Your ShelfYour Projects

THE REJECTED ORDINANCE

2%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 13, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 51, No. 24.

Read the full edition

THE REJECTED ORDINANCE.

By W. H. Littlejohn

BY ELD. W. H. LITTLEJOHN.
WHEN our Lord was upon the earth his heart was often saddened by the refusal of the people to accept his teachings, even when they were set forth in the use of unanswerable logic. Though patient in the iteration and re-iteration of truth, he at times turned away from those whose hearts were hard as steel, and whose spiritual eyes were as destitute of sight as were the seared and filmed orbs of Bartimeus the beggar, to mourn the blindness of an age where light seemed to have lost its power to illuminate the soul.
“Walk [said he] while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.” “While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.” This exhortation, however, was fruitless in moving his hearers to obedience, and the record which follows shows that, having exhausted the resources of his power in the vain effort to draw the people to himself as the light of the world, he withdrew and hid away from them. This he did, doubtless, not from any feeling of animosity because of the rejection of himself or his word, but because his continued presence would have resulted in harm rather than good, since—having developed an unwillingness to obey—an increase of evidence would have simply served to enlarge their accountability. On another occasion, as his eye rested on the city of cities, he uttered these mournful words, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” Matt. 23:37. His heart was burdened almost to breaking with a sense of his inability to save those whose salvation had been the great desire of his life. He knew his mission full well. He knew that in him alone were the possibilities of pardon and life. He also knew that those men had refused to receive him, not because of any want of evidence of his divinity, but because they loved darkness rather than light, even where the latter was so clear that it equaled in its strength the full blaze of the midday sun. He was aware that they had cast him out deliberately, and under circumstances which made their condemnation certain. He said to them, “Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner; this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?” Matt. 21:42. From this it is manifest that he well understood the fact that the leaders of the people had set him at naught, but that God had made him, notwithstanding this fact, the foundation of every well-grounded hope of salvation. Eighteen hundred years have since passed, and how completely has the order of things been reversed. Where God is, there is always assured triumph.
The priesthood—those who ought to have been the God-directed builders of the spiritual temple—failed to recognize the corner-stone which the Lord had provided for that most glorious edifice which has since become the stupendous structure of the Christian Church, and they were left to themselves, while the chosen instrument of God has filled the precise position which He designed he should fill in the only plan of salvation which has been offered to man.
From this we may learn two lessons. The first is, that it is a fatal thing to reject truth. The second is, that even when truth is rejected, the declaration of the apostle is verified; namely, that we can do nothing against it, and that its ultimate success is certain.
We read that God has sown the light for the righteous; this being the case, he who fails to gather its rays, in order that he may thereby illuminate the pathway of life which he is treading, is neglecting to avail himself of God’s appointed means for his salvation. The consequences of such an action must uniformly be ruinous.
If we are ever saved, it will be because God will save us in the use of those instrumentalities which he has provided.
If we are ever lost, it will be because we have failed to carry out the instructions given in the sacred record.
As in the State it is vain for an individual to plead his ignorance of the statute law in extenuation of his offense, so in the Judgment of the great day it will be useless for us to urge, either that we were not acquainted with God’s requirements, or that we were unable to see light in his light.
Our opportunities for knowing what is the will of the Lord are ample, and if we do not avail ourselves of them, the fault will be our own. We speak, of course, of the great fundamental principles of the gospel. Said Christ, “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” John 7:17.
Here, then, we learn that divine aid is promised to every honest-hearted individual who is really anxious to discover the path of light.
But divine aid means success.
The only thing, therefore, necessary to its realization, is a sincere desire to know the will of God.
But says one, “How shall we be able to understand our own hearts, so as to know whether we are actuated by motives which, in this matter, are every way right?” I answer that the test, according to the scripture quoted, is very simple. The only thing to be determined is, whether we are really desirous of doing the will of the Lord; or whether our motive is, after all, simply that of an anxiety to be saved. In other words, are we doing the will of God because we love to do that will? or are we striving to do it merely to obtain the reward which we hope will follow?
In deciding this point, there is one test which can always be relied upon with confidence.
If we love to carry out the purposes of Him who has a right to our services, we shall ever seek to know just what he would have us do in all particulars.
Our eyes will never be closed to light, let it shine upon a duty however unpleasant; and we shall never hesitate to follow out a line of thought or listen to an array of argument, for fear that it may throw upon us a responsibility which we do not like to incur. Let it cost what it may, we shall not only be ready to receive instruction, but we shall also pray for it in reference to everything which God has revealed in his word, however humiliating to our feelings and disastrous to our temporal interests that instruction may prove to be.
In the Saviour’s prayer for the church we find these words, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” John 17:17. Here we are taught that sanctification comes through knowledge. As therefore sanctification, or purification, is the very thing which God desires for us, and which we should desire for ourselves, we ought to reach out after it as the tendrils of the earth-plant reach out after the shrub or the tree as a means wherewith to lift itself toward heaven and light.
