The Sociology of Jesus Christ

“Be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.”—Matthew 23:8-12

THE rise of denominationalism in the Christian church is a phenomenon which never had the approval of Jesus Christ, and it was a matter of serious warning by the apostles; for the spirit of sectarianism, even if only in a small degree, was evidenced in the days of the Apostle Paul. In his letter to the church at Corinth, he states that “a spirit of contention within the community has arisen,” and he solemnly warns them to avoid factionalism.—I Cor. 1:11, paraphrase

“I appeal to you, [Paul says] in the common name we bear, that of Jesus Christ, that you agree on matters of faith and doctrine and all of you teach the same thing, so that there are no divisions among you, but rather that you are a complete whole, of the same mind and judgment. I am told you are quarrelsome, and that you take party names, as for instance some of you claim to be followers of Paul, some to follow Peter, Simile Apollos, and some claim to follow Christ. Is Christ, then, divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I am glad I didn’t have the baptizing of you or perhaps you would be saying that I did it in ray own name. However, when I came to you I didn’t come to baptize but to preach the Gospel, and certainly not with any assumption of superior wisdom for fear that you would miss the important thing, the cross of Christ, in hearing merely sounding phrases.

“To foolish people this doctrine of salvation through the blood of Christ means nothing, but to us who rely on that sacrifice for salvation, it is the power of God. Just consider this matter of wisdom for a moment. One of old time wrote: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ Anyway, what profit is there in being so worldly wise; in writing out minute catalogs of the Law; in disputing over every detail? God has made all this useless, because by these things the world has forgotten God, or argued him out of existence.

“Now we come, after you so wisely have discarded God, and preach a new revelation of him in Jesus Christ, and through this simple-mindedness some people believe and are saved. What do we preach? Christ crucified! And what happens? Jews who hear this preaching cannot rid their minds and hearts of the teachings of Moses and substitute the one sacrifice of Christ for the many of their faith founded in the Law, and so they reject salvation through obstinacy.

“Gentiles who hear us look on the whole thing as simple-mindedness, because it isn’t clever, as their philosophies claimed to be. But there is a class of people, a called-out class, both of Jews and Gentiles, who recognize in Christ a revelation of the power and wisdom of God, because the simplicity, the straightforwardness, of this Gospel message which comes from God is, in the end, greater than all worldly wisdom; and this weakness of our teaching, presenting the words of a humble Galilean prophet to your consideration is, in the end, stronger than anything that can be opposed to it.

“Now look at yourselves, you whom Christ calls brethren, and see the proofs of my words. What sort of people are you? Very few of you are men of influence in the world; very few of you hold high positions, or possess any great wisdom, or are among the nobility and gentry. Why? Because God will prove to everybody that by being too smart, too wise, they can miss the really important thing in life, and he is going to do this by rewarding honesty of heart, rather than smartness of intellect. Yes, he will even take the things the world despises and considers low (observe what was done with Jesus, made to die the death of the worst sort of criminal!), and with those things, worked on by his Holy Spirit, he will bring down everything which has elevated itself by mere worldly wisdom, ignoring God’s commands. And he will do this so that mankind will never be able to say, ‘Look what we have done just by our own power and wisdom. We didn’t need God!’”—I Corinthians, chap. 1, paraphrase

Factionalism, the following of human leaders or the slavish adoption of specific ideas not scripturally supported, leads inevitably to mental arrogance. First, it fosters a spirit of contention, for the pride that provokes the attitude, “This is MY idea and because it IS my idea it must be right and all different ideas, wrong,” must constantly defend the position against all that assail it.

Once entrenched, mental and spiritual prides are among the most difficult wrong ideas to dislodge. There are men living today who profess in the face of much natural evidence to the contrary, to believe that the earth is flat. Such people never travel. If they did, and, for example, if they circumnavigated the globe, it is doubtful that they could hold to the theory. But so long as their ideas are not submitted to actual physical proof, they propound their philosophy with enthusiasm.

So with the worldly-wise in matters of religion. So with denominational adherents in the matter of their particular brand of belief. Only complete honesty of heart can help a factionally-minded person to recognize the folly of contending for the greater importance of the part as against the whole. For it is a fact that with all the larger denominations into which the so-called Christian church is today divided, their individual basis of contention is merely the part of a complete whole which, if they would reason the matter out, testing every point with the truth of God’s Word and bringing it into conformity there-with, they could to their own great advantage exchange the part for the whole, and achieve unity in the body of Christ.

