ALONE WITH GOD     

Objections Answered

     I have gone somewhat into detail in the matter of Paul's Jerusalem experience because it is the main foundation for the theory that a Christian man has no rights in a church merely upon the basis of his Christian character, but only when he has joined that church by a formal act.. There is not in the whole New Testament one single instance of anyone who joined the church, in the modern sense of the term. All Christians were potentially members of all churches and had merely to establish their identity to claim church privileges wherever they went.

In the United States a citizen is potentially a citizen of all communities, but he can only exercise his rights in one at a time. When he moves into a city or town he does not have to join that city or town, but he does have to wait a decent interval before voting, merely to prevent the contingency of a man's exercising his prerogative and privilege of citizenship in more than one place at one time. This he cannot be permitted to do; for that would introduce inequality by making such a person to have twice as much privilege as another.

Bear in mind, however, that while he may have to wait a decent interval—and also establish his identity—before exercising his franchise of voting, and thus of determining the disposition of funds and the choice of officers, and so forth, at the same time he becomes at once a full-Hedged citizen of the city as soon as he arrives—although he does not have to join anything nor even confer with anybody.

The very instant he arrives in town he begins to enjoy all the privileges of citizenship, such as police protection, the right to appeal to the courts, and all the privileges and immunities granted by the Constitution of the United States and of that State and municipality, except only the right of voting; and even this is his potentially—he can vote just as soon as he produces sufficient evidence that he is entitled to the right, and is not using it elsewhere.

Doubtless each assembly has a right to insist that a member shall not exercise the franchise in more than one assembly at one time; for to do so would give him more privileges than is one man's due. But he has one person's privileges in the church of Christ; and can exercise that privilege in any congregation where he may wish to dwell and worship.

This is his spiritual right in the gospel, and every professed church which places unscriptural hindrances in the way of his exercising this right, or which places unscriptural restrictions upon his Christian rights and privileges, is by so much guilty of a serious violation of the spirit of the New Testament.

Dr. Lee : "A person cannot cease to be a member of the general invisible church but by ceasing to be a Christian; but a person may, and often does of necessity, cease to be a member of a local visibly organized church, by removal, and in passing from one church to another, as persons are wont to do by letter —for which we have apostolic authority, as Paul speaks of 'epistles of commendation to,' and 'letters of commendation from' (II Cor. 3: 1).

"A church exists in one place, and in another there is no church. A pious individual resides in that place where there is no church. He belongs to no visible local church, no Christian congregation; he belongs to the church of no place on earth; and yet he belongs 'to the general assembly and church of the first born who are written in heaven.' This proves that to belong to the general church and to the church in a given place are two distinct things."

I have quoted thus in full because this is an argument that bewildered me for some time, as a plea for the separation of the visible church from the invisible and into sectarian human corporations.

Take the first proposition and translate it into a statement about American citizenship, and see if it seems so confusing: A person cannot cease to be a citizen of the general, invisible American citizenship but by ceasing to be a citizen, by death or otherwise; but a person may, and often does, of necessity cease to be a citizen of a local municipality, by removal, and in passing from one municipality to another, etc.

Thus translated it still seems to be true in a general way, but it is seen not to prove what it is intended to prove, namely the right to organize independent societies which can by any legal subterfuge deny the rights of citizenship to any American citizen. To make this argument hold good it would be necessary to prove that it would be legal to have eighteen or twenty municipalities in a city like Chicago, each covering the same ground, and each denying all the privileges of American citizenship to anybody who did not join their particular society. It would be equivalent to making the rights of voting, and of citizenship, depend upon one's membership in some political party, Republican, Democratic, Socialist, and so forth.

While we maintain that a man cannot exercise the full privileges of membership in more than one congregation at a time we do maintain that each true Christian is potentially a member of every true local congregation of the church of God all over the world. As such he cannot lose his potential membership in any local congregation by removal from it to another. He only relinquishes the exercise of his privileges in one congregation to resume the same privileges in the next one to which he goes. Moreover, even if he moves into isolation, he still retains a potential membership in every local congregation on earth. He also merely relinquishes his privileges to be resumed whenever he visits or lives in a local congregation somewhere.

The effort to prove that local church membership has no relation to membership in the invisible church of Christ is the same as trying to prove that a man can be a citizen of Chicago and not of the United States, merely by proving that he can be a citizen of the United States without being a citizen of Chicago. Whenever he becomes a citizen of Chicago he cannot avoid becoming a citizen of the United States; and if he is a citizen of the United States he is potentially a citizen of Chicago, and of every American municipality.

But one cannot prove that because a man is a citizen of New York, and thus a citizen of the United States and for the same reason not a citizen actually of Chicago, therefore Chicago is not in, nor a part of the United States. And yet that is what the argument we have been considering attempts to prove regarding church membership in the local church and the church universal.

