Apply the teachings of Romans 12 to the State,
and you will wreck the State;
or apply Romans 13 to the church,
and you will wreck the church.
Introduction
Charles F Reitzel, like CI Scofield, was a 19th century dispensationalist. However, unlike most dispensationalists who were militaristic patriots supporting participation in carnal wars, both of these men were nonresistant Christians.
Both Scofield and Reitzel had the courage to proclaim to the public that the New Testament church must be nonresistant rather than militaristic.
They believed that the Gospel Age of the church should not use the carnal methods of the Old Testament Israel. Indeed, by scriptural logic, which earthly nation of the world today could have the nerve to claim the right to use the commandments of God that pertained to the theocracy of the Old Testament times? Which earthly nation today is the inheritor of Old Testament Israel, with a divinely-raised-up ruler descended from King David? Which maintains a Levitical and Aaronic priesthood, offering the Old Testament sacrifices in an Old Testament temple built according to the pattern given in the Bible?
Because no earthly nation today can make the claim to be God’s Chosen Nation, except the church, no nation can claim God’s unconditional blessing as it wages “holy wars” and smites its enemies as the enemies of God.
Both Reitzel and Scofield denounced in their times the church’s participation in social reform movements which aimed at “regenerating” unregenerate society by voting, congressional legislation, temperance societies, law courts, police actions, and army campaigns. Just as Scofield and Reitzel challenged Christians in their day not to participate in social reform movements, which distracted the church from its primary calling to preach the Gospel, so must we also.
The churches of today must take a stand against participation in the political and legal maneuvers of the Pro-Life movement which includes a wide range of activities, from those who promote legislation against abortion, to the extremists who would even bomb abortion clinics. Other social reform movements we ought to shun today include the civil rights marches, the political pacifists who make common cause with the non-violence doctrine of Gandhi, and similar movements of reform using methods that are contrary to nonresistance. Let the church be the church!
– William McGrath, 1987
Author’s Note
This is not a popular subject, and no one realizes the fact more keenly than the writer does. He has suffered in more ways than one because of his convictions on these things. But we are not writing to please men, but rather that we may please Him who died for us and rose again.
Major Whittle and PP Bliss, while engaged in evangelistic work, started for a new field of labor on a bitterly cold night. As they passed from the station house towards the railroad train, they reached a gate before which a man stood, who said to the hurrying passengers, “Show your tickets.” Of course the demand was annoying to many that were compelled to unloose their heavy wrappings, and to withdraw their hands from comfortable gloves; and expressions of discontent and of anger were loud and frequent. When the two evangelists were going through the gate, the Major remarked pleasantly to the keeper, “You are not a very popular man with this crowd tonight.”
“I don’t care a cent for this crowd,” was the surly reply; “I just want to be popular with one man.”
“Ah, my brother,” said Mr Bliss, on entering the train, “that is a lesson for you and me. If we can please God, it doesn’t matter much whether we are popular with men or not.”
That is exactly the feeling of the writer.
– Charles Reitzel, c. 1900
Church and State
Distinctions Sadly Overlooked
The question of church and State, or the right of a Christian to take part in politics or hold office under the government has been the subject of much discussion and many misunderstandings, due to two errors, namely:
- A failure to distinguish a difference between this present dispensation of grace and the Old Testament age that went before it.
- 2. A failure to distinguish a difference between the promises God made to Israel and those which He has made to the church.
Correct these two errors and you will have the true philosophy of the distinction between church and State. Your position would answer satisfactorily every why and wherefore of the subject. As Mr. Scofield has well said:
Whoever carefully considers Old Testament prophecies must be struck by two contrasting, and seemingly contradictory lines of prediction concerning the coming Messiah. One body of prediction speaks of Him as coming in weakness and humiliation, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, a root out of dry ground, having no form nor comeliness nor beauty that He should be desired. His visage is to be marred. His hands and feet pierced. He is to be forsaken of man and of God, and to make His grave with the wicked. See: Isa. 53 entire; Isa. 7:14; Ps. 22:1-18; Dan. 9:26; Zech. 13:6,7; Mark 14:27.
The other line of prophecy foretells a splendid and resistless sovereign, purging the earth with awful judgments (gathering all men and all nations to the throne of His great day of fierce wrath and woe) and introducing a reign of eternal peace and perfect righteousness. See, as examples: Isa. 11:1,2,10-12; Deut. 30:1-7; Isa. 9:6,7; Isa. 24:21-23; Isa. 40:9-11: Jer. 23:5-8, Dan. 7:13,14. Micah 5:2; Matt. 1:1; Matt. 2:2; Luke 1:31-33; II Peter 3:13,14.
That the first line of prophecy, relating to the humiliation of Jesus, has been fulfilled there can be no doubt. But what of the second line of prophecy, those prophetic utterances promising eternal power for David’s son, the Messiah? We need only to go to the Word for our answer. “Simeon hath declared haw God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written, after this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down, and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; That the residue of man might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called saith the LORD, who doeth all these things” (Acts 15:14-17). The part of this quotation describes exactly what God is doing in this present dispensation or age. He is now taking out of the Gentiles a people for His name. This must be manifestly clear to even the ordinary observer. Not all are being saved but everywhere we see the taking out of some. Now what is to follow this period and work of out-taking? “After this I will return.” And what is to follow Christ’s return? The fulfillment of the second line of prophecy, the establishing of Christ’s throne and His reign of righteousness. And, mark you, it will be the “LORD, who doeth all these things.” The church concludes that she ought to do these things now, when the Lord himself intends to do them at a later date – after he returns.
The Church Appropriates Israel’s Promises
Take the promises given to the church and place them side by side with the promises that have been given to Israel and see how sharply the one stands in contrast with the other. Israel was promised earthly inheritance, earthly power, earthly wealth and earthly honor. The church is promised no such thing, but rather persecution if faithful to her absent Lord, and a great inheritance and reward hereafter. This being true, and it is true, now see what the church is doing. She is attempting to take the promises made to Israel, promises which can only find their fulfillment after Jesus returns to reign in righteousness, and these she is endeavoring to appropriate over into the church period. Every candid Bible student must, and will admit this. The efforts of the church to improve the world are founded solely and entirely on Israelite promises. Whenever the church goes out on a political campaign the motions which she inscribes upon her banners to justify her course are invariably promises that were given to Israel and Israel alone. The church has no such promises and no such commission. The church is called to be a body of “strangers and pilgrims” (Heb. in 16, I. Peter 2:11). “Strangers” do not take part in the government of a country, only natives do. Nor do “pilgrims.” A pilgrim is a man passing through one country on his way to another. An Englishman passing through the United States has nothing to do with the politics and policies of the American government. His citizenship is elsewhere. The believer’s citizenship is in heaven. He is called to walk in the path of holy separation from all worldly entanglements, commissioned with the definite mission of carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth. But from this mission, alas! The church has turned away, and she has undertaken the impossible task of establishing the kingdom in the absence of the King. She is trying to do in this age of grace what the Lord himself purposes doing in the new heavens and the new earth.
The clear and unmistakable prophetic forecast for this age is that evil men “shall wax worse and worse” (ll. Tim. 3:13). This being true, the efforts of the reformer resemble very much an attempt to prove prophecy to be untrue. If prophecy is true, then the efforts of the reformer to improve the word are doomed to failure. If the efforts of church reform are right, then the lie is on prophecy. And the strange feature about it is that the prophecy concerning evil men “waxing worse and worse” is being fulfilled by virtue of the efforts of the church to make the word better. Nothing is more conducive of the world’s rapid degeneration than the lost power of the church due to her union with the world. I could wish that the church of today were as clear on dispensational truth as what the devil is. The devils said to Jesus on one occasion, “Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?” (Matt. 8:29). The devil knew that his destruction, as well as that of his works, belonged to a later period of time. The church does not seem to have learned this yet. She is trying to do what God has left for another age.
