THE WANING AUTHORITY OF CHRIST IN THE CHURCHES

HERE IS THE BURDEN of my heart; and while I claim for myself no special inspiration I yet feel that this is also the burden of the Spirit.

If I know my own heart it is love alone that moves me to write this. What I write here is not the sour ferment of a mind agitated by contentions with my fellow Christians. There have been no such contentions. I have not been abused, mistreated or attacked by anyone. Nor have these observations grown out of any unpleasant experiences that I have had in my association with others. My relations with my own church as well as with Christians of other denominations have been friendly, courteous and pleasant. My grief is simply the result of a condition which I believe to be almost universally prevalent among the churches.

I think also that I should acknowledge that I am myself very much involved in the situation I here deplore. As Ezra in his mighty prayer of intercession included himself among the wrongdoers, so do I. “0 my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.” Any hard word spoken here against others must in simple honesty return upon my own head. I too have been guilty. This is written with the hope that we all may turn unto the Lord our God and sin no more against Him.

Let me state the cause of my burden. It is this: Jesus Christ has today almost no authority at all among the groups that call themselves by His name. By these I mean not the Roman Catholics nor the liberals, nor the various quasi-Christian cults. I do mean Protestant churches generally, and I include those that protest the loudest that they are in spiritual descent from our Lord and His apostles, namely, the evangelicals.

It is a basic doctrine of the New Testament that after His resurrection the Man Jesus was declared by God to be both Lord and Christ, and that He was invested by the Father with absolute Lordship over the church which is His Body. All authority is His in heaven and in earth. In His own proper time He will exert it to the full, but during this period in history He allows this authority to be challenged or ignored. And just now it is being challenged by the world and ignored by the church.

The present position of Christ in the gospel churches may be likened to that of a king in a limited, constitutional monarchy. The king (sometimes depersonalized by the term “the Crown”) is in such a country no more than a traditional rallying point, a pleasant symbol of unity and loyalty much like a flag or a national anthem. He is lauded, feted and supported, but his real authority is small. Nominally he is head over all, but in every crisis someone else makes the decisions. On formal occasions he appears in his royal attire to deliver the tame, colorless speech put into his mouth by the real rulers of the country. The whole thing may be no more than good-natured make-believe, but it is rooted in antiquity, it is a lot of fun and no one wants to give it up.

Among the gospel churches Christ is now in fact little more than a beloved symbol. “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” is the church’s national anthem and the cross is her official flag, but in the week-by-week services of the church and the day-by-day conduct of her members someone else, not Christ, makes the decisions. Under proper circumstances Christ is allowed to say “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden” or “Let not your heart be troubled,” but when the speech is finished someone else takes over. Those in actual authority decide the moral standards of the church, as well as all objectives and all methods employed to achieve them. Because of long and meticulous organization it is now possible for the youngest pastor just out of seminary to have more actual authority in a church than Jesus Christ has.

Not only does Christ have little or no authority; His influence also is becoming less and less. I would not say that He has none, only that it is small and diminishing. A fair parallel would be the influence of Abraham Lincoln over the American people. Honest Abe is still the idol of the country. The likeness of his kind, rugged face, so homely that it is beautiful, appears everywhere. It is easy to grow misty-eyed over him. Children are brought up on stories of his love, his honesty and his humility.

But after we have gotten control over our tender emotions what have we left? No more than a good example which, as it recedes into the past, becomes more and more unreal and exercises less and less real influence. Every scoundrel is ready to wrap Lincoln’s long black coat around him. In the cold light of political facts in the United States the constant appeal to Lincoln by the politicians is a cynical joke.

The Lordship of Jesus is not quite forgotten among Christians, but it has been relegated to the hymnal where all responsibility toward it may be comfortably discharged in a glow of pleasant religious emotion. Or if it is taught as a theory in the classroom it is rarely applied to practical living. The idea that the Man Christ Jesus has absolute and final authority over the whole church and over all of its members in every detail of their lives is simply not now accepted as true by the rank and file of evangelical Christians.