It is like saying that because a drop of blood cannot cease to be a member of your body without dying, but may and often does cease to be a member of your foot and of your hand and of your face by passing from one to the other, therefore this proves that to belong to the general human body and to the hand or foot are two distinct things.

Possibly so, but does it prove that your hand and your foot are not themselves a part of your body? And as long as that drop of blood is a member of your body is it not in a manner a member of every part of your body ?

The hand and the foot represent the local congregations of the church of God and to maintain that we can belong to them and not to the general body of Christ is rank heresy.

Dr. Lee: "The general invisible church cannot receive members into its own body. Cannot discipline its members; men cannot take persons into or shut persons out of the general invisible church; but a local church can receive persons into or put persons out of their own body."

Answer : In a sense it is true that the general invisible church cannot receive members into its own body by a vote or other formal outward act. But the Lord Jesus Christ certainly retains the power to take members into his "general invisible church," as we may learn by Acts, second chapter and fortyseventh verse: "And the Lord added to the church daily such as were being saved" (Revised Version).

"For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free." This is the way the Scriptures explain the method by which men are taken into the general invisible church.

This is also the way in which they are taken into the local congregation. But for the full recognitions by their human brethren of the rights which they already have it is usually necessary for them to furnish identification and proof that they are members, not that they are fit to be made members, but already actually are such.

It is lawful for a Christian to furnish such proof and for brethren to receive and even require it; but it is not lawful for brethren to receive another brother into the church, as if he were not already a member.

The ease stands much the same with ordination. In ordination the church merely recognizes that God has already called the person as a minister. It is sacrilegious for a body of men to make a man a minister of Jesus Christ. They can only recognize the fact that God has made him such. So a local congregation cannot, without blasphemy, take a man into the church. They can only recognize the feet that God has taken him in.

Again, the general invisible church does, in fact, exclude or shut persons out of its membership. Jesus taught this. He said: "If a man abide not in me, he is east forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and east them into the fire, and they are burned" (John 15: 6).

Just as the local church cannot take a man into itself, but can recognize that God has taken him; so it cannot expel or put a man out; but it can by formal and public action recognize the fact that God has put him out.

This is what Paul meant when he said concerning the evil people at Corinth: "But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat .... Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person" (I Cor. 5 :11-13).

Dr. Lee tries to make out that the church at Corinth were ordered to expel these people from the church as would be possible from a local, sectarian body. But it is plain on the very face of this passage that they did not have any such human organizations as we have today. They were not ordered to "turn them out of the church," but merely not to extend recognition to them as being members of the church at all.

In other words, instead of turning them out of the church, they merely acknowledged to all that they were not in the church.

It will be said that this is a distinction without a difference; but I am sure that a little thought will reveal that there is a world of difference. Suppose that a wealthy family has a son who wandered away in his childhood, and was finally given up for lost. At length, after some years, a young man appears and announces that he is the lost son. Will that family have him "join" the family by some official act of adoption? No. They will either recognize him or withhold recognition. If they recognize him and he is not the real son that recognition will enable him to enjoy the temporal privileges of the family; but it will not change his blood and nature and give him the biological kinship that the other members have.

On the other hand, even if he is a real member of the family, they may deny him recognition, through lack of proper evidence of identity; but this will not deprive him of the blood and nature of that family. Mistakes might be made in this way, but this does not induce people to organize their families by law as corporations organize; for the mistakes would continue just the same.

It is said that sometimes true Christians are put out of the local church; and at other times wicked people are taken in or permitted to remain. Since neither of these things can be true of the spiritual church, therefore the local church and the spiritual church are separate organizations.

Mistakes may occur at times, as in the supposed ease of the family, but this is an unusual and abnormal thing. Biologically the withholding of recognition could not destroy the son's membership in the family; although socially it would operate to work a serious injustice against him. In the same way it is spiritually impossible for a true congregation of the church of God to deprive a member of his spiritual membership, even by error; but they might, through ignorance, work a great injustice upon him socially. By the same rule, an unsaved person cannot be a member of a local congregation of Christ's church, even though all the members recognize him as such.

Dr. Lee : "The general, invisible church as above is one and only one everywhere, while there may be two or more local visible churches in the same place. If all Christians in a given place necessarily constituted the church of that place, there could be but one church in a place, and that would be necessarily and absolutely one and indivisible.