Incidental Results Mistaken For True Mission
The writer will admit that the preaching of the gospel produces many conditions such as are aimed at by the church in her political-reform movements, but these conditions are only the incidental results attending the publication of the gospel. But these incidentals must never be made the aim and mission of the church. Suppose that a farmer in poor health finds that the work on the farm is conducive in the improvement of his health. He is elated over his discovery, so much so that health-seeking becomes uppermost in his mind, and he forgets almost entirely that the aim of his efforts is crop raising. It is not long until he is led by his new ambition to introduce health-giving exercises as part of his daily routine duties, and finally he establishes a gymnasium and thus neglects the work of crop raising entirely. The result is, the weeds choke his crops, and the sheriff gets his farm and the buzzards his stock. Is that not a picture of the church? The church discovered that the preaching of the gospel produced reformation. Then she mingled the idea of reformation with the work of regeneration. And now many of our churches are only bureaus of political and social reform, while soul saving, the chief mission of the church is lost sight of entirely. Dr. Scofield well says on the point:
That the preaching of the gospel produces everywhere many of the kingdom conditions is blessedly true Where the gospel and an open Bible go, the humanities and ameliorations which are to have their full fruition in the kingdom age spring up . . . These are gracious and beautiful results in which we may legitimately rejoice. They are vindications of the truth of our blessed faith But what we need to guard ourselves against is the notion – now, alas! All but universally prevalent – that these results are the chiel object and end of our mission that we are sent into the world to civilize it. No, my hearers, these are incidentals. It appears that the sick in Jerusalem were healed when the shadow of Peter fell upon them as he walked the streets, but Peter, my friends, was not walking the streets for the purpose of casting that beneficent shadow he was going and coming in the work of his apostleship. Suppose that he had turned aside to this business of shadow making? Who doubts that very speedily the shadow would have lost its power?
This now, is what we mean by the prophecy concerning evil men “waxing worse and worse” being fulfilled by reason of the efforts of the church to make the world better. We have lost our power through our work of shadow making. The field of the world is growing up in tares because we have been spending our time on health-giving exercises
“If Christian men do not take up the work of reform, who will?” is the lame excuse made by many Christians for donning the cloak of the reformer. Let me put that question in a different form. If the Christian take up the work of reform, who will bear the work of the church? What will become of the millions dying without Christ? A bishop was once reminded by one of his parishioners of an act unbecoming the dignity of his office, to which the bishop replied: “I did that as s man, and not as a bishop.” “Well,” continued his accuser, “if the devil gets the man, what will become of the bishop?” Our opponents say that they engage in reform work as citizens and not as Christians. That does not make the case any better. If the nation gets the citizen, what will become of the Christian? If the State gets the believer, what will become of the church? And if the church is once absorbed in civil affairs what will become of the poor sinner? Is politics more important than soul saving? Do the needs of our civil institutions send up a cry of deeper pathos than the anguish and remorse of lost men? Surely not.
They are eddying by millions, brother,
All over the world's wide land,
In Africa, India and China
While in cold indifference you stand.
Dying while you are speaking, brother,
Of party evils today;
Dying, yes, while you vote and cater
To what the great reformers say.
A Groundless Anxiety
We have been accosted over and over again by our opponents with the questions, “What would become of the world if every Christian man was like you?” Let me answer this question by relating a conversation that took place between Mr. John K. Landis, of Norristown, and Judge Swartz. Mr. Landis in faith is a Mennonite, I believe. He wanted to be excused from jury service at civil court because his religion forbade him entering into litigation or serving on a jury. “What would we do if all were like you?” asked Judge Swartz. “If all were like me,” responded Mr. Landis, “there would be no necessity for either courts or juries.” The Judge excused him. Our opponents fear very much that the government will go to the dogs if the church does not step in and support it. Let me ease the minds of all such by telling them that there is no cause for alarm so long as the church keeps in her appointed path of separation. God’s order of things, when obeyed, can but work out the most beneficial results. In the days of Elijah there was a famine in Israel. Ahab the king sought to lay the cause of the trouble at the feet of the prophet Elijah, saying, “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” Elijah quickly replied, “I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord.” The leaders in these church-reform movements lay the responsibility for the widespread religious dearth at the door of the church, saying, “You are the cause of all this trouble. If every Christian man would go to the polls and do his duty, these evils would be put away in almost less time than it takes to tell it.” No, these evils would not be put away. Matters would be made worse instead of better. The cause of Israel’s famine is the cause of the present bad state of affairs. The men who are confining their efforts to the gospel alone are not the ones that are troubling Israel. It is that part of the church that has forsaken Calvary, the place of power, and has resorted to the arm of flesh, that is the cause of all the trouble; they have forsaken the commandment of the Lord, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.” As Dr. Jefferson says: “Do you not think that the name of God would be more glorious in the hearts of men today, and the kingdom of heaven would have wider limits on the earth, if all who have been ordained to preach the Gospel had only been willing to confine themselves to the one task assigned them?”
A Voice Of Warning From History
My reader possibly has not yet learned the lesson of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, whose power, like a great earthquake, shook the very throne of the papal pontiff. And how was it accomplished? Simply by man turning from the arm of flesh to the arm of God. When Luther was urged to appeal to the State for aid in the furtherance of the Reformation, he quickly replied, “There is no sword that can further this cause; God alone must do everything.”
It was with the Word they fought, by the Word they overthrew and destroyed what had been set up by violence. Christians then fought, not with swords and muskets but with suffering and with the cross. “Christ their Captain handled not the sword; He hung on the tree.” “The Reformation,” says D’Aubigne, the great historian of that great movement, “was accomplished in the name of a spiritual principle. It had proclaimed for its teacher, the Word of God, for salvation, faith; for king, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost; and had by these very means rejected all worldly elements. Rome has been established by the law of a carnal commandment; the Reformation ‘by the power of an endless life’ (Heb. 7:16).”
The writer is not speculating. He is simply stating a few blazing facts of history. It is not my personal opinion when I say that the gospel of the reformers had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the world and politics. It is history. It is a well-known fact that the Reformation exercised no other influences over princes and people than that which proceeded from the gospel of peace. In reference to the Reformation every Christian must, and will admit the following three things:
- There was such an apostasy in those days.
- It was caused by friendship with the world and reliance on human power.
- The Reformation resulted from reliance alone on the power of God.
In the face, then, of these three facts, I ask, why does not the church cry out against this modern reunion with the world? The only answer is that to do so would cost the friendship of a world loving, compromising church. “Say ye not. A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isa. 8:11,12).
The Artist Makes A Hard Hit
Our artist in depicting the “Modern Church” is not very far out of the way. Is it not true of the church of today that she has cast aside “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,” and has taken the weapon of the law with which she is attempting to achieve her victories and defeat her enemies? Read the temperance-reform journals of the present day and see how precious few are the Bible quotations used in support of the position taken. I have scanned again and again the “Keystone Citizen,” the official organ of the Anti-Saloon League of Pennsylvania, and not a single gospel quotation could I find. On the other hand its columns are fairly groaning with reports of efforts being made to throw off the drink evil by the enactments of laws. And the Anti-Saloon League is said to be the “Church in Action Against the Saloon.” Now if it be true that the Anti-Saloon League is the “Church in Action Against the Saloon,” then surely the Church has cast aside the sword of the Spirit for the weapon of the law. We have not a word to say against the Anti-Saloon League as a citizens’ movement, but for the church to pursue such a course is to prostitute her high calling and degrade her God-given mission.
God’s Warning To Israel
The Lord strictly cautioned his ancient people against trusting in the arm of flesh (Isa. 31:1,3). When they trusted in the power of man they met with defeat (ll Chron. 16:7). When
they trusted alone in God no power was able to stand against them (II Chron. 16:8). Zerah the Ethiopian went out against them with a force of over one million, Asa, king of Judah, met them with a force about one-half as great. In his plight Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, “Help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go out against this multitude” (II Chron. 14:11). Asa gloriously triumphed. The Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah. But God’s people were not always victorious. At times it was victory; at times defeat. And this alternate success and failure of God’s people of old is tersely told in the words of Hanani, the prophet to Asa, king of Judah. The words are as follows: “Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of their hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because thou didst rely on the Lord. He delivered them into thine hand” (I Chron. 16:7,8). Mr. Spurgeon once said: “I should be afraid to borrow help from government; it would look to me as if I rested on an arm of flesh, instead of depending on the living God.”
The Church Facing A Crisis
Without doubt a crisis has been reached in the life and history of the church. What answer shall the church return to those who are trying to seduce her from her allegiance to the Lord to a confederacy with the world? Say to them: “Sanctify the Lord himself, and let HIM be your fear.”
Jesus said: “Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49). He did not say: “Tarry ye in the halls of legislation, until ye be endued with power from the State.” Jesus said: “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you” (Acts 1:8). He did not say “Ye shall receive power after ye have gained control of legislation.” Jesus said: “Without Me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). He did not say: “Without the power of the State ye can do nothing.”
Touching the church and the source of her power, Dr. A. J. Gordon once said: “With no power except the irresistible might of weakness; with no wealth except the riches of glory inherited through her heavenly citizenship: refusing all compromise with the world, declining all patronage of kings and emperors, she nevertheless went forth conquering and to conquer, till in a few years she had undermined the whole colossal fabric of paganism. And might not the church of Christ do the same today if she wore to return to the primitive ideal? and if, renouncing her dependence on human resources (wealth and power and social prestige) she were to inscribe upon her banner that ancient motto: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.”