What we do is this: We accept the Christianity of our group as being identical with that of Christ and His apostles. The beliefs, the practices, the ethics, the activities of our group are equated with the Christianity of the New Testament. Whatever the group thinks or says or does is scriptural, no questions asked. It is assumed that all our Lord expects of us is that we busy ourselves with the activities of the group. In so doing we are keeping the commandments of Christ.

To avoid the hard necessity of either obeying or rejecting the plain instructions of our Lord in the New Testament we take refuge in a liberal interpretation of them. Casuistry is not the possession of Roman Catholic theologians alone. We evangelicals also know how to avoid the sharp point of obedience by means of fine and intricate explanations. These are tailor-made for the flesh. They excuse disobedience, comfort carnality and make the words of Christ of none effect. And the essence of it all is that Christ simply could not have meant what He said. His teachings are accepted even theoretically only after they have been weakened by interpretation.

Yet Christ is consulted by increasing numbers of persons with “problems” and sought after by those who long for peace of mind. He is widely recommended as a kind of spiritual psychiatrist with remarkable powers to straighten people out. He is able to deliver them from their guilt complexes and to help them to avoid serious psychic traumas by making a smooth and easy adjustment to society and to their own ids. Of course this strange Christ has no relation whatever to the Christ of the New Testament. The true Christ is also Lord, but this accommodating Christ is little more than the servant of the people.

But I suppose I should offer some concrete proof to support my charge that Christ has little or no authority today among the churches. Well, let me put a few questions and let the answers be the evidence.

What church board consults our Lord’s words to decide matters under discussion? Let anyone reading this who has had experience on a church board try to recall the times or time when any board member read from the Scriptures to make a point, or when any chairman suggested that the brethren should see what instructions the Lord had for them on a particular question. Board meetings are habitually opened with a formal prayer or “a season of prayer”; after that the Head of the Church is respectfully silent while the real rulers take over. Let anyone who denies this bring forth evidence to refute it. I for one will be glad to hear it.

What Sunday school committee goes to the Word for directions? Do not the members invariably assume that they already know what they are supposed to do and that their only problem is to find effective means to get it done? Plans, rules, “operations” and new methodological techniques absorb all their time and attention. The prayer before the meeting is for divine help to carry out their plans. Apparently the idea that the Lord might have some instructions for them never so much as enters their heads.

Who remembers when a conference chairman brought his Bible to the table with him for the purpose of using it? Minutes, regulations, rules of order, yes. The sacred commandments of the Lord, no. An absolute dichotomy exists between the devotional period and the business session. The first has no relation to the second.

What foreign mission board actually seeks to follow the guidance of the Lord as provided by His Word and His Spirit? They all think they do, but what they do in fact is to assume the scripturalness of their ends and then ask for help to find ways to achieve them. They may pray all night for God to give success to their enterprises, but Christ is desired as their helper, not as their Lord. Human means are devised to achieve ends assumed to be divine. These harden into policy, and thereafter the Lord doesn’t even have a vote.

In the conduct of our public worship where is the authority of Christ to be found? The truth is that today the Lord rarely controls a service, and the influence He exerts is very small. We sing of Him and preach about Him, but He must not interfere; we worship our way, and it must be right because we have always done it that way, as have the other churches in our group.

What Christian when faced with a moral problem goes straight to the Sermon on the Mount or other New Testament Scripture for the authoritative answer? Who lets the words of Christ be final on giving, birth control, the bringing up of a family, personal habits, tithing, entertainment, buying, selling and other such important matters?

What theological school, from the lowly Bible institute up, could continue to operate if it were to make Christ Lord of its every policy? There may be some, and I hope there are, but I believe I am right when I say that most such “schools” to stay in business are forced to adopt procedures which find no justification in the Bible they profess to teach. So we have this strange anomaly: the authority of Christ is ignored in order to maintain a school to teach among other things the authority of Christ.