" This would involve several difficulties. In an evenly populated country, it would be impossible to fix any limits to a church, for there would be no one place of distinctly marked limits, less than the whole territory. It is not to be presumed that the artificial civil divisions, such as States, counties, and towns, are particularly regarded by the Holy Ghost in the organization of the church of Jesus Christ, distributing Christians in churches of different places, precisely according to these civil divisions of a country. It must therefore appear certain that no limits can be set to a church, if all the Christians of a given place are members of the church of that place without being recognized or received by the church. Who can tell where, in the mind of God, one place ends and another begins,

" Suppose an island six miles square to be inhabited by Christians; it is said they constitute the church of that island. Well, suppose the island to be twenty miles long and ten broad, evenly populated by Christians; do they all still constitute the one church of that island? If not, how many churches are there, If all Christians are members of the church of their place or vicinity, without reference to formal reception or visible organization, by what rule can you determine how many churches there are on the island, and precisely where the lines run which divide them one from another,

"If there is still but one church, suppose the island to be a hundred miles long, and it cannot be pretended that there is but one church, unless it be contended that the world contains but one church. How then are we to determine how many churches there are on the island, and where the lines run that divide them, without reference to visible organization?

"It is impossible. Take a real case: There was a church at Corinth, and another at Cenchrea, which was near to the former place—Cenchrea being a seaport of Corinth. There all the Christians in the same vicinity did not belong to the same church. But who can tell to which church those belonged, who lived half way between Corinth and Cenchrea, which were but a few miles distant from each other, if all Christians are members of the church of their respective places, without reception or reference to visible organization ? "

Answer : All along the good doctor is arguing that the spiritual church and the local church are two separate entities, while I am arguing that the local church must be a part of the spiritual church or it is no real true church at all.

Doubtless the Holy Ghost is not interested in the civil divisions of States and counties; therefore in the ease of an island six miles square there might be, if the church were in unity, fifteen hundred or two thousand congregations—if the island were thickly populated such as New York City and there were many Christians. Again, if the island were thinly populated, there might not be more than four or five churches. Moreover, these Christians would, according to the liberty in Christ, each belong to whichever congregation he found it convenient and desirable to attend. He might, if conditions were not normal, even have to go somewhat out of his way and put himself to some inconvenience to reach that congregation which would ungrudgingly give him the recognition which was his rightful due, and which another congregation might unjustly withhold from him.

Again he might go out of his way in order to maintain old ties of fellowship with other Christians which had been made years ago; and whose maintenance represented a distinct value to his spiritual life. He might even go out of his way to enjoy the ministry of a faithful pastor, who was capable of being a special spiritual benefit to him.

In other words, the question we are answering is based upon a mechanical and formal conception of worldly human organization; and the church membership we are thinking of is a spiritual affair which knows no boundaries of time nor space.

I dare say that the Christians of Corinth attended the congregation of Corinth; but if there had been a brother who formerly worshiped at Cenchrea and finally moved into Corinth, and if that brother found that the brethren whom he had long known at Cenchrea were better able to understand and help him, and if he found it physically possible to make the trips to enjoy their fellowship, then I venture the assertion that he would still continue to be a member of the church at Cenchrea, even though now residing at Corinth. There is no mechanical rule for such things. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8: 36).

The doctor assumes that if the church is in unity that it must have only one congregation in a place, or at least a minimum of congregations; and that is the entire force of his question here, while, as a matter of fact, if the church were in unity the church might have—conceivably, though not likely—as many congregations as there are at present. It is even conceivable that it might have more, as there is much which may be said for the small congregation for the development of the Christian life. But the point is that all these congregations would be in unity; and one spirit and life would animate them all. Normally each minister would be eligible to preach in every pulpit, on the proper identification and invitation; and each Christian would be potentially a member of every congregation without joining, but merely by producing reasonable proof that he is a Christian, thus making his recognition normally inevitable.

The question next arises of how we may discharge our duty as Christians in carrying out those complex operations necessary for the propagation of the gospel at home and abroad, such as: maintaining regular houses and seasons of worship, Sunday school, colleges, home and foreign missions, etc., without sectarian organization of the Christian church.

It seems childish to assert that denominational divisions in the church are necessary in order to promote such works. While the Bible gives us no warrant for organizing the church itself as a human corporation, it does justify us in organizing the operative agencies of the church, such as the deacons of Jerusalem, the committee for the relief of the poor at Jerusalem, previously mentioned.

This is Scriptural authority for the organization of a board of trustees, who shall have charge of the business matters connected with the maintenance of a house of public worship. Such an organization need not be a sect any more than a board of trustees for a museum or library, as they do not claim to be the church, but only to represent the church.

They represent the church by being elected by those persons who are recognized as being members of the church. If among those persons there are some false professors, this does not annul the feet that they are chosen of the church, provided that the number of unsaved is not excessive, just as the participation of a few undetected aliens in a municipal election does not make the election null and void.

The example of the choosing of the church agencies, in the ancient church is also good authority for or ganizing publishing houses, missionary boards, college trustees, and such committees. These act for th church, and can be controlled just as easily without sectarian organization of the church as with it.