In the light of modern efforts, does not the conduct of Paul in his desire to preach the old gospel to wicked Rome appear rather singular? Such a course nowadays would appear rather fossilized. Why didn’t Paul, as the modern church is doing, cast the gospel aside as antiquated? Why didn’t he petition old Rome for the enactment of rigid prohibitory laws for the suppression of vice and crime? He had something better; he had the gospel. To Paul there was nothing better or more powerful than the gospel. To him it was the dynamite of God. To him the power of Rome in the presence of the gospel was as the pygmy in the presence of the lion.
Potency Of Gospel Confirmed By Experience
Once there was a famous clergyman named Dr. Chalmers, who lived at Kilmany and preached the law with all the force and eloquence with which he was endowed. And after several years of such preaching he gave his people a farewell address and said, “I never heard of any reformation being effected among you in this way. I am not sensible that all the vehemence with which I urge the virtues and proprieties of social life had the weight of a feather on the moral life of my parishioners.” A little later, however, he was truly converted and began telling his people that God had sent His Son to die for the world because of His love for them. And, strange as it must sound to you, there followed a revival upon the new message such as the years of the old had failed to produce.
New Reading Of The Parable Of The Unjust Judge
The parable of the unjust judge in Like 18 is generally used to teach importunity in prayer. We have serious doubts whether Jesus ever intended such a thing. The lesson of the parable to us is not how much persistency or importunity we should use in prayer, but rather the place or court to which we should present our petitions. The woman appealed to an unjust judge. It was a long, hard struggle before she got the petition she desired. The Lord, it would seem, attempted by this parable to teach us to make our petitions to Him. The way to the answer or a petition by the throne of God is much nearer and easier than by the way of the court of some unjust judge or corrupt legislature. In this parable, the difficulties of a woman in gaining a point at the court of an unjust judge are contrasted with the ease with which God’s elect gain their point at the court of heaven. The structure of the phraseology throughout would fix this as the whole burden of the very parable. When Jesus had related the parable, he says, as by way of application or interpretation: “Hear what the unjust judge saith.” As much as to say: “My little children, isn’t the course of the poor widow a hard way to get an answer to a petition? Let me show you a better way. Make your petitions to my Father, for shall He not avenge His own elect which cry day and night unto Him? tell you that He will avenge them speedily.” My reader is aware, I presume, that in Bible terminology the church is quite frequently represented as a woman. Now let the woman of this parable stand for the church and what a striking picture it is of the church of today. Oh the petitions upon petitions the church is sending to Congress and the State legislatures to be avenged of the adversaries of strong drink and the Mormon plague. And what a dreadfully hard and disappointing road it is to the end sought. And all the while these petitions are flooding these courts of unjust judges it seems to me that I can almost see my Lord in some lonely, isolated spot with pierced feet and outstretched bleeding hands crying to His people. “My dear children, hear what these unjust judges and corrupt legislatures are saying. See how determined they are to keep you from the answer to your petitions. Why go to them? Will not God avenge His own elect? Why not go to Him? tell you, He will avenge you speedily.” We go to the courts of the world powers and beg them to open their doors to our missionaries. There is a better and nearer way to get this accomplished. “Ask of ME, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” (Ps. 2:8).
During the Armenian massacres, someone interrupted Mr. Moody in one of his services, saying: “Mr. Moody, I want to ask permission to present a petition, and to ask the people to sign it. The petition is to be sent to the President of the United States, asking him to take some action which may stop this dreadful slaughter of innocent people.” The man who made the request was of considerable prominence, and many a leader would have yielded to his entreaty, but Mr. Moody was always true to his convictions, and said: “My friend, I have a better plan than yours. I always believe in approaching any difficulty by the way of the throne of God. Will someone lead us in prayer?” There was no petition presented, and everybody was satisfied that Mr. Moody had the better way.
Christians Poor Politicians
At any rate, the Christian makes a very poor politician at best. His tactics are suited only for a spiritual warfare against spiritual enemies. He wrestles “not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). Hence the weapons of his warfare are not carnal, but spiritual, and mighty through God. What are they? Girdle of truth, “breastplate of righteousness,” sandals of the “gospel of peace,” “shield of faith,” “helmet of salvation,” and the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” And this is the WHOLE armor of God. A poorly adapted equipment indeed for a political fight.
Relation Of Power And Authority Defined
The Christian in politics is shorn of his power. The reason is clear: he is without authority there. Authority gives power. This was the secret of power in the ministry of Jesus, for “He spake as one having AUTHORITY.” For instance, take the officer of the law. He is clothed with authority to suppress crime and to arrest and bring to justice transgressors of the law. In this work he is a power, for back of him are the forces of the State that gave him his commission, and back of the State is God himself who delegated to the State its right, “for he (the State) is the MINISTER OF GOD, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Rom. 13:4). “The powers that be are ORDAINED OF GOD” (Rom. 13:1). But suppose that this same officer of the law undertakes to do Christian work under the authority of the commission he received from the State. Suppose that one day he enters a pulpit and very dogmatically commands every sinner present at the service to repent and believe the gospel. Suppose further that he undertakes to discipline some unruly church members, and gives as his authority for doing all these things his commission received from the State. How many sinners would heed his orders to repent, and how many unruly church members would submit to discipline from his hand? Not any. His commission as an officer of the law does not include Christian duties. He would be a weak minister of the gospel indeed if he had no other authority for preaching Jesus than that which his commission from the State would give him. He would likely fare as badly as those seven Jews, who, without authority, attempted to cast out an evil spirit in the name of Jesus. The evil spirit only mocked their efforts, saying: “Jesus I know, and Paul know, but who are ye” (Acts 19:15)? Besides, the “man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.” Power to cast out devils necessitated authority. Where the authority was wanting, the power was lacking.
It is so with the Christian; he has power only where he has authority. He has no authority for dabbling into politics, and this fact accounts for his weakness there. His commission as member of the body of Christ does not include civil duties. Let Christian men form themselves into a Law and Order society; let them attempt to arrest and bring to justice the transgressor of the law, and what is the result? In nine cases out of every ten they are worsted by it. The evil spirit of lawlessness questions their authority and laughs at their efforts, saying: “The magistrate I know, the judge know, and the sheriff I know, but who are ye?” The evil spirit often leaps upon these political Christians and they come from the conflict wounded in prestige and stripped of their power as an evangelizing force. Not a few ministers have related to me their sad experiences in these matters. The humiliation to which they have been subjected has not only been unfortunate but very frequently pitiable in the extreme. And it is needless for them to cry to the Lord for help in such predicaments. If they did, it seems to me the answer would be something like this: “Do the work I have commissioned you to do and I will be with you. I have all power in heaven and in earth for those who preach the gospel: go therefore and preach the gospel and I will be with you even unto the end of the world.”
The True Mission Of The Christian
The publication of the gospel is the Christian man’s only mission and work. Let the Christian man do the work he is authorized to do under his commission and he will have power. Let him take the gospel of Jesus, which is the power of God unto salvation, as his weapon, and no man will dare to question his authority. With this he can go into the foulest dens of vice or before the most brutal and dangerous criminal, and say: “I am commissioned by high heaven to tell you that you are lost.” If he is told to “get out,” he answers: “I will not get out. The Lord has sent me to tell you that you are lost and on the road to hell, and that Jesus Christ died to save you.” If he is told “I don’t care to hear you,” he answers: “But you must hear me. If you do not hear me now you will hear me at the judgment of the great white throne, where I will be a swift witness against you for your rejection of Christ this day.” If his life is threatened it gives him no fears. He bravely replies: “Spill my blood if you will; I am ready to suffer with my Lord, for I expect some day to reign with Him. But remember that what is done to one of the least of His He regards as done to Himself.” And there he stands with the unflinching boldness of a Peter on Pentecost, and no violent hand can be laid upon him with impunity. He need not fear. Back of him is his commission, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.” Back of his commission is Jesus who gave him his commission, and back of Jesus is “all power of heaven and earth.” All the spiritual resources of the skies are at the command of the man who goes forth in Christ’s name bearing the everlasting gospel of reconciliation and peace. If God should permit him to fall at his post of duty in cold blood, it would only be that he might wear a martyr’s crown. Who is ready to say that such a life is not a power? Dr. A. J. Gordon once said:
Christ sends us into all the world to preach the gospel; and I believe that every time we preach the Holy Ghost is present to bring home the message to men’s hearts. I confess that I am not sure that if I preach on politics, on the tariff, or on strikes, I have a pledge that the Holy Ghost will bear witness to that teaching. These may be important matters, but the Spirit has been given to bear testimony to Jesus Christ. I have not the sense of His presence in handling these themes, if ever venture on them; but I often do have when preaching Christ, even in the simplest way – the Holy Ghost co-witnessing and bearing the message hove to the hearts and consciences of men.