The causes back of the decline in our Lord’s authority are many. I name only two.

One is the power of custom, precedent and tradition within the older religious groups. These like gravitation affect every particle of religious practice within the group, exerting a steady and constant pressure in one direction. Of course that direction is toward conformity to the status quo. Not Christ but custom is lord in this situation. And the same thing has passed over (possibly to a slightly lesser degree) into the other groups such as the full gospel tabernacles, the holiness churches, the pentecostal and fundamental churches and the many independent and undenominational churches found everywhere throughout the North American continent.

The second cause is the revival of intellectualism among the evangelicals. This, if I sense the situation correctly, is not so much a thirst for learning as a desire for a reputation of being learned. Because of it good men who ought to know better are being put in the position of collaborating with the enemy. I’ll explain.

Our evangelical faith (which I believe to be the true faith of Christ and His apostles) is being attacked these days from many different directions. In the Western world the enemy has forsworn violence. He comes against us no more with sword and fagot [a bundle of sticks used as a torch]; he now comes smiling, bearing gifts. He raises his eyes to heaven and swears that he too believes in the faith of our fathers, but his real purpose is to destroy that faith, or at least to modify it to such an extent that it is no longer the supernatural thing it once was. He comes in the name of philosophy or psychology or anthropology, and with sweet reasonableness urges us to rethink our historic position, to be less rigid, more tolerant, more broadly understanding.

He speaks in the sacred jargon of the schools, and many of our half-educated evangelicals run to fawn on him. He tosses academic degrees to the scrambling sons of the prophets as Rockefeller used to toss dimes to the children of the peasants. The evangelicals who, with some justification, have been accused of lacking true scholarship, now grab for these status symbols with shining eyes, and when they get them they are scarcely able to believe their eyes. They walk about in a kind of ecstatic unbelief, much as the soloist of the neighborhood church choir might were she to be invited to sing at La Scala.

For the true Christian the one supreme test for the present soundness and ultimate worth of everything religious must be the place our Lord occupies in it. Is He Lord or symbol? Is He in charge of the project or merely one of the crew? Does He decide things or only help to carry out the plans of others? All religious activities, from the simplest act of an individual Christian to the ponderous and expensive operations of a whole denomination, may be proved by the answer to the question, Is Jesus Christ Lord in this act? Whether our works prove to be wood, hay and stubble or gold and silver and precious stones in that great day will depend upon the right answer to that question.

What, then, are we to do? Each one of us must decide, and there are at least three possible choices. One is to rise up in shocked indignation and accuse me of irresponsible reporting. Another is to nod general agreement with what is written here but take comfort in the fact that there are exceptions and we are among the exceptions. The other is to go down in meek humility and confess that we have grieved the Spirit and dishonored our Lord in failing to give Him the place His Father has given Him as Head and Lord of the Church.

Either the first or the second will but confirm the wrong. The third if carried out to its conclusion can remove the curse. The decision lies with us.

I think if we look around the Christian landscape today, it’s all old wine-skins. Unless we have a radical departure from our modern versions of Christianity and return to the original model, we are destined to be trapped, prisoners of our traditions, each of them chipping away, slowly but surely, until there is nothing of the original recognizable. You don’t get lost by taking a single step, although it takes a single step to begin the process of losing ourselves. Today we are a lost people. Yet the strange thing is, we have a map and the writer of the map with us. Imagine complaining of being lost but refusing to retrace your steps back to where you came from, it would defy logic. It does defy logic.

Will the Lord find faith on the earth? I think it is a key question and vital aspect of our walk with the Lord. Without faith it is impossible to please Him. What is faith in this context? Trust. This kind of faith overcomes fear, it is the opposite of fear. And so when we trust Him, which in most cases translates to obey Him, then we have en encounter with Him and perfect love casts out all fear. The Lord works through His people, He requires their cooperation. When the Lord gave the Israelites the promised land, they were required to “possess,” it. We have so many promises from the Lord which also requires us to possess it. In the simplest equation it is “you do this and I will do that.” One example would be “come unto me and I will.” In this case He will give rest unto our weary souls. Another is “I stand at the door and knock.” Now, when one hears their door knocking in their house, they get up and go answer it, action is required. When the Lord compels us to return to His first love, then it is we, just as the prodigal, that have to get up and return. And when we do, we find a loving Father running to us with wide open arms. The Lord is asking His people to throw of the vestiges of their traditions that make the Word of God have no effect.

