The Church-The Book by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 1, 1910

The Church—The Book

By Editor

The Church of God—God's regularly called-out ones—is not to be determined by name, by claim, by numbers, by profession, by long lists of successive priests or bishops; but by the Book in which that church concededly finds her origin, her Guide, her revelation of faith and duty. That Book not only clearly shows how, by what rules, under what conditions, God calls those who constitute His church; but it predicts the future of that church in marvelous detail. He foretells her wanderings, her losses, her subjection to hostile powers, her captivities; He places on record the messages which will be proclaimed to restore her to God. Out of all earth's perils He is to bring her triumphant at last.

God not only foretells the true church, her trials, her tribulations, her triumphs; but He just as clearly and as definitely points out the church of apostasy, her mighty pretensions, her assumptions, her liaisons with the world, her cruel intolerance, her fading glory, and her utter extinction in the revelation of the supernal glory of the Coming One.

Reader, you may distinguish clearly between the two by the Word. The articles in this issue we hope will greatly help you. Weigh them by the Book of the “body of Christ.” Remember that character, not claim or coin, is God's hall-mark of identification with Him; and the harmony of the church with His Word is the proof of her genuineness. Are you a member of His body?