There is a German proverb, which says: “The good is the greatest enemy of the best.” And as Dr. Scofield remarks: “No one questions that reform work is good, when wisely directed. It seeks noble ends, and with this we all are in sympathy. All this is not in question. The one and sufficient objection is that it is turning aside from the work given us to do. The world, my friends, was full of the very evils which afflict society today when Jesus Christ was on earth. Slavery, in its most odious form; drunkenness and universal blight and curse; the social evil not even disgraceful. Did Jesus organize great reform agencies? anti-slavery societies? temperance societies? personal purity societies? He organized nothing. What He did was to provide for the organization of one society – the church – and to commission her to preach: not reformation, but regeneration. It often seems to men that Christ’s way is circuitous and slow; what we shall accomplish much more, and that more rapidly, by some other means. Not so. The prayer, and faith, and personal effort and self-sacrifice, and money invested in any one of the great reform movements would have evangelized the earth.”
Jesus And Politics
What was the attitude of Jesus towards the State? Was He a politician? Did He take any interest in the government? Did He exercise authority of any kind in civil matters? We can answer these questions by quoting with a few modifications from a little English tract:
John the Baptist is slain through the arts of an adulteress princess, and by the orders of an ungodly king. How does Jesus meet the event? Does He lift up his voice against the oppressor and murderer? No. John is imprisoned, but Jesus speaks not of the injustice; John is murdered, but He utters no cry against the cruelty or tyranny of Herod. John’s disciples “went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard of it, He departed thence by ship into a desert place” (Matt. 14:10-13).
Take another incident. The attention of Jesus was called to some of the “Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices” (Luke 13:1). A politician would have been on fire at this national outrage. Religious antipathies met with political. Here was a field whereon to inveigh against Roman cruelty, and to rouse the Jews against a tyranny that trampled on the true religion. A pagan profaning with bloody hands the worship of the true God! What would the politicians of our day have said had a party of the queen’s troops fired into a dissenting chapel while they were at worship, and shot some dead while on their knees? Would not the politician account it almost treason to be calm? What is Jesus’ reply? “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” The politics of the question are wholly passed by; the moral and spiritual views of the matter are alone regarded. Jesus, then, was no politician. Am I a disciple of His? Neither, then am I to be one. “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master” (Matt. 10:25). Jesus did not meddle in politics, therefore it is no part of my duty as a Christian. It becomes me to refuse, as pointedly as He did, to mingle in politics: for this is my calling – to be not of the world, even as Jesus was not of the world (John 17:19). And, be it remembered, that what Jesus did and did not do the Apostles did and did not do. Not one of them was a reformer or a politician.
Dr. Jefferson says:
In Christ’s day the people wanted Him to do everything. That was their conception of the Messiah. The air was filled with questions, political, social, economic, ecclesiastical, but he refused to touch them, so eager was he to say just one word more about God. Evils lifted their hoary heads on every side – slavery, Roman tyranny, the social evil, false customs, economic tragedies – but he never lifted a hand to strike them. So narrow was he, so blind was he! Men were hot in their discussion of problems. No age ever had more problems than His. But to Him there was only one fundamental problem, and that was the problem of sin, and he had time for the discussion of none other. The estrangement of the heart from God – that to him was the root of all tragedies. A will fixed in rebellion against the good Father – which was the fountain of all the world’s woes. All problems of all kinds got their complications from the estranged heart, and all tragedies got their blackness from the mind that had become darkened by going away from God, and he had nothing to say about secondary problems and subordinate evils because his eyes were fixed on the one plague spot of humanity – a will disobedient to the good God. Such a line of action on his part was of course disappointing. It was even exasperating. The intellectual people of his day had no use for him. Men of acumen and large mental grasp smiled at the poor peasant telling people little stories about God. Men of patriotic fervor, alive to the needs of the day, sneered at him because he did not fall in with their plans and adopt their panaceas. To all practical men who believed in grappling with problems and suggesting solutions he was a visionary; so much talking about God.
The Futility of Reform Work
Reform Work Minimizes Sin
The church can not engage in reform work without denying the very doctrines which she preaches, for such work minimizes both the nature and the gravity of sin. It sets at naught the great doctrines of the depravity of man and the absolute necessity of the new birth. This may look like a sweeping assertion, but facts of the strongest kind seem to prove it. Suppose I have a clock that does not keep correct time. I take it to the jeweler and ask him to repair it. A moment’s glance at it by his keen eye and he tells me that my clock is past repairing; that it must be made anew. But suppose I still insist on a little repairing as sufficient; would not my conduct be insisting on mere repairs minimize the extent of the clock’s damage and needs? Without a doubt. Now man is like that clock. The gospel comes to him and says: “You are totally depraved. Your whole head is sick, and your whole heart is faint. From the crown of your head to the soles of your feet there is no soundness in you. You must be made anew. You must be born again.” But the reformer comes along, and, by the very nature of his work, says: “No, no, not so bad as all that. Man needs only a little fixing up and he will be all right. The drink habit is only a slight moral distemper, which if a man quits, and a few other bad habits, he will be all right.” Ah, how reform work does belittle sin, that abominable thing that God hates. Because we do not fall in with every good citizenship and reform movement, our opponents charge us with treating lightly and being indifferent to the great curse of strong drink. We plead innocent to this charge and cast the charge back at the feet of our accusers. If any class of persons treats lightly the drink evil it is the reformer. The reformer treats the drunkard as only under the power of a bad habit. We treat him as under the wrath of God. The reformer treats the drunkard as suffering from some slight moral disorder. We treat him as suffering from a terribly depraved nature. The reformer treats the drunkard as the fruit of the dram shop. We treat his case as the harvest of inbred sin. The reformer treats the drunkard as a need of a healthier environment. We treat him as in need of a new nature. You may plant all the flowers you care to on the banks of a foul stream and the stream will be foul still. The drunkard needs more than reformation; he needs regeneration. He needs more than a little medicine to doctor up his old nature; he needs a new life.
No mere reform can make him clean; The seat of his trouble lies deep within.
Reform work virtually sets at naught the entire work of Calvary. It seeks to establish righteousness by the law. Paul says: “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Paul says, “He hath put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” What does he do? Puts away sin. And how does he do it? By the sacrifice of himself. And who does it? He, the Lord. And this has always been God’s method in the disposition of sin; it has never been attempted apart from the shedding of blood. And any organization or movement that attempts to get rid of sin, and yet ignores the blood, has the mark of Cain upon it.
Moody’s Position Of Temperance
In a book on the work of D. L. Moody I discovered a comparison between the regular temperance meeting and the temperance meetings held by Moody and Sankey. The regular meeting was described as follows:
Everybody is familiar with the old-fashioned temperance meetings: Some great lecturer stands up and instructs and amuses the people – chiefly the latter – giving statistics of the cost of rum and beer, and denouncing the men who make and sell them; telling stories of drunken men, with imitations of their drunken antics, and reciting the terrible experiences of drunkards’ wives and children; the whole followed by an exhortation to sobriety, and the circulation of the temperance pledge.
Here is the description given of the Moody temperance meeting, and will my reader note the vast contrast between the two:
This temperance gospel, then, is, indeed, good news – ‘tidings of great joy’ – to all those people who are under the power of the devil; and of this temperance gospel Mr. Moody is a chief apostle. He does not make himself into the likeness of a drunken fool on the platform for the sake of drawing people to hear him. He comes before them with a Bible in his hand, and in the name of Jesus Christ invites the drunkards to be saved by the very same grace, and in fulfillment of the very same promise, which he offers to sinners seeking to be saved from other forms of sin. Mr. Sankey does not find it necessary to sing temperance songs, so called; but he sings the gospel songs and the grand old hymns of the Church, such as ‘Rescue the Perishing’, ‘The Ninety and Nine,’ and ‘Jesus Lover of my Soul.’
In the same book discovered a few of Moody’s temperance addresses. They were a revelation. The following few extracts will give my reader a fair idea of how tenaciously Mr. Moody stuck to the old gospel as the only remedy for men who have been carried away by the power of strong drink:
Some of you mothers have intemperate sons and you have been trying all sorts of ways to save them, but the poor fellows are not saved yet. Now the thing for you to do is to bring them right to Christ, and ask him not to reform them, but to regenerate them.