The major divisions of the church in the early centuries of the Christian era were three: Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and the Coptic. Later in history, revolt against the domination of the consciences and the bodies of the individual members by the Roman Church brought about certain reforms. Those reforms prospered for a time, but in most cases. shortly after the death of the reformer, the movement he founded broke up under the heat of factionalism and the spiritual pride Of would-be leaders, and to a great. extent nullified itself.

In this manner progressed, or, it were better perhaps to say, continued the reforming wave started by Martin Luther. Its results were spectacular and for a time threatened the continuation of Rome as a strong power in the church. However, through various natural causes, complicated by the jealousies of rival reformers each contending for some private interpretation of a particular doctrine, the strength of the separatist movement within the Roman Church was dissipated, and Rome recovered some of the ground she had lost. Never, after the tremendous blows dealt her spiritual arrogance and worldly power by Luther, did Rome become the world-dominating power she had formerly been.

In the past three hundred years the growth of Protestant churches has been remarkable. They multiply as do some forms of animal life, by fission. That is, the parent body splits off part of itself which becomes a separate entity, and these “children” follow the same process, producing, in course of time, scores, and hundreds of denominations.

Well might Paul pose the question, “Is Christ divided?” The small evidence of the results of factional thinking of his day have become, in our day, a grotesque monster of disunion and anarchy in the nominal “body of Christ” The grounds on which these splits occur, today as always, are spiritual pride, desire for leadership, and domination over the consciences of men.

In recent years various attempts have been made to bring about physical unity of many dissenting bodies with the ultimate objective of producing out of all this conflict of opinions one great world church. Even a casual acquaintance with the plain and obvious teachings of Jesus Christ should be sufficient to show that such physical union could produce nothing possessing spiritual life.

Examining the record of such attempts, the reasons for failure are so glaring as to cry aloud for recognition. A simple comparison of the aims of such “peacemakers” with the truth revealed by Christ as to what constituted fellowship, brotherhood, with him, reveals instantly the basic weakness of all such attempts.

Today in most of the denominational churches there is a shibboleth which is thought to express the true Christian spirit: the fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man. In this phrase modern religionists attempt to sum up the factors which must be recognized by all men who would find union in Christ. Nothing could be more wrongly stated.

God is not the Father, in the sense in which the phrase is used, of mankind. Among people of the earth, brotherhood in Christ is not simply a matter of tolerance and simple good will, but can only apply to those who hold such relationship on the terms set forth in the Scriptures. Christ said himself that he came not to send peace upon earth, but a sword, implying thereby that his message, his teaching, for the most part would not unite but divide. And this thought he emphasized on many occasions, stating without equivocation that one must be prepared to leave father and mother, husband and wife, lands, wealth, home, children, and sacrifice reputation, position, power—give up everything, in fact, to follow him.

These admonitions were not addressed to peoples, to nations, but to individuals. The call of Christ to those who were to be his followers was never addressed to multitudes but to persons. Thus, in the society of his day, his demands did not promote peace and concord, but rather created resentment and even hatred on the part of the uninstructed against those who heard the call and followed it. Today the results are identical.

Jesus, in his personal contact with people, preached a very definite doctrine of separation. He preached and ministered only to Jews, his own people, for their days of favor as the chosen people were not yet ended. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” as a people—although individuals did—hence he proclaimed the end of divine favor to the Jewish nation—“Your house is left unto you desolate”—and the opening of a new and living way of salvation to individuals, not only for the nation of Israel, but of the heathen (Gentile) peoples also—“For all, to be testified in due time.”—John 1:11; Matt. 23:38; I Tim. 2:6

The peculiar effect of his preaching was to separate people from their national religious opinions and change the direction of their thinking. The “respectable” religion of Jesus’ day was the accepted worship based on the Law Covenant which God had made with the ancestors of the people, and had presented to them through Moses. Consequently, any who appeared to be different from the majority were regarded askance by those whose interests it was to keep the established religion intact.