Will we have faith to throw off our old wine-skins? We can throw them off now or they will be taken off. When the Israelites had wandered too far from God He brought them back through invasion and captivity by cruel people. There is a great persecution coming for the saints and when it does, the saints of God will not have their traditions to fall back on, only God. Everything else will be swept away. It is better to prepare and be ready than to be taken captive but one way or another the Lord will find faith when He returns.

The most extraordinary thing about the meetings I attended was the extent to which they were absolutely without any human direction or leadership. “We must obey the Spirit,” is the watchword of Evan Roberts, and he is as obedient as the humblest of his followers. The meetings open-after any amount of singing while the congregation is assembling-by the reading of a chapter or a psalm. Then it is go as you please for two hours or more. And the amazing thing is that it does go, and does not entangle in what might seem to be inevitable confusion. Three fourths of the meeting consists of singing. No one uses a hymn book. The last person to control the meeting in any way is Mr Evan Roberts. People pray and sing, give testimony, exhort as the Spirit moves them. As a study of the psychology of crowds, I have seen nothing like it. You feel that the thousand or fifteen hundred persons before you have become merged into one myriad-headed but one single-souled personality. (Journalist from London reporting on what he saw at some of the meetings in the Welsh revival-“The great Welsh Revival pg 69)

Can you see this hard-nosed journalists reaction to being caught up in a meeting where the Holy Spirit is leading and Jesus is preeminent? He talks about the oneness of the crowd, he struggles for words to describe how fifteen hundred people, for hours, can be sharing, without any human leadership at all, yet there is no confusion or disorder, in fact, quite the opposite. He says that people sang and prayed and gave testimonies and exhorted as the Spirit moved them. Now what were the results of this kind of freedom? Several hundred thousand people were saved and it turned Wales upside down. It spread all over the world and in the preceding decades countless millions of souls were saved. Have you ever experienced this kind of freedom? Why do you think that is?

The simplicity of these meetings were astounding. No man was elevated, no worship teams, no technology. In our modern times we now dim the lights, bring on the professional worship team, have dry ice, yeah really, dry ice, and all that to try and create an atmosphere. Yet the presence of God cannot be replicated. Here, one hundred years ago, with no help at all, the Holy Spirit moved in mighty power. The one thing that men had to do was to get out of His way and allow Him to move. Pastors, will you get out of His way and allow Him to move? Might be the scariest thing you ever do. Suspend all of your programs and seek the face of the Living God with prayer and fasting. Humble yourself and repent that your traditions and your position has actually been a stumbling block and an obstacle to the free moving of the Holy Spirit. See if He will not respond.

Only that which flows from an uninterrupted gaze upon Jesus has any real value. Everything else is the shadow of the object. Granted, one can still enjoy the heat from the sun in the shadow, but to stand in the unadulterated presence of God, to enter the impenetrable light, to come behind the veil, this is where our lives are altered and changed forever. People who work in a hospice know that a dying man or woman who eats even the smallest of meals can live for several more days. When people stop eating, then they begin to die. Just one moment in the manifest presence of God edifies the inner man. It feeds him in ways that nothing else can do. It never stops feeding him. Yet, the distractions of this life and ministry can easily draw us away from Him. The cares of this world can choke the life out of any man if he allows it. Just like the flesh, this world demands our attention and it simply will not take no for an answer. It must be put in its place.