There is one verse in the third chapter of John, which I want to call your attention to: That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Now, as I understand it, there is no hope for any drunkard till he has been born of God. A resolution can’t save him. Signing the pledge can’t save him. All these things which a man does in his own strength belong to the flesh, which God has stamped with the seal of death . . . The word of God tells us ‘in the flesh dwelleth no good thing:’ and if God can’t find any good thing in us we may as well give up looking for it ourselves.
Don’t imagine that God is down here patching up our old Adam nature. He won’t waste his time putting new wine in old bottles, or putting new patches on old coats. He is here to make a new creation, to raise up new men out of these thieves, drunkards and vagabonds.
The Weakness Of Reform Work
And what if we get people reformed? A reformed man will still go to hell. The Lord has net committed unto us a gospel of reformation, but a gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation. Get a man saved and you bring about in his life a reformation in which the angels of heaven rejoice. Why, then, waste time on this halfway business of reform?
Ministers of the gospel must not censure sinners for trusting in reformation for salvation, if at the same time they are advocates of reform. There is not a single record in the Bible of the church attempting to instruct unbelievers in morals. The church’s first message to the unsaved is: “Believe! Be born again!” The teaching comes after faith and the new birth, never before it. Nicodemus, an unregenerate man, called Jesus a teacher of God. Jesus quickly corrected the idea of being the teacher of an unregenerate man by saying: “he is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Every act to reform men without first regenerating them is a rebuttal of this plain declaration of inspiration. To apply the law to the flesh in seeking to bring it into subjection only results in bringing out still more its desperate willfulness. If you pour water on unslaked lime instead of cooling it, you will only bring the fire that lies hidden within it. This accounts for that peculiar desire in our natures to do what we are told not to do. Tell a child not to do a certain thing and that is the very thing it will do. My reader, if you are endeavoring to train man’s old sinful nature to keep the law of God, quit the business at once as an utterly hopeless task. God says the sinner cannot keep His law; he is not subject to it, neither indeed can be. If God is right in these statements, then reform work is a waste of energy. If reform work is money and time well spent, then God is mistaken. My reader may judge which.
Regeneration Vs. Reformation
Getting men converted closes the saloon, but closing the saloon does not necessarily get men converted. Am I correct in this statement? I think I am. Follow, if you will, the great revival campaigns that are sweeping our State and you will find that in every instance the number of reported conversions measures the extent of injury done to the booze business. In some instances the saloons have been put out of commission entirely because of lack of patronage. But, on the other hand, does the closing of the saloons get men converted? have not seen it. Many of the revivals held in the “dry territory” have been meager in their results when compared with those that have been held in the old whisky soaked Keystone State. It is all folderol, nothing but mere “tommy-rot,” to think of curing the ills of society by making men sober. Turkey may be said to be a temperance nation. It is dominated by the Mohammedan religion, which religion forbids even the drinking of wine. But the religion of Mahomet does not make any provision for the heart, from which flows the issues of life. And what is the result? For licentiousness Turkey is said to be equal to Sodom, and for its hostility to the gospel of Jesus and its representatives it is equaled only by the devil himself. Its history is red with the blood of slain missionaries. And if the reform religion that is sweeping our country does not go deeper than to make men temperate, if it does not change the springs of action of the heart, it will leave the people of America in the same state of moral decay.
What does all this teach us? Simply this: God’s order of things can not be reversed without losing the divine sanction. His way is reformation through regeneration; man’s way is regeneration through reformation. God’s way always succeeds. Get a man regenerated and it ever fails to reform him. Man’s way is generally a failure. It is the old, old story lived over again of man going about to establish his own righteousness and then refusing to submit to the righteousness of God (Rom. 10:3). Human righteousness has always been the greatest barrier in the establishment of God’s righteousness. The moralist has invariably been harder to reach than the out broken sinner. A drowning man will generally refuse your offers of help so long as he has a straw to cling to.
Think you, my brother, that you can change a sow by closing up the places in which she wallows? Never. Think you that you can change the buzzard by removing the carrion upon which he had been feeding? By no means. The sow will still be a sow and the buzzard will still be a buzzard. But what would be the result if you could change the sow into a sheep and the buzzard into a dove? Of course, in nature this is not possible, but in grace it is. Change the sinner into a sheep of Christ and fill him with his Spirit, and the gambling den and booze joint will dry up for want of support.
Reform work has to do only with time, while regeneration has to do with both time and eternity. And a work that deals only with the present certainly can not be the employment of the Christian, for godliness gives us the promise of both the life that now is and of that, which is to come. And after all, it seems to me that it does not matter very much whether a man goes to hell as a sober, moral man or as a down-and-outer in a drunken stupor.
Examples Of Training Before Regeneration
Bishop Colenzo took a band of Zulu youth and gave them a good education in England. After they had advanced in their studies, he suggested that they now turn their attention to the consideration of the claims of Christianity, but, in the words of Dr. Gordon, “they kicked up their heels and went back to their former heathen practices.” The good Bishop had to confess that his experiment was a failure. Hans Egede spent fifteen years in Greenland educating the people, attempting, as he said, to bring them to a standpoint where they would be intelligent Christians. With a broken heart he preached his farewell sermon from the text: “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for naught.” Two years later John Beck succeeded Egede in this field. He began at once to preach Christ crucified, and the result was the conversion of Karjanack, who became a flame of evangelistic zeal amid the frozen regions of Greenland. Regeneration affected in him at once what fifteen years of training could not accomplish in others. Attempting to effect the regeneration of men by a course of training has invariably been met with dismal failure.
Binding The Strongman
Jesus says, “No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man” (Mk. 3:27). Now who is this strong man? The devil, of course. And what are his goods? The evils of the world. Now if man can rid this old world of evil before the devil is bound, then man has proven Christ to be a false prophet. As for one, I am not attempting to accomplish this impossible task but simply co-operating with my Lord in calling out of the world a people for his name. It is also said that “the whole world lieth in the evil one.” If that be true, and it is true, do you not see what the reformer is trying to do? He is trying to improve the property or possessions of the devil with the devil still in control. Let me tell you that he has a big job on his hands. And even if he should succeed there has been practically nothing gained, for the thing still belongs to the devil. The devil is said to be the “god of this world.” That would make sinners his devotees or worshippers. Now reform a sinner and what do you have? Nothing more than an improved servant of the devil. What would you think of our missionaries if they would go out among the heathen and say, “Now do not think that we have come to turn you from these dumb idols to serve the living and true God. No, no, we only desire you to refrain from those coarser and more vulgar acts of worship.” In God’s sight idolatry is idolatry, whether it be coarse or refined. And a man may be an improved sinner, yet nevertheless he is a sinner, a devotee of the god of this world, “for there is no difference.” But, thank God, there is a day coming when the devil will be bound and then his goods will be spoiled by the wholesale (Rev. 20:2).
Story Of The Sutler’s Tent
My father was a captain in the Civil War, and when I hear men boasting of success achieved in the world of reform, I am reminded of the story he used to tell us of the raid made by some of the soldiers on the sutler’s tent. The sutler stood in the front of his tent making a bold defense in behalf of his goods, while the soldiers stood before him brandishing their weapons and with incoherent cries pretended as if any moment they might strike the fatal blow and fell him. But the fatal blow was never struck. The attack was only the make-believe kind. And the sutler congratulated himself on the fact that he had won out. But he was not aware that all the while the sham struggle was going on in front of his tent that there was another group of soldiers at the rear of his tent who had ripped open the canvas with their pocket knives and carried away his goods by the barrel loads. Do you make the application? It is this: there is a terrible conflict going on at present in the world of reform, and our reform brethren are patting themselves on the shoulders because of the great victories achieved. But might it not be possible that the fierce struggle that the devil is putting up is only a ruse, a mere subterfuge, for the purpose of keeping the mind and thought of the church away from its true mission, and while we are resisting the devil’s sham attacks along lines of temperance and legislative reform, his emissaries are playing terrible havoc with the spirituality he is fairly honeycombing the professing church with materialism, rationalism, socialism, Russellism, and Eddyism.