Over the centuries the worship of Israel had been badly polluted by careless teachers who considered the requirements of the Law of less effect than was stated in the canon. The prophecies of Malachi late in the history of the nation show to what a pass affairs had come. “Where is mine honor? … saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. … Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? … Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness! … and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; … should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord. But cursed be the deceiver, … for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts.”—Malachi 1:6-14

Such had become the condition in the religious life of Israel, when even the priests offering sacrifice for the people had become careless and corrupt, and were willing to accept from the people, and offer to God, things which were imperfect, diseased, and unfit. These offerings of Israel were types, pictures, of the offerings to be made by Christians in their day. Not literal animals, or cakes, or birds, or wine were to be presented to God by Christians, but the heart interests represented by those things. “Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit [curbed and directed spirit]: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”—Psa. 51:16,17

For many years the tendency in the nominal Christian church has been to get away from the uncompromising spirit of Christ and to make allowances for man’s inability to keep perfectly an exacting law. It has been overlooked or ignored that this inability on man’s part was fully known to God and he was well able to make his own allowances where such were needed.

But the history of apostate Christianity from the days of the apostles until now has been a history of compromise and accommodation, from the enlarging of the faith in the early days of the church to permit the inclusion of the festivals of heathen ritual given the gloss of Christianity by appointing such days as honoring this or that saint, to the present still larger widening to permit the inclusion of the undiluted spirit of the world, and to that same extent the exclusion of the spirit of Christ.

The accepted idea of the function of a church today is that it must have a constant program of good works in which its members may be allowed to indulge themselves. There can be no criticism of good works in themselves, and no constraint should be put upon anyone’s desire to practice them. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Churches of Galatia, says: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal. 6:2) This scripture has been used many times to justify the idea that we should busy ourselves in social service. However, a glance at the preceding verse will indicate that it is not this which Paul is speaking of at all. Note the admonition in verse 1, which reads, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”

It is not social service of which Paul speaks, but spiritual assistance to be given to a weak member of the church who has been tempted away from the paths of righteousness. The burden of such a one is not to be scorned or ignored, but the weight of, it must be assumed by the church, and the one at fault helped back to full spiritual life, yet the responsibility is not removed from such a one, as Paul further states.

“Every man shall bear his own burden.” (Vs. 5) It cannot be saddled onto the shoulders of the church and disposed of with no further responsibility attaching to the one at fault. Paul continues, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption [spiritual decay]; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”—Vss. 7,8

Paul puts this entire matter on a spiritual plane. Good works are to be performed in the way of giving all possible spiritual aid, comfort, and encouragement to fellow Christians—brethren in Christ. Their bodily wants and needs are to be taken care of also, within reason, as shown by other statements of both the apostles and our Lord himself. But here the matter is one within the church, and of particular reference to the church’s function. Paul broadens the scope of the aid that may be given by body members of Christ without, however, changing his venue. “As we have therefore opportunity,” he says, “let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”—Vs. 10

In this exhortation is no commendation of the church going out into the world, adopting worldly tactics, and assuming worldly burdens. Here is no emphasis on making the church attractive by the use of worldly devices—game rooms, ball teams, entertainments, and a full round of social activity and social service. Paul assumes in all his letters to the churches of his day that they are in the church for one purpose only, that of following Christ in the same way that Christ followed the will of His Father—as he expresses it in his letter to the Hebrews: “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”—Heb. 12:1,2

It is obvious that the true brethren in Christ were associated with him in more than name only. They needed no constant enticement to remain interested in the contract they had made to be faithful followers of their Lord—a contract which had called, on their side, for a voluntary and complete giving up of all worldly interests, in accordance with the scriptural injunction:

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”—Romans 12:1,2

This was not a call to a dilettante interest in things of God. It was a call to personal sacrifice and personal responsibility, not dependent upon any earthly interest, or the titillation of ephemeral emotions. Things of earth faded into insignificance before the grand hope held out to those who faithfully fulfilled their side of the contract. On God’s side he promised the “joy” which was the incentive to the faithful performance on Jesus’ part—the gift of eternal life in the presence of the Father. This reward was given to Jesus after his resurrection and ascension, when he “appeared in the presence of God for us,” and became part of the hope of the glorified church.—Heb. 9:24

The evidence of Christ’s victory over the “world,” and over the sin and death which rule in the world, was the empty tomb, symbol of his resurrection in power and glory. This resurrection became another part of the glorious hope of the sanctified church. Paul writing to the saints and brethren in Christ at Colosse, exhorts them to faithfulness and perseverance in their efforts to earn this great reward:

“As ye have received Jesus Christ the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and by the mercies of God, that ye stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught. … Beware,” he continues, “lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments or elements of the world, and not after Christ. … [Ye are] buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.”—Col. 2:6-12

“Let no man beguile [cheat] you of your reward in a willing humiliation of your minds and an undue and wholesome subservience to those claiming a special position as messengers to [pastors of] the church, intruding into those things he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not recognizing the Head, from which all the body receives nourishment. If you are dead with Christ to all worldly principles and ideas, why are you subject to worldly methods and commands? If you are risen with Christ, seek the heavenly things. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. You are dead [to the world] and your life [as part of his new creation, his new. nation, his spiritual church] is hid with Christ in God, and when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”—Col. 2:18 – 3:4, paraphrase

Notice in these quotations from the great exegete of the Scriptures, how Paul warns the Christians of his day against a condition which has become virtually the sign manual of the church of our day—the exaggerated respect which the “laity” are expected to pay to the “clergy.” In England of an earlier day and up to the beginning of this century, in fact, in the deepest parts of the agricultural lands of the country, it was a commonplace, and an expected sight, to see the simple country folk doff their hats and stand in a bowed and submissive attitude before the two great men of the community—the local squire and the local parson or priest. To the one, because he exercised power over their bodies; and to the other, because of the ingrained belief that he possessed power over their souls, the common man made almost literal obeisance—he gave “a willing humiliation of mind and an undue and unwholesome subservience to those claiming the special position of messenger [pastor].”

Christ says. “Call no man Rabbi [master, teacher]; … all ye are brethren.” Neither he nor the apostles ever expected that among themselves there should be more than a proper respect for one another, based on their common union in Christ. To such as they appointed of themselves as teachers, elders, guides, there was to continue to be this same respect, but nowhere in the teachings of Christ or the apostles can be found any endorsement of a policy of giving to them any acknowledgment of their holding a “supreme” position among “inferior” laymen.

The whole exaggeration of respect beyond reason for the priestly office stems from the false claims to power, position, and authority made primarily by the Bishops of Rome, and adopted all too freely into nonconforming denominations during and following the Reformation.

As a result of this false elevation of a clergy class, the tendency has been for the “laity” to leave in the hands of this professed superior order of Christians the care of their “souls”—in spite of God’s plain statement that “no man may be a ransom [a redeemer] for his brother.”—Psa. 49:7

One of the most powerful of the denominations requires its adherents to consider their consciences as in the keeping of the church, and claims power to cleanse or punish them, with divine approval, for various classes of sins. Such power, or rather such assumption of power, is nowhere authorized or approved by Christ or his apostles; rather, when it showed itself in the primitive church it was roundly condemned. Paul, addressing the church at Corinth, notes this tendency on the part of the leaders there and says, speaking of the divisions, the denominational spirit, which was becoming apparent in that church:

“It has been declared unto me … that there are contentions among you—that you are saying among yourselves, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Peter, I follow Christ. Is Christ then divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? I could not address you as spiritually-minded people, but as worldly-minded, because you are not able to understand really spiritual matters, for are you not worldly-minded when these divisions and this strife divide you?

“When one of you claims to follow Paul and another claims to follow Apollos, what is that but worldly-mindedness? Who is Paul, who is Apollos, but ministers [servants] who brought you the truth of God’s word and helped you to believe, even as the Lord gave to everyone? I planted, Apollos watered the seed of the Word, but God gave the increase, so that the planter and the waterer are nothing, but God is everything. The planter and the waterer are one [equal in service] and everyone will receive his reward according to how well he has performed his part of the service, for we are laborers together with God. Let us so be accounted of as of servants of Christ, stewards, not masters, of the mysteries of God. So why do you have differences on these matters? What do you have that wasn’t given to you? and if it was given to you what have you to be puffed up about as if it was something you had discovered for yourselves? You seem to think you have cause for pride, that you know everything, that you are rich and may reign as kings in the sight of others. I would to God that you were reigning so that I might reign with you, but it seems to me that we apostles are the last to receive honors—for we are a spectacle continually to the world, fools in their eyes, because we follow Christ. But you! You use Christ and the Christian faith to enhance your personal glory; we are weak, but you are strong; you expect to receive honor, while we are despised. We hunger and thirst, are naked and beaten, have no place we can call home; we work with our hands to support ourselves, and are cursed, for which we return a blessing. We are treated as filth, the lowest of the low. I don’t mention these things to shame you, but as a warning.”—I Cor: 1:11-13; 3:3-9; 4:1-14, paraphrase