And so, if one morsel can keep the human body alive for several days, just imagine what a sumptuous meal would do? Imagine the power and the strength that one would have if they were made to lie down in green pastures and sit beside still waters. Even if that one was walking through the valley of the shadow of death, their souls would still be renewed every day and they would fear no evil. They would be invited to sit down at the Lord‘s banqueting table, even in the presence of their enemies and would have eyes to see the goodness and the mercy of God because his eyes are focused on Jesus. He has invited us to sit down at His banqueting table, to be intoxicated with His manifest presence and when we do His banner over us, His hedge around us, His fire by night and His cloud by day over us is love and power and strength and most importantly, life. His life in us, flowing through us, touching and healing and bringing His life wherever we go.

He stands at the door and knocks. Who among us will repent from having neglected Him and lift our eyes up to see through an open door to heaven? To see Him high and lifted up, to see Him in all of His majesty and glory. To see the train of His robe fill the temple. Can you see it brothers and sisters, it is all about seeing Him, keeping our eyes on Him. How important is it? Just ask Peter in the midst of a great storm as he walked on and above the stormy waters of life. The very second he takes his eyes off Jesus he begins to sink into a morass of this world and all of its demands. You can spend the rest of your life cursing the darkness with your eyes firmly focused on sin, but do not be fooled, you will only ever magnify that which you gaze upon. Gaze continually upon your sin and the sin of this world and begin to die. Gaze upon Jesus and His majesty and His glory and live. Feast upon His presence and soar. The thief came to rob and to steal and to destroy. Jesus came that we might have life and that more abundantly. You abundant life in Him is your witness to the world.

Throughout history, God has continually called out a people, a remnant that will represent His heart and mind in the midst of universal deception and decay. To answer this calling, God’s people have always been asked to leave where they are and travel through an unfamiliar, lonely place – a wilderness – in order to reach the place He has prepared for them.

This happened twice in the history of Israel, and it has happened twice in the history of Christianity. By looking back on how God has called His people out in times past, we can better see and appreciate the significance of the final exodus that is taking place at this time.
Israel’s First Exodus: God Called the Hebrews Out of Egypt

We have already seen that Moses established a “church in the wilderness” by leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and into the Promised Land by way of the desert of Sinai. This exodus is recorded in our Bibles, not just for its historical significance, but for us to learn by: “With most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us…” (1 Cor. 10:5,6). We see how they were tested in the wilderness, and how they failed many of the tests, and failed to enter into the Promised Land because of doubt and fear. We also see how many of them were tempted to go back to Egypt.

All these things are recorded so that we will recognize this tendency in ourselves today and not make the same mistakes they made. So this first exodus establishes the spiritual principle of God calling His people out and is the key that unlocks our understanding of how God goes about the difficult work of calling and setting apart a chosen people for Himself.
Israel’s Second Exodus: God Called the Jews Out of Babylon

Once the nation of Israel was established in the Promised Land, they began a slow and steady moral and spiritual decline, occasionally punctuated with godly kings and periods of repentance and revival. But eventually the wickedness of the nation called for judgment, and this judgment came in the form of Nebuchadnezzar, who conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, killed most of the people, and took the remainder as captives with him to Babylon, where they lived in exile for 70 years.

After that, the Lord once again called them to come out – to leave Babylon, journey back through the wilderness to Jerusalem, and rebuild their Temple and their city. The significant thing about this is that most of the Jews stayed in Babylon. Out of an estimated Jewish population of greater than one million people living in exile, only 42,000 returned. The vast majority preferred the comfortable bondage of Babylon to the uncomfortable, uncertain future of rebuilding their nation. The significance of this is extraordinary. Just as the young nation wanted to return to Egypt, the nation in exile wanted to remain in Babylon.

So we have two exoduses in the history of Israel that provide us with spiritual discernment into what follows after. Let us now turn to the two exoduses in the history of the Ekklesia.