The Keeping Power Of Jesus Belittled
Reform work belittles the keeping power of Jesus. The Bible tells us that Jesus is able to keep us from falling (Jude 24). Reform work denies this by saying, “It is no use for us to get the young men into the church so long as we tolerate a lot of these dens of iniquity in our midst; for we will not be able to keep them.” Do you see that if these reformers could accomplish their purpose that there would be no need of Jesus’ keeping power. They would make all such displays of the power of Christ’s grace to keep impossible by removing every den of vice, and thus rob Jesus of the glory of His keeping grace. I presume that if some of them had been in Adam’s place they would have organized a society or gotten up a petition or remonstrance for the removal of the tree of forbidden fruit. Jesus in His day was conscious of every existing evil, yet, strange to say, He never made one appeal to the State to have any of it wiped out, nor ever attempted to put a “clean” man into office who would wipe it out. He did not even pray for the removal of evil, but only that His disciples might be kept free from evil (John 17:15). Nor did the Lord commission us to destroy sin, but He has sent us to pluck men as brands from it. He did not order us to create a healthier moral atmosphere in order to make it easier for men to live clean, pure and upright lives, but He has sent us to preaching the gospel through which men get power to resist sin’s polluting influences. He has not sent us on a mission of microbe killing, but rather that of building men up in the most holy and robust faith by which they become immune to the attacks of the bacteria of sin. The difference between man’s efforts and God’s plan for this age is, that man is trying to dig up the rocks and remove the snags from the river, while God is aiming to pour a flood-tide of life and power into the channel by which man’s little bark will be lifted above the snags and rocks.
Sunday Desecration Fostered
Much is said these days by our reformers concerning the appalling increase of Sunday desecration, yet the fact is overlooked that some of these very reform ers are leading the way in such desecrations. We consider it a gross breach of the sanctity of the day for either the Republican or Democratic party to hold a public mass meeting on Sunday, yet seem to be blind to the fact that many of our preachers convert the sacred pulpit into a political platform the Sunday preceding the election by discussing political subjects. Some have gone so far as to display sample ballots and explained to their congregations how to vote for certain candidates. Now such conduct, to say the least. grossly reprehensible and deserves to be condemned. It is a desecration of both the day and the house. Neither the Lord’s day, nor the Lord’s house, has been sanctified for the work of politics. To use the righteousness of the cause and the uprightness of the candidates as a plea in justification of such a course does not make the case any better. It is still politics and to use either the Lord’s day or the Lord’s house for political purposes is out of place. It is a misuse of both day and house. A merchant might with the same consistency open his dry goods store on Sunday and justify his conduct by saying that he sells nothing but the best of goods.
Dr. Jefferson well says on this point:
I like to think that a preacher should talk differently from any other man in the community; that a sermon should be unlike any other discourse known among men. I like to think that a Christian church should be different in atmosphere from any other building built by man. Public worship, so I think, ought to have a different tone from the tone of society or the street. On going into the house of God one should know at once that it is not a lecture hall, a reform club meeting place, a professor’s classroom, a newspaper office, the rendezvous of a literary or musical society. There ought to be in the air a mystical something which awes the heart and impels it to look upward. There ought to be something there which makes one feel like saying, ‘This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’ And it is the preacher who must be foremost in creating this atmosphere.
The Separation of Church and State
Protestants Uniting Church And State
All evangelical bodies of Christians believe in the separation of church and State. It is the only position that finds its support in the Word of God. But these religious bodies in their attempts to overthrow any efforts pointing to the union of church and State do not realize possibly that they become guilty of virtually uniting church and State by these very attempts. Many churches are spending time, labor and money to keep our public State institutions free from all sectarian and ecclesiastical influences, never thinking for a moment that while they are engaged in such work they are really doing what they are trying to prevent others from doing. If Protestants have the authority to say who shall and who shall not have control of the State institutions, then these institutions are already under ecclesiastical influences and control. Do not misunderstand me, I am not discussing the merits of Catholicism or Protestantism. I am only attempting to show that when any religious body takes up the defense of the State institutions that they are virtually uniting church and State. As a matter of principle, then, what is the difference between such control by the Protestants and the thing the Roman Catholics are aiming at? The same is often true of a political contest. If there is danger of the Catholics gaining the balance of power by a majority of representatives, what is the result? Christians rise as one man to offset any such possibility. In such cases you have an example of the Catholics trying to gain the balance of power and the Protestants trying to retain it for themselves. As a matter of principle it is all one which of the two succeeds. In the one case it would be the union of the State and Catholics; in the other case it would be the union of the State with Protestants, but in either case it would be the union of church and State, the very thing Protestants everywhere say should not be. And all the while these political shepherds are spending time in the exercise of the control of the State and its institutions, the devil is playing havoc with the sheep of Christ.
Why censure the Roman Church for advocating the union of church and State? They are only advocating for the aggregate what we are attempting to do with the unit. The Christian man is a member of the church, the body of Christ. Now if this same Christian man makes himself a member also of the State, is not the church and State united in that individual? Now, candidly speaking, how can you happily unite church and State in the single individual, if the same cannot be done successfully with a body of individuals? Or how can you unite the individual member of the body of Christ with the State when the whole body of Christ cannot be united? If such a combination is advisable in the case of the single individual, why should it be objectionable in the case of a society of individuals? The position of many on this subject is more than a paradox to me. I hold that the two are separate and distinct. If you cannot mix oceans of oil and water you cannot mix drops of oil and water. And if you cannot unite church and state in the whole you cannot unite Christian discipleship with state citizenship in the single individual.
A Bold Challenge
The writer challenges the reader to find one clear and explicit command in the New Testament in which the responsibilities of government are thrown upon believers. The believer is always spoken of in his relation to, and not a part of, governments. Here are a few examples: “Subject unto,” “submission to,” “honor to,” “tribute to,” “custom to,” “fear to,” and “pray for.” Farther than this the word is silent. So the believer’s duties to the State are not absolute, but relative; nothing more. If the duties of citizenship comprise the mission of the believer, then his high calling in Christ Jesus is not such a high calling after all. Every American citizen has the same calling, and his citizenship (politics), which is said to be in heaven, is not in heaven, but in the world. Is this his high calling? Is this his exalted position in Christ? Is this his great separation? Is this his holy espousal?
The Church And Governments Compared
In Romans 12 and 13 we have the church and governments clearly defined. Let me place a few quotations in parallel columns:
| Romans 12 – The Church – Love | Romans 13 – Governments – Force |
| “So we, being many, are one body in Christ.” (v. 5) | “There is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God.” (v. 1) |
| Duties: “Ministering,” “teaching,” “exhorting,” “giving,” “leading,” “showing mercy” (vs. 6,7,8) No politics in this. | Duties: Mete out damnation (judgment), bear the sword, terrorize evil works, and execute wrath on evildoers. (vs. 3,4) |
| “Abhor that which is evil.” (v. 12) | “Execute wrath upon him that doethevil.” (v. 4) |
| “Attending continually to prayer” (v. 12) | “Attending continually” to bearing the sword against the wrongdoer |
| “Avenge not yourselves. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” (v. 19) | The government is “an avenger” who carries out God’s wrath. (v. 4) |
| “Overcome evil with good.” (v. 21) | “Bear the sword” against evil (v. 4) |
Now, then, you have the two – Christ the head of the church, and God, the head of governments – and each instituted for a different purpose and dominated by a different code of laws. Apply the teachings of Romans 12 to the State, and you will wreck the State; or apply Romans 13 to the church, and you will wreck the church. For instance, let the State for a penalty feed its enemies, let it give a “cloak also” for every stolen coat, let it go twain for every mile it is asked to yield in matters of principles and justice; let it bless the cursers and ardently pray for its lynchers and riotous anarchists, and what is the result? Yet all this a Christian is expected to do. Do you see how utterly unfitted a believer is for running a government? On the other hand, let the church jail the erring brother and take to the scaffold the heretic, and the result is just a s disastrous. Do you not see how foreign the spirit and laws that govern the State are to those which govern the church? See how much more elevated are the principles of the one than the other. You might as well at the same time try to run an engine at the rate twenty and forty miles an hour, or a bird in the same flight might as well attempt to soar at the distance of fifty and one hundred feet from the earth as for an individual to attempt to live out in his life the letter and spirit of both church and state. Perhaps the believer is like the tree frog, which has the faculty of changing its color according to the color of the object on which it may light.
The fabric of our civil life is not such as to admit the application of Christian principles to it. As well apply the Constitution of the United States to the church. When you can run a hydraulic ram with air, or fly a balloon with water, you will be able to successfully set the State in motion with Christianity. Why, then, speak of a Christian nation, when the application of Christian principles to it will wreck it? Remember, we do not say the State is anti-Christian. It is anti-Christian if it sets itself against Christianity. But, as ordained of God, the State is not anti-Christian; it is non-Christian; it leaves all citizens free in matters of religious belief and practice. But, bear in mind, the State cannot be Christian. If it tries to become Christian, by that act it is sure to become anti-Christian. The State represents force, not love nor persuasion. It must use force or nothing. Now for the State to use force in matters of religion would be the rankest from of anti-Christian work. Think of the State forcing its subjects to obey the precepts of the gospel. What kind of Christianity would that be? Such obedience, or forced worship, would be the worst kind of disobedience; it would be nothing less than hypocrisy. Christ wants no obedience, unless it comes from the heart. “If ye love me,” he says, “keep my commandments.” If you do not love him, he does not ask you to obey him. You will have a Christian government after Jesus comes and sets up His kingdom, but not until then.
