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The Inevitable Logic

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 22, 1907

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 34.

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The Inevitable Logic

By J. S. Washburn

J. S. WASHBURN
RECENTLY there has been advanced among us the theory that each church is an independent unit. Now all must recognize it to be a fact that the logic of this theory is utter disintegration; that it means a complete separation down to the individual atom, if matter can really be thus sifted to the ultimate unit.
The universe is one creation, and is under the control of one God. There is a unity running through it all. If it be correct that a few men may band together, and become independent of all others, logically it must be true that one man may and should be independent of all other men. Considering man as consisting of different organs, why not then each organ independent of others? For the Scripture plainly teaches that Christ is our head, the head of the body, the church, and that we are members of his body, and of his flesh, and of his bones, and that we are members also one of another.
While I belong to the church in Nashville, yet I am related and in a measure responsible to every church-member, not only in the United States, but in this world; and I am also related and responsible to every angel in heaven, and to every inhabitant of every other world in the universe of God.
If a church of ten may be independent, so may a church of two; and why not each individual? and why not every organ of every man's body? This ultimately means, and can logically be nothing else than, the separation of every atom of matter in the universe from every other atom. This is Satan's logic, the logic of separation, the logic of the breaking up of physical organization; and this logic is utter ruin, death, earth to earth, dust to dust.
No! ten thousand times no! There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Spirit, one hope. We are all one in the Lord. While the servant of the Lord is thus responsible, yet he is left free. It is a wonderful apparent paradox that he who is the servant of the Lord is the only free man. But this freedom does not mean difference, contest, separation, independence, an independent congregation, or an independent man. It means individuality, and yet a blended mutual responsibility.
Remember the prayer of the Lord and Saviour under the very shadow of the horror of great darkness in Gethsemane, and just before the awful crucifixion: “Holy Father, keep through thine own name, those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.”
Nashville, Tenn.