The Weapons and Power of the Church Spiritual.-

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 27, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 34.

The Weapons and Power of the Church Spiritual.—

The cause of Christ is spiritual. God is a Spirit, and those who truly worship or serve him must do so in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24.) It is by the Spirit of God that his children are born into the new life. (John 3:3-5.) By that same Spirit we are baptized into the one spiritual body of Christ, his church. (1 Cor. 12:12, 13; Eph. 1:22, 23.) God’s “law is spiritual.” (Rom. 7:14.) And only those who have the Spirit of Christ can keep the spiritual law (Rom. 8:4); for “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (verse 9). It is, therefore, not by carnal weapons that the institutions and cause of Christ are promoted or preserved. It is the spiritual panoply of God alone,—the shield of faith, the girdle of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the greaves of peace, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God,—that is effectual in breaking down the strongholds of the enemy. (Eph. 6:12-16; 2 Cor. 10:3-5.) When the church forsakes the means which Christ has bestowed upon her, and accepts of the counterfeits and substitutes of the world in her stead, she is offering strange fire instead of that ordained of God. She is saying that her wisdom is greater than God’s wisdom, and thus with the man of sin exalts herself above God.