The phraseology of the two chapters of Romans referred to in the comparison is strikingly significant. Chapter 12 is well saturated with clauses like these: “As we,” “so we,” “to us,” “let us” – all in the first person. Paul places himself with the class mentioned in chapter 12 every time. It is the church chapter – that is the reason. In chapter 13 we have “for he” (used three times) “for they,” etc., all in the third person. Paul never places himself with the class mentioned in the 13th chapter. It is the government chapter – that is the reason. Now, if this is not significant, then language has no meaning. The New Testament shows how the Christian is to conduct himself as a husband, as a father, as a master, and as a subject (See I. Peter 3:7; Eph. 6:4-9; Col. 3:19-25), but no rules are given for the Christian as a magistrate or citizen. What is the inference of such silence? God does not expect the Christian to act in these capacities.
What a horrible spectacle it must be to the gaze of Jesus and angels to see two Christian men on opposite sides in battle, and each doing his level best to put the other to death. Yet if the duties of the state form part of the Christian’s duty, then this is exactly what every Christian is duty bound to do when occasion demands it, for the Bible clearly defines the bearing of arms as one of the duties of the State (Rom. 13:1-4). Think of the Christian man’s body as the temple of the Holy Ghost, yet brutally riddled with bullets in the heat of battle. And yet this hellish work is done in the name of Christianity. Christian men would raise their hands in horror if ome outlaw would go up the streets of our village and with a Winchester rifle riddle the stained glass windows of the Lord’s earthly temple of worship, yet these same men justify a union of the church with the world that means the destruction of the temple of the Holy Ghost, the fairest piece of God’s handiwork. The Christian man is a member of Christ’s body, flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone (Eph. 5:30). When Saul persecuted Christians the Lord said, “Saul, why persecutest thou ME?” Can any Christian, the, contemplate without horror the thought of maiming or killing Christ in the person of one of His members: “For inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” And think of a Christian man on the field of battle suddenly sending a poor, lost sinner into eternity who might have repented of his sins and believed in Jesus if his life had been spared.
A Jewish Rabbi’s Solemn Impeachment
The distinguished Jewish Rabbi, Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, of Philadelphia, in a discourse recently on “Has Christendom Accepted Jesus?” said, among other things:
For the purpose of learning to what extent the teachings of Jesus have been followed, let us hastily review them . . . [Jesus] prohibits wrath and anger, persecution and punishment. He teaches non-resistance, bids man when smitten on one cheek to turn also the other, when robbed of his cloak to give also his coat, rather than get into strife or go to law. In opposing resistance and punishment, he opposes the courts . . . He prohibits the oath . . . He bids men love their enemies, to bless those who curse them, to do good to those who do them evil . . . In these teachings there is no room for ruler or subject, for army or police, for courts or prison . . . Hatred is to be conquered by love, wrong by forgiveness, curse by blessing. The hand of man is never to be raised against a fellowman, no matter how grievous the offense.
But, go where we may in Christendom, and as far back as we choose, at no time and in no place do we find the teachings of Jesus exemplified by the life and deeds of Christian nations . . . Think of the teachings of non-resistance, of peace and goodwill, of loving the enemy, of requiting ill with good, of suffering rather than cause suffering, and of the other similar teachings of Jesus, and then read of the bitter wars, of the cruel persecutions, of pitiless bloodshed almost from the commencement of the Christian church.”
Then referring to the Jewish massacres of Russia with the Czar as the head of the church; to Germany’s “war of revenge and pillage in China” with the Kaiser the head of the dominant church, and to the slaughter of the Boers by the English, another Christian (?) nation, he continues:
We see everywhere oppression and injustice and class distinction, notwithstanding that the dominant religion of these lands is Christian, and the dominant clergy is Christian, and the deity most worshipped is Christ, he who taught peace and love and equality . . . It ill becomes the Christian to denounce and persecute the Jew for not accepting Jesus, seeing that he himself has not yet accepted him.
Is it any wonder that a Jew should thus accuse Christians? None whatever. Will the Christian never learn that the principles and mission of governments are widely foreign to the principles and mission of Christianity? Rabbi Krauskopf knows – and every Christian ought to know – that no man can serve the State in carrying out its mission without sacrificing his principles as a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus. The State was ordained to punish transgressors; the church is to carry the “sword of the Spirit.” The State is a Law and Order society: the church is a life saving station. The State administers the law; the church publishes the gospel. The state offers protection as a reward; the church offers the “crown of rejoicing.”
“Christian Nations” A Misnomer
Do you wonder that men are becoming skeptical? If I had to believe that the warring nations of the East were “Christian nations.” I would become skeptical too. Yet many of them in the classification of popular opinion are placed among the leading Christian nations. If this be true then I am at a loss to know how these same authorities can class the Red Cross Society among the Christian organizations of the world; for the nations wound, but the Red Cross Society heals; the nations try to kill, the Red Cross Society tries to keep alive. In other words, what the one tries to do the other tries to undo; what the one acts the other tries to counteract. Now which is the Christian, the one that kills, or the one that tries to keep alive? The one that wounds or the one that tries to heal the wound? Surely both can not be Christian. I used to think that the Samaritan who put the wounded man on his own beast and took him to the inn and had him cared for did the Christlike thing, but I find that I must revise my theories and make them somewhat broader so as to include as Christians the men also who wounded the poor fellow, and stripped him of his raiment, and left him along the roadside half dead. Is God the author of both evil and good?
The Divine Test Of Preaching
The writer will never forget the time when the words of First Corinthians 15:14, dawned upon him in the full force of their real significance. The words are these: “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain.” But you say, “The meaning of those words was always clear to me; that Paul simply meant that the whole fabric of the gospel rested upon the fact of Christ’s resurrection and that the destruction of that fact meant the overthrow of the whole gospel system.” And the writer used to look at these words in the same light, but one day the Spirit presented them to him in a new form. He seemed to say to me, “My child, if Christ be not risen, would the failure of that fact have a disastrous effect upon the force of your preaching?” I began to take an account of stock, and lo! what a heap of rubbish I found. What a great mass of stuff I discovered among my sermon material that did not depend upon the resurrection of Christ for its force or validity. I found a few sermons on temperance reform; several on social and legislative reform, and one here and there that took up the subject of civic righteousness, and not one of them that was related in the least with the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Sermons of such a character can be preached with the same force whether Christ be risen or unrisen. And, reader, if you are a minister of the gospel, before preaching again on any of these subjects, will you ask yourself what effect an unrisen Christ would have upon your sermon. Would it make your message null and void? If not, then you are not preaching the gospel, for the whole gospel system rests upon this great fact. And woe is us if we preach not the gospel.
But you say, “Don’t you believe in reform and temperance?” Of course I do, but it must be gospel reform and gospel temperance. I preach the new birth, the new creation, and the fruit of such work is bound to bring about a reform; for old things pass away and behold all things become new. But you ask again, “Does such teaching rest on the resurrection for its validity?” It surely does. Listen. “Begotten (or born) again,” says Peter, “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” So gospel reform is based upon the new birth and the new birth is based upon Christ’s resurrection. And all preaching not in harmony with this order of things is “vain.”
A Weakened Testimony
A Christian in politics weakens his testimony as a witness for Jesus. It is said: “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world” (Heb. 11:7). If Noah, after he had declared that the world would be destroyed in a very short time, had gone out and bought an estate, and planted a young vineyard, and laid out part of his tract of land in lots for a city, reserving a good location for a stock exchange, what would the world have thought of his preaching? Would they have believed his message of a coming judgment? Surely not. They would have said among themselves: “That man Noah does not believe his own preaching, why then should we believe it? Boys, as long as old Noah buys, and plants, and builds, there is no use of us becoming alarmed.” For Noah to have acted thus would have justified the world in its course instead of condemning it. But no. Noah believed the warnings of God. He moved with fear. He prepared the ark. And thus by deed and testimony he emphasized the fact of the world’s coming judgment, by the which he “condemned the world.” Everything Noah did and said proclaimed the coming of the flood, and that was the world’s judgment. The present world is under condemnation because it believes not in the Lord Jesus Christ. Politics belong to the world. Now what use is it for the Christian to say that some day Jesus is coming to execute judgment upon the world, when all the while he stays in it? Why should the Christian tell the sinner that “the world passeth away and the lust thereof,” when he himself is treating it as an eternally permanent thing? How many ungodly men will believe that this old world is rapidly ripening for judgment as long as Christian men stay in it? The Lord desires His people separate from the world and its policies.