Our First Exodus: God Called the Christians Out of Judaism

A remnant of Jews did return from Babylon. They rebuilt the Temple and inhabited Jerusalem once again. Having paid the terrible price of their idolatry, they resolved to never disobey God again. But in their zeal they went to the opposite extreme of fanaticism. What eventually developed was a religious system and a hypocritical priesthood obsessed with outward appearances and obedience to the letter of the Law while overlooking mercy, grace, righteousness, faith, and love.

Into this atmosphere our Savior was sent, just as Moses was sent to Pharaoh with a mandate to bring God’s people out of bondage and into the Promised Land. And, just as Pharaoh resisted Moses, so the religious leaders resisted Jesus. Undaunted, Jesus promised another “church in the wilderness” that would stand forever, and charged His disciples to take this message to “all nations” and “to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

Even with this clear direction, it would take many years for the truth to sink in: faith in Christ was not compatible with Judaism. Peter struggled with preaching Christ to the Gentiles and was rebuked publicly by Paul. James, based in Jerusalem, tried in vain to make Christianity fit in better with Jewish ideology. But once the Gospel was preached to the Gentiles, it marked the beginning of something new. The Way, as it was then called, was no longer a mere sect within Judaism. The Gentiles heard the message, and thanks to Paul, understood that faith in Christ has nothing to do with obeying the Law of Moses.

Now followers of Jesus were forced to make a decision. Were they going to “come out of Judaism” and be “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a set-apart people” distinct from Judaism, or, would they cling to their Jewish traditions and the teachings of their elders, all of whom rejected Jesus as the Messiah?

The letter to the Hebrews was written to Jews struggling with that very dilemma. After demonstrating conclusively that you cannot enjoy the benefits of the New Covenant while clinging to elements of the Old Covenant, the author concludes:

“We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin, are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through His own blood. Therefore let us go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach He endured” (Heb. 13:10-13).

Once again, when offered a choice between comfortable bondage and uncomfortable freedom, we find many chose to stay “within the camp.” They were known as the Ebionites – Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah but insisted on obedience to the Jewish laws and customs in order to be saved. Of course, they also rejected Paul as a genuine apostle. This group flourished within Jerusalem until it was destroyed by Titus in A.D. 70., after which they established themselves in Pella. They persisted for some time, but by the fourth or fifth century they were no longer in existence.

Our Second Exodus: God Calls the Remnant Out of “Churchianity”

By that time, the followers of Jesus were recognized as something springing out of, but totally different from, Judaism. For about 300 years the followers of Jesus practiced their faith in simplicity and in obedience to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, even when enduring fierce persecution from the Romans and the Jews. Eventually, Rome accepted Christianity and made it their state religion. Masses of “converts” poured in. Pagan temples were converted into “Christian” churches, and more church buildings were constructed. An elaborate hierarchy of bishops was established and a religious system was organized that soon exceeded the Jewish religion, both in numbers of adherents and in material wealth. Christianity became institutionalized into three main sects: Catholicism, Orthodox, and Protestantism. Out of Protestantism, Christianity was further splintered into thousands of denominations.

So we see that Israel’s history has repeated itself in the history of Christianity. Just as God called the Hebrews out of Egypt to form a new nation, so God called the early Christians out of Judaism to form a “new nation” of kings and priests. When Israel rebelled against God and committed idolatry, they were led away to Babylon for judgment. In like manner, when Christendom rebelled against God and created an idolatrous system of worship “in Jesus’ name,” they were also brought to judgment; the chief difference being that God did not send them away – He simply gave them over to their own devices, and they were quite content to proceed under the assumption that God was endorsing and blessing the works of their hands.

This brings us to the present time. Just as God called out a remnant of Jews to leave Babylon and journey to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple, God has in these last days called out a remnant of Christians to leave “Churchianity” and take a journey through the wilderness. What is He bringing them to? Not to a temple made with hands, but to a house of living stones. Not to the Jerusalem that is below, but to the Jerusalem that is above: the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly City, whose builder and maker is God. It is a “Church in the Wilderness” – not a building, but a body of people in transition between the religious system and the spiritual fulfillment of God’s original intention for the Ekklesia.