have seen and heard" (Acts 4: 19, 20). The same principle stands out in bold relief in the experience of Paul. Although that great apostle was forward to cooperate with other apostles and ministers of Christ, one can not fail to see that his whole career exemplified the principle of theocracy. He "was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."
An important parallelism
Permit me to call attention particularly to an important parallelism between the government of Israel under the theocracy and the government of the New Testament church before the rise of ecclesiasticism. God led his people out of Egypt by Moses and Joshua. These men are a type of Christ, who leads his people. After the Israelites were settled in Canaan, they had no central government, but each locality or city was autonomous, having its local judges or elders. In a time of crisis God raised up a judge to lead the people in the necessary cooperative efforts to preserve or regain their liberties. Their miseries Were always the result of their own sins, not a failure of the divine form of government. Their appointing a king and thus setting up a centralized human government was called rejecting God as ruler. And this is exactly parallel with what ecclesiasticism has done and is doing with the same results. God's government of the church is set aside and rejected.
Not church federation
Nor will an organic union of all the sects solve the problem of unity. In the first place, the tendency of such a union is toward imperialism, the creation on the federation plan of another world-church. In the second place, such a federation would strengthen rather than lessen the authority of human rule, while the compromises necessary to make such a project possible would lessen in the same degree that freedom of the Spirit by which alone the full gospel can be given to the world. And in the third place, such a federation would not be the church of God, for the very framework on which it would rest, human ecclesiasticism, is foreign to the original conception of the church. It would be only a human arrangement patterned after the model of a world-empire. And for another reason such would not be the church. The divine ekklesia includes in its membership the whole family of God. Thousands of men and women who are united to Christ and in fellowship with all the saved are not members of the formally organized sects. Therefore the union of all such churches in one federation would not include the whole family.
Back to the Bible standard
Thus, the remedy for sects is not church federation, nor a return to the historic creeds, nor the adoption of one of the exclusive forms of church polity; neither is it an attempt to hide the sin of the obnoxious sect system by covering it with a mantle of charity and patience—as a sort of necessary evil. What, then, is the real remedy for sects? It is the absolute rejection of every foreign element that has crept into the Christian system and the return to that primitive conception of the church as made up of the entire brotherhood of Christ, organized and controlled by the Holy Spirit. For true unity we must turn from hierarchies and apostolical successions and priestly corporations and church synods and human creeds to THE CHRIST who alone is the head of the church.
True membership
Such a movement requires a moral revolution with respect to the attitude of God's people toward membership in sects. It requires the obliteration of sect lines and the recognition of no other bond of union than that of a common brotherhood through union with Christ. Divine life secured through repentance and faith is the sole condition of membership in the church of Christ, and this relationship is maintained by obedience to the commands of Christ and consistent Christian conduct. "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).
Elimination of ecclesiasticism
Such a movement and such a standard of church relationship require the elimination of all ideas of priestly ecclesiasticism. The Christ of the New Testament church is not an absent Christ. He has never resigned his position as head of the church and vested the governmental authority in a self-perpetuating clerical caste. His government is theocratic. He administers it himself through his Holy Spirit. Hence no men or set of men can confer any power or authority whatsoever upon any individual to act for Christ. Christ calls his own assistants, and any man unto whom the Word of the Lord comes is divinely authorized to proclaim His message. The only sphere of human operation respecting this administration of divine government is simple recognition of what God has done, and this recognition in the last analysis belongs to the whole body of God's people. The basis of every man's authority and responsibility is, therefore, not human appointment or official position, but the divine call, gifts, and qualifications, that he possesses. If, for example, he is called to apostolic work and endowed with gifts and qualifications fitting him for such service, he has apostolic authority and responsibility, and there is nothing for other ministers or Christians to do but to recognize what God has done. "Now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him" (1 Cor. 12:18). Such, in short, is the divine organization and government.
What of the future?
The realization of this grand ideal of the restoration of the New Testament standard of church membership, government, and authority, is impossible within the sect system. For the sects to turn all the people of God loose from subjection to every foreign yoke and make them free to associate without restriction with all the saved of God, would be an act of suicide. Only by division and by holding the grasp of ecclesiastical rule can sects survive. But he is blind to the signs of the times who can not see that the grip of ecclesiasticism is slipping and the bonds of true catholicity becoming strengthened. The true people of God are becoming more and more dissatisfied with present conditions and are beginning to think in terms of a universal Christianity. The rising tide of evangelism among such is already beginning to overflow the lines of sect. What may we expect in the future?
Things can not continue as they have been in the ecclesiastical world. A sweeping reformation is imperative and imminent. In fact, the vanguard of this great movement is already visible. What will the future bring forth? Will the sects themselves fade away and gradually become dissolved? or will the powers that rule in the ecclesiastical world finally set themselves against the spirit of catholicity and thus practically force the true people of God to ignore absolutely all sectarian lines and step out on the broad platform of truth and universality, united in Christ alone, knowing no head but Christ and no creed but His truth? Who can tell?
A fundamental difference
In the present work I have given a brief historical sketch of the leading ecclesiastical events, showing the apostasy as it existed under two phases, the corruption of evangelical faith and the reign of ecclesiasticism. I have also shown that the reformations of Protestantism have tended to the correction of that first phase pertaining to doctrine, but that a complete reformation requires the elimination of ecclesiasticism. Hence what I have termed the Last Reformation, if it is to be the last, not only must include the restoration of pure doctrinal truth but must also restore the real church of the New Testament. So far as true doctrine is concerned, such a reformation will differ from other evangelical movements in degree only—it must ultimately comprehend the whole truth. But the fundamental difference between the reformation herein considered and all other preceding reformations is that it strikes the death-blow to the very root of error that produced the sect system—human ecclesiasticism—and substitutes therefor the administrative authority of the Holy Spirit working in varying degrees in all the members of Christ throughout the world. The last reformation therefore must differ from all others, not in degree only, but also in kind.
The witness of prophecy
God alone understands the future. During the ages past he has not left his own work without the witness of prophecy. We may rest assured, therefore, that in the prophecy of the divine Word he has given us an outline of the history of his church. So I shall ask the reader to patiently follow me through a brief sketch of ecclesiastical events as described in the prophecies of the Revelation. Such an examination will throw a large amount of additional light on the subjects I have already treated historically, and will also give us a divinely drawn picture of the church of the future. Such will enable us to understand better the real character and extent of THE LAST REFORMATION.