The Ancient Order by C. O. Taylor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 19, 1872

The Ancient Order.

By C. O. Taylor

The following I copy from the writings of William Kinkade, written some forty-five years ago. The article is headed, “Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.”

“When I speak of the ancient order, I mean the order of the New Testament; one inch short of that will not satisfy me. In that book, the church is called the body of Christ. ‘And gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body.’ Eph. 1:22, 23. ‘Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.’ 1 Cor. 12:27. ‘Of this body, Christ is the head; the members in particular are the various members of the church, possessing different spiritual gifts. Its principle of life is the Holy Spirit, by which the whole body was brought into existence, is regulated, and kept in action. Hence, Paul says, ‘For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.’ 1 Cor. 12:8–12.”

“Paul considers these different spiritual gifts as being, each in its place, as necessary and useful to the church as the different members of the human body are to a man. Hence, he says, ‘If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?’ ‘And if they were all one member, where were the body?’ Verses 17, 19. The government, or discipline, of the church was, among the primitive Christians, administered by divinely inspired men, whom God placed in the church, each one in his proper order. Hence, Paul says, ‘And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.’ Verse 28.”

“This is the ancient order of things. Every one opposed to this is opposed to primitive Christianity. To say God caused these gifts to cease, is the same as to say God has abolished the order of the New-Testament church. To say it is not the privilege of Christians in the present day to belong to such a church, is the same as to say it is not our privilege to be members of Christ’s spiritual body, because the church here described ‘is the body of Christ.’ To divest the church of all these spiritual gifts, would be to take from the body of Christ the senses of hearing, smelling, seeing, &c. To say these miraculous gifts are not necessary nor useful to the church in the present day, would be as absurd as to say eyes, ears, hands, &c., are not useful to a man. To say we only need one of these gifts, viz., faith, would be to reduce all the members to one. Then, ‘If all were one member, where were the body?’”

“In Eph. 4:11–16, Paul describes the church thus, ‘And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,’ &c.”

“From this passage we learn two things relative to the primitive church: first, that their ministers were the special gifts of God, and secondly, that those ministers were part of Christ’s body, were given to unite the saints in faith and love, guard them against wavering, and enable them to edify themselves in love. If infinite wisdom saw those gifts were necessary to make the church perfect in that day, who has authority to say the church can be perfect without them in the present day? Surely, the church has as great need of being united, built up, and established, in the present day, as it then had. These gifts constitute the ancient order of things. If the church is perfect without them, she must have been very imperfect with them, because they were members of Christ’s spiritual body; and if that body is perfect without them, they must have been redundant; and superfluous members always render a body imperfect. If a child should be born with two heads and four legs, we should call it an imperfect child. We have not such a church as the primitive Christians had; they had too many spiritual gifts, or else we have not enough.”

Eld. Kinkade very ably answers the common objections urged against the restoration of the ancient order of things.

C. O. TAYLOR.