In this searching dissertation on the folly of the churches, Paul strikes at the root of one of the greatest evils in the church, perhaps as true today as in the day it was written. Paul contrasts his, and his fellow apostles’ condition—despised, rejected, reviled, laughed, at, for their faithfulness to their divine call to preach Christ and him crucified—with the smug self-righteousness that was creeping into the wealthier—in so far as this world’s goods were concerned—churches of his day.

Sacrifice, and plain, solid service had lost their appeal as marks of the Christ-followers in Corinth. Corinth was an educational center in Greece, a place where many schools of heathen philosophy were located, and the spirit of futile argument and contention common in the schools of platonic philosophy had infiltrated into the Christian church.

It hurt the pride of the Corinthian Greeks to feel in any way inferior as philosophers to the heathen schools, so they assumed a position and a power to which they had no right, in competition with the respected schools of their day. Paul recognized the danger, and in his sharp reproof shows them some comparisons. “You think you are too good, too high, to serve Christ as he served his brethren. Look at me! I work at manual labor to earn my living and preach the suffering Christ, demonstrating in my own life his spirit of sacrifice. But not you! You want your honors now. You can’t wait to receive your reward at God’s hands.”

Today the denominational churches have followed the pattern of Corinth. The multiplicity of dignities and titles, the stepladders to high positions of preference in these churches, are an invention of the adversary of God, who showed what befell him as the end result of ambition—ambition to rule.

And to the extent that we lend a willing humiliation of mind, and give undue subservience to those who claim, without divine authority, position of overlordship, who desire to “reign” in the church, we do violence to Christ’s admonition, “Neither be ye called masters, for one is your Master, even Christ.”

No Christian is anything of himself. This can be considered as axiomatic of the Christian faith. One who is dead to the world and “raised in newness of life” is so raised by a power greater than himself. A new creature is not self-created. He is a “new creature in Christ Jesus.” Thus his life as a Christian is completely dependent on the Spirit of Christ which animates him. In this is no cause for self-glorification, for “if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.”—Gal. 6:3

It is wise to remember that the admonitions of Jesus Christ to his followers apply to all of his followers—to those appointed as “pastors of the flock” equally with those who are too often somewhat disparagingly referred to as laymen, or the laity. In the matter of acceptability to Christ there is no such division of the church as clergy and laity, for no man has pre-eminence above another in the family of Christ—“All ye are brethren.” And this automatically emphasizes a point previously made in this article, that in the body of Christ there is equality of responsibility as well as equality of recognition.

The most honored bishop of the church can receive at the hands of God no greater acceptance than the humblest parishioner, supposing each to be faithful to the divine will. It is well to remember the words of Jesus on this matter of the relativity of the acceptance of God of the heartfelt desire of a sincere worshiper in the parable he told:

“Two men,” he said, “went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.” (Luke 18:10) It is well to pause a moment to note why Jesus used these two types to point his story. The Pharisees were the most meticulously strict observers of the minutiae of the Jewish Law, considered by themselves, and presented to the people as a particularly holy class. The publicans, on the contrary, were, in Jewish eyes, the most utterly debased of all Israelites, being, as they were, willing tools of the Roman conquerors in the exaction of customs, dues, and general tribute in all the country’s commerce. They were regarded as apostates and defiled through their constant association with their heathen lords, and were utterly obnoxious to the Jew generally. Yet they were Jews, and of the chosen people of God. Jesus continues:

“The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men, … or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all I possess [to the temple]. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.”—Luke 18:11-13

The Pharisee was full of spiritual pride—pride in possessions, pride in position, pride in his observance of ritual. The publican, overwhelmed with a conviction of his own littleness, pleaded only for mercy from God. Did Jesus honor the self-righteous one? This is what he says: “I tell you, this man [the publican] went down to his house justified rather than the other [the Pharisee]: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”—Luke 18:14

When Jesus gave a code of laws and of living to his followers they were obligatory upon all who chose to take his name and follow him. Continually Jesus points out the necessity of self-abasement before God, never to man, as a prerequisite to reward. With his own disciples, who acknowledged him as Master and Lord, it was He who took the basin of water. and it was their feet which he washed, to illustrate his instruction to them that “he who would be greatest among you shall be servant of all.”