Dr. Lee pleads that the gospel requires us to maintain rational and pure fellowship; but finally admit himself that Christian fellowship inevitably extend beyond the limits of denominational walls. Organizing ourselves into a division is a poor way to maintain pure fellowship.

Dr. Lee : "Nearly allied to the duty of maintaining Christian fellowship is that of keeping ourselves separate from sinners. We are commanded to 'con out from among them,' and to 'be separate' .... This cannot be obtained but by a visible organization into which persons are received, and from which the are excluded, not only in fact, but in the use of SOD visible form."

Answer : Although I have eliminated some of the doctor's verbiage, I have, nevertheless, preserved the force of his argument, conscientiously. The plea for denominational organization on the basis of a desire for separation from worldly persons is almost pathetic [199] in its absurdity at the present time. What large denomination is there today which dares to exclude from its fellowship every person who is manifestly not an active Christian! I think it is no exaggeration to say that most church records would shrink fully 75 per cent if all the names were removed except those who were active and devoted in the Lord's work; or, let us say, those who give such evidence of unworldliness as to make their profession of Christianity soundly convincing.

This is not to be read as a scathing denunciation. Sadly it describes an indifferent and lukewarm condition of Christianity which is no occasion for boasting by any holier than thou fanatic; but rather does it call for heart searching and prayer by all earnest and serious Christians from every denomination.

It cannot be denied, however, that it does negative very seriously any argument for denominational divisions for the nurture of Christian fellowship, whereas as a matter of fact, Christian fellowship would be greatly enriched and enhanced if the truly pious in all communions were so placed that they could get together in one simple, undivided Christian fellowship such as was that of the apostolic church. Under those conditions they would develop a spiritual atmosphere which would cause the lukewarm professors to get converted and the worldly, cold ones would either get in or get out.

Is not such a division between the church and the world sadly needed ? And is this not really what the apostle meant by his command to come out from among them instead of meaning to say that we should build up human corporations where the unsaved should come to have as much authority as the saved; and finally to drive them out,

Seldom, if ever, would wicked persons seek to intrude into a spiritual church. But in such a ease the church has only to ask whether such a person is in feet a member of the church. If he should produce evidence that deceives them for a time, they are not then any worse off than a denominational body, which holds many of such names f or years. But inasmuch as fellowship and recognition are living realities instead of some cold, official thing on a book, it is much more likely that they will finally come to detect his wickedness and withdraw fellowship in this way than if his name had to be acted upon officially to remove it. Experience teaches that the latter method is extremely ineffective nowadays. I dare say that more Americans die in polar explorations in a decade than are excluded from all the large denominations put together within the same length of time.

It will be said that the kingdom of heaven is like a net which caught good and bad fishes, which are not to be separated till the end of the world (Matt. 13: 47-49); or like wheat and tares sowed in the same field (Matt. 13: 2430, 38-39) but of which the tares are not to be separated till the end of the world.

The kingdom of heaven here means something wider than the spiritual church of God; and includes all those who have come under the influence of the gospel sufficiently to make them seek the company of the saved in their assemblies and probably often to profess Christianity. These persons are not to be unnecessarily and harshly driven away, especially while there is any chance to save them. There is plenty of other Scriptural authority for pulling those tares up whenever they become so notorious as to make it necessary for the credit of the church to do so. " Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person" (I Cor. 5: 13).

The church might be better illustrated by the wealthy family of the Rothchilds. This great family had establishments in Frankfort, Germany; London, England; Naples, Italy; Vienna, Austria; and Paris, France; besides many other branches in Europe and America.

Now, let us suppose that a Rothchild from Germany arrives in London late one evening, and goes to a hotel. The London Rothchilds do not even know that he is in London. Does that make him not a Rothchild? Perhaps none of them have ever seen him, so when he shows up at headquarters next day they refuse to recognize him. Does that annul his family relationship? Is he not just as much a Rothchild as ever? To be sure his privileges are seriously curtailed; and doubtless the London Rothchilds have done him an injustice. But he is a member of the family just the same. No doubt he will be able to get together sufficient evidence to identify himself; then they will recognize him. Remember, they will not make him a member of the Rothchild family—for he is already that—but they will recognize him for what he is.

But when they have recognized him, that does not make him a member of any of their banks or corporations. These are business organizations, just like a missionary society or college board. Being a Rothchild makes him eligible for those; but being born makes him a member of the family. So far as the family is concerned all the organizing is done by the fact of birth into the family.

This analogy is so plain that I hesitate to expound it. The Rothchild family represents the church of God into which people are born by the new birth. The fundamental fallacy of denominationalism is the theory that you cannot be a member of the literal, visible family except by joining some artificial corporation or human organization, whereas the visible church on earth is composed of those who are the true children of God. The Spirit of God organizes them as a church; and they merely recognize one another as members of the church without pretending to take them into that body into which the Lord has already taken them.