By looking through the history of the ages, we see that the providence of the Lord has been in harmony with the text quoted, and that whenever men have been “purified and made white,” it has been in connection with their obedience to some important truth. The observance of this truth has usually brought with it the necessity of a sacrifice, either of feeling or property, and that sacrifice has in turn brought the individual making it nearer to God.
Reader, are you ready for the ordeal?
Do you value the favor of Heaven above the treasures of the earth?
Will you exchange the approbation of man for that of God?
Are you ready to search his word to see if there is not some light there which you have not yet received?
If so, you are very near, if not within, the kingdom of Heaven.
Before we part company, let us prove your sincerity or demonstrate your lack.
Is it probable, in view of the differences of opinion existing among different sects, that you have all the truth and no error?
We fear not.
It would be strange indeed if such should be the case; yea, more; it would be remarkable if your errors were not numerous, and your lack of light very considerable.
With your permission, therefore, we will select from many which might be taken a single unpopular truth, and call your attention to it through this article. It shall be what we have alluded to in the heading of this article as the rejected ordinance.
Do not suppose that it is baptism, and that, as immersionists, we shall claim that the churches generally have rejected the proper mode of baptism.
No; we allude to an ordinance more unpopular than that which Anabaptists love, and one which we believe they have set at naught more fully than Pedobaptists have the one which relates to the plunging of the body in water.
The one to which we have reference is the sacrament of feet-washing.
It is brought to view very fully in the thirteenth chapter of John. From the record we learn that on the memorable evening when the Lord instituted the supper which commemorates his death, “he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself;” and that “after that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.” John 13:4, 5.
We also read that he said to them, “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” John 13:14. Here is a plain intimation that the rite there instituted was not to cease with its origination. But somehow—for what reason we cannot tell—there has disappeared from the church almost altogether everything which answers to the transaction which took place at the time in question.
It is true that in the Romish Church we have a trace of it in the practice of the pope in washing once in each year the feet of twelve beggars. The perversion of the ordinance, however, as here perpetuated, is so complete as to make it almost unrecognizable. The only lesson which we can draw from it is that the Church of Rome, as a whole, acknowledge that Christ’s work was exemplary, and therefore to be followed in after ages. This concession is important in settling the general principle of the perpetuity, in some sense, of the ordinance, as by that means we have the testimony of the majority of the Christian world to the effect that the language of Christ implies the continued celebration of the event in which he is represented as having washed the apostles’ feet.
As already remarked, the great mass of the Protestant world have nothing which in any way commemorates the wonderful humiliation of the Master which we are considering.
It is true that there are a few denominations that constitute exceptions to the rule; but they are so few as to be regarded merely as exceptions. This fact, however, does not affect the settlement of the question at issue, since it was to the word of God, and not to the practice of men, that we were to go for light. Let us therefore approach the subject in a spirit of candor and of prayer.
To begin with, it will be well to inquire into the reasons which are assigned for the general discontinuance of the practice under consideration.
The only one with which we are acquainted is based upon the supposition that what Christ did was not designed to be regarded as the institution of a religious ordinance, but was simply an exercise of the rite of hospitality. In other words, that he only did that which it was common among the Jews for the host to do to his guest when visiting him at his own home.
Having stated the argument of those who object to the idea that Christ designed to originate by the transaction in question a new rite which was to be celebrated by his followers in succeeding ages, we now proceed to an examination of the reasons set forth from which such a conclusion has been reached.
The first suggestion which we offer is, that were we to concede that the premise taken is correct, i. e., that what the Lord did, conformed in every particular to a custom then existing, such a concession would not preclude the possibility of his having had an ulterior design in the whole matter.
Were this true, it would not be the only time when he had availed himself of an existing practice for the purpose of building upon it an institution whose object was entirely different in its nature from that with which it had formerly been associated.
Take, for example, the ordinance of baptism; all must admit that its design in the Christian dispensation differs materially from that which John had in view when he administered it upon the banks of the Jordan; or, going still further back, from that of the immersion of proselytes to Judaism as it was practiced ages before either John or Christ made their appearance in the world.
So, too, in the matter of circumcision; it by no means invalidated the argument for the perpetuity and design of that rite as a religious institution, when it was conceded that it had been practiced by the heathen nations before the days of Abraham. God took the one and Christ the other, and for wise purposes transformed them into religious ceremonies which were to be perpetuated. They were well adapted to inculcate the moral which it was designed to teach when resorted to under the sanction of God, and it was therefore unimportant whether or not they ever had been used for another purpose.
But if this be true, then it is merely begging the question to say that, because feet-washing was resorted to in the days of Christ by others than himself, therefore he must, in the case in hand, have employed it for no other purpose than that for which it was resorted to by others.
As in the case of baptism and circumcision, so in this case, it is possible that he might have seized upon it as being precisely adapted from the religious standpoint to inculcate just the grace which he was anxious to develop among those of his followers who should come after him.
(To be Continued.)