With Lot it was different. While Noah was a man of faith, Lot was not. He chose his inheritance after the sight of his own eyes (Gen. 13:10.11.) He then pitched his tent toward Sodom. Sodom is a type of the world. A little later on he took up his dwelling in Sodom (Gen. 14:12). Finally he took office in Sodom (Gen. 19:1). He becomes identified with its interests, and a sustainer of its policy. But see the sad and inevitable fate Lot suffered from such a worldly course. He lost his testimony. When he told even his sons-in-law to get out of the city, that the Lord would destroy it, he seemed to them as “one that mocked.” Poor Lot! how could he expect to make others believe that which his own course and conduct contradicted? How could he make others fear to stay in Sodom when he was not afraid to live there? Had Lot stayed outside the city how his act would have given force and strength to his testimony of coming judgment. The men of Sodom would likely have said one to the other: “Boys, I guess it is about time for us to go. There is a fellow who has told us that the city will be destroyed and he believes what he preaches. See how he has quit the city. What if he should be right?” Such conduct on the part of Lot would have condemned the city. But poor Lot! The world despised him. The world does the same thing today. The world has nothing but contempt for the man who professes to be elect of God and an heir of glory, and at the same time does all the world does. And yet behold the thousands of Christians, who, Lot like, are seeking office and power at the hands of a world that crucified their Lord, and world of which it is said its friendship is enmity with God; and that “whosoever would be a friend of the world is an enemy of God.” Instead of by word and deed testifying against this evil and untoward generation, and thus condemning it, the Christian is actually supporting it. What a pitiable subject for contempt is the man, be he minister or layman, who, Lot like, heedless of God’s purposes, digs deep the foundation of his interests in the soil of this old world and then seeks to warn men of the judgments that are coming upon it. Such testimony is worthless. As well might the prodigal in the far country at the swine’s trough, in his rags, tell of the wealth and comforts of his Father’s house. The city Lot tried to reform and improve became only a barren waste. His righteous soul was vexed by his dismal failure. But how could he improve that which God had marked for judgment? And there are many today, honest enough no doubt, who are seeking to moralize and reform this old world. But their efforts must be as fruitless as were those of Lot. How can we reform that which God has marked for judgment? And see! even the angel made no attempt to reform Sodom. His efforts were directed in getting Lot and his family out. That is the business of the church today. As with Lot, the works of these reformers will be burned and if they themselves will be saved, it will be as by fire. At the judgment seat of Christ, where only the saved will appear, they will receive no reward whatever. Saved, but not rewarded. In heaven, yes, in heaven, but not crowned. In the judgment of the saints there will be no reward for the believer that devotes his life to good citizenship reform movements. There will be an incorruptible crown for those who “keep the body under” and are “temperate in all things” (1 Cor. 9:25); there will be a crown of rejoicing for soul-winners (1Thess. 2:19); there will be a crown of righteousness for “those that love His appearing” (II Tim. 4:7,8); where will be a crown of life for those who endure temptation and are “faithful unto death” (James 1:12); there will be a crown of glory for those who “feed the flock of God” (I Peter 5:1-4), but no crown or reward for the modern good government reform believer. There would be a reward if he could exchange his place at the judgment seat of Christ for a place in the judgment of nations spoken of in Matthew 25:32. The Christian reformer, poor soul that he is, is allowing the devil to cheat him out of his reward by making him believe that he is greatly needed in politics because of the moral issues at stake. The devil well knows that he cannot keep the sheep of Christ out of heaven, but he seeks to beguile them of their reward there, and thus cast a stigma on the goodness of God by having it appear in heaven throughout the eternal ages that there is no profit in serving the Lord. Moses, it is said, had “respect unto the recompense of reward.” But the poor, deluded preacher-politician seems to have little or no respect for the things for which the Lord is offering great rewards. Can you contemplate the charging and the sad disappointment of some of these people when they get to heaven?
Romans 12 And 13 Called Up Again
Let us come back again to the two chapters of Romans. Romans 12 exhorts the believer to constancy in his devotions – “continuing instant in prayer” (v. 12). He is not to give part of his time to religion and part to politics. He is not to carry the sword of the Spirit in the church and the sword of the State, the carnal weapon, in the world. No, no, that would never do; there must be a continuity of effort. The great Commission (Matt. 28:19, 20), which is the church’s marching orders during this dispensation, speaks only of a mission of evangelization. As Dr. Forney aptly says, “Happy indeed would be the church, and happy would it be for us if, as is related, our hearts and our lips could become like Anacreon’s harp, which was wedded to one subject, and would learn no other. He wished to sing of the sons of Atreus, and the mighty deeds of Hercules; but his harp resounded love alone. And when he would have sung to Cadmus his harp refused – it would sing of love alone.” When Jesus sent forth His disciples, the only commission He gave them was to preach the gospel. The only power He promised them was the power of the Holy Ghost. It was this simple gospel, backed up by this mighty power that made Peter’s sermon such a marvel on the day of Pentecost. And just as long as the church trusted alone in the Holy Spirit, she went forth conquering and to conquer. And just in the proportion that the church began to pull political wires for the kingdom of God at the court of Constantine, in that proportion she lost power with the Prince of Peace. Oh, that the church might hear the voice of her Beloved calling her back to singleness of purpose, to her undivided business of witnessing for Jesus, and become wedded to this work and this work alone.
Oh, make thy church, dear Savior, A lamp of burnished gold, To bear before the nations Thy true light as of old.
The same is true of the state. Referring to its destruction of evil by force, it is added: “Attending continually upon this very thing” (Rom. 13:6). A mission for each and each after its own mission is the divine order of things.
The Church Of Today Viewed From The Next Age
In our study of the Word in this age we sit in judgment upon the Jew because of his ignorance in not perceiving by prophecy that Jesus was the Messiah. We also consider him dull because he did not have clear conceptions concerning the kingdom Jesus was announced to set up. All these things seem clear enough to some of us now. But they should have known them then. But imagine a group of men sitting together in the next, the heavenly age, and studying the record the church is making for herself in this dispensation or church age. They would be fairly dumbfounded at the church’s spiritual stupidity. I fancy I can almost hear what such a group would say. After meditating for a little on the confusion of this age between church and state and the extent to which the church has been led away from her true mission, one of the group remarked: “How could they possibly get the OT political age mixed with theirs?” Another, a student of prophecy, says: “Did they not read in their Testament how Jesus divided the things concerning Himself into two classes, placing those that concerned His sufferings into one class and those concerning His glory into another? Did they not see how He fulfilled all the sufferings in His first advent, leaving the glories to be fulfilled at His second coming? How then could they expect to reign before He comes to reign?” Another, more blunt than the rest, speaks out: “What fools they were to attempt to bring about Christ’s enthronement glory in the dispensation of His sufferings and humiliation.” “Yes,” says another who was listening all the while to the others with interest, “did they not read also how Peter tells that the Spirit of Christ in the Old Testament writers testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow (I Peter 1:11)? Now how could they possibly get these two clearly defined periods confused?” The errors of the church in this age will all be clear then. We will see then that God did not purpose establishing His kingdom and a universal state of righteousness in this age. But, beloved, the Lord wants us to see these things now.
It is the prayer and fond hope of the writer that this little message may be the means of helping at least some members of the body of Christ to see the hopelessness of the task of reforming the world and to assist them in setting their faces as a flint against every effort of the world to woo and allure them from their divinely appointed path of separation.
What Christ Said I said, “Let me go to the polls And with my vote Thy kingdom bring.” He said, “My child, there cannot be The kingdom here without the King.” I said, “Let me do what I can To destroy the sin black and strong.” He said, “My child, your work is this: To build up good, not tear down wrong I said, “But shall I not send To Congress a petition strong?” He said, “My child, dost thou not know That will not rid the world of wrong?” I said, “It is useless to try Amid this sin Thy will to do.” He said, “He that is in the world Is less than He that is in you.” I said, “Master, just bid me go To battle with sin till I tire.” He said, “Don't try to put out sin, Child, just pluck the brands from the fire.” I said, “but shall I not condemn By law, and jail the wayward boy?” He said, “My child, your work, like Mine, Is that to save, and not to destroy.”
By Charles F Reitzel