Continually throughout the New Testament we are confronted with the inescapable fact of personal responsibility toward the law of Christ. Once assumed, this responsibility demands full time and attention to the business of being a Christian; not, however, as it was interpreted in the Middle Ages in the monastic system of living, cut off from the world behind stone walls and subject to a regimen of obligatory prayers and penances—a method still in vogue in one church today—but by setting one’s mind upon the things of the kingdom, laying up treasures in heaven rather than upon earth, summed up by the apostle in the words: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”—Phil. 2:5. See also I Cor. 2:16; II Cor. 13:11; Eph. 4:22-24

We must remain in the world subject to the powers that be as regards our daily living, but by our common union in the mystic body of Christ we must separate and withdraw from its associations. “In the world, but not of it,” in accordance with the Master’s great prayer for his disciples: “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the Evil One [Diaglott]. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”—John 17:15,16

The Apostle John, in his later years, dwelt much on the need for increased measure of the animating spirit of the church—love. His letters to the churches are filled with the spirit of the Master, urging the body members to put aside every consideration, every form of carnal controversy, that love for one another and for their Head might be their one controlling motive.

“My little children …,” he writes, “love not the world, neither the things in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”—I John 2:1,15,16

James expresses the same thought in stronger language: “Why do you quarrel among yourselves? It is because you have stiff-necked opinions about what you should have, and so strongly do you hold to them that you would kill one another spiritually to obtain your own ends. You pray to God to give you the things you want and he doesn’t answer your prayers because you ask for the wrong things. Don’t you know that you cannot adopt the ways of the world and be in harmony with God? Anyone who is a friend of the world is an enemy of God!”—James 4:1-4, paraphrase

For a Christian to recognize these admonitions as applying to himself personally, and to seek to heed them, is to cut himself off from much worldly pleasure. There can be no prominent social position for such a person, no high honors such as the world gives its heroes. There can be no acquisition of great wealth or power in the world, for only by using sordid worldly means can such things be acquired. Truly a Christian today who earnestly tries to live up to his covenant of sacrifice has, little to look forward to from the world. The Apostle John saw this and comments on it: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.”—I John 3:1

The state of society for his consecrated followers which Jesus established during his ministry is the same today. His teaching in the days of his flesh separated his followers from the world of that day, separated the Jew from his religion and his law, the heathen from his idols; but in place of those things gave them access to a closer bond of union as between themselves, a new hope of a glorious heritage, a promise of a wider sphere of power in helping the whole world of mankind back to perfection, joy, peace, and happiness in the future.

Such was the sociological teaching of Christ. Such may be the position of those who elect to follow him along the pathway of sacrifice in search of that glorious prize which he offers to all those who overcome the world as he overcame it—“the prize of the high calling of God”—the “crown of glory.” (Phil. 3:14; I Pet. 5:4) On leaving this subject let it be with one sure conviction—that in Christ all men are one new man, as Paul puts it, all thought is one thought, for there is no cleavage in the body or in the spirit of Christ.—Eph. 2:15; I Pet. 3:8

The ancient wisdom that came from God was made articulate in Christ—that the bonds of peace are found in the unity of the body of Christ. Those things which divide are of the flesh—personal opinions—the pronouncements of men’s ego, the demands of little minds which require that others agree with their theories. These “cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine.” Of such beware. (Rom. 16:17; I Cor. 1:10) In genuine unity in Christ is found the true essence of the brotherhood which he preached and which his disciples lived. This unity—based on the pure teachings of the inspired Word—was not divided when mistakes were made, but was the closer knit when mistakes were acknowledged.

This was a truth of the early apostles, and is still a truth for the Christians of today. Well had John, in his old age, learned the true application of the doctrines of the divine plan to be “that ye love one another.”—John 13:34; 15:12; I John 3:11; 4:7,11; II John 5

It was for this unity in faith and love that Jesus petitioned his Father when he prayed in the garden for his disciples as he saw, looming in the darkness, the shadow of the cross that was so soon to be the altar of the completion of his sacrifice: “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. … I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me … I pray for them. … Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: … that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me, … that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them.”—John 17:4,8,9,20,21-26

—Contributed

| Home Page | Table of Contents |