Union or Federation—Which Shall It Be?
By Editor
CHRISTENDOM is divided, sadly, sorely divided, and has been for centuries. Sometimes serious differences of doctrine divide, sometimes mere matters of church government, sometimes nationality, sometimes human ambitions. It is not a desirable condition. Great and earnest souls have grieved over its divisions and sects, have recognized the good that has been wrought through them, and have prayed that they might be united in one solid army for God and His Christ. We do not see how an earnest, thoughtful Christian should think otherwise. This divided condition is a standing reproach upon Christianity, and is so used by the unbeliever. Surely it is not normal; Christendom is sick. Confusion and disorder reign throughout her entire system. Diseases, in the form of various delusions and unchristian theories, afflict the various sects and parties, and these diseases are rapidly increasing. The divine name for this confusion is Babylon. God desired to heal great Babylon of old. She “would not be healed.” He as truly desires to heal present Babylon. Will she be healed? There are different physicians. One class of the modern school says, Federate together. The great Physician, the Head of the church, has given both the condition desired and the means of attaining it in that wonderful prayer found in John 17: “I have given them THY WORD; and the world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them from the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. THEY ARE NOT OF THE WORLD, even as I am not of the world. SANCTIFY THEM IN THE TRUTH: THY WORD IS TRUTH. As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so sent I them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on Me through their word; that they may ALL BE ONE; EVEN AS Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them; that THEY MAY BE ONE, EVEN AS WE ARE ONE; I IN THEM, AND THOU IN ME, that they may be perfected into one; THAT THE WORLD MAY KNOW that THOU DIDST SEND ME, and lovedst them, even as Thou lovedst Me.” Verses 14-23. We have printed in capitals several expressions to make them more emphatic. Note them: 1. Christ prays that His people may be one in the fullest sense — one as He and the Father are one. This transcends all outward unity of human agreement or resolution. It is life union. Christ in them, the Father in Christ, binding God and His children together by the living Christ. There is no other true union. This is the union between the living vine and its fruit-bearing branches which He uses to illustrate the true relationship between Himself and His disciples, in John 15:1-8. That branch — that disciple — which has not this union is dead, whether individual soul or single denomination. 2. The means of this union is God’s word or truth. The life of that word is His Spirit, and His Spirit is “the Spirit of truth.” “Sanctify them in the truth,” prays the Master, “Thy word is truth.” He would not leave us in doubt. It is not only union in impulse, desire, love, but union in all the great essentials of God’s truth. Even so an apostle speaks to a divided church: “That ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” 1 Cor. 1:10. The means by which the true minister of Jesus Christ is to bring this about is the word of God — “the Scriptures of truth.” For “all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Tim. 3:16, 17. Therefore the injunction which follows: “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.” Men ignore, pervert, divide, belittle, criticize the word now. The early church knew nothing about this. When Jesus met the tempter in the wilderness, each assault was met with an arrow from the divine quiver of the word. He defeats the sophistry of the Jews by one word, with the seemingly agreed, axiomatic truth, “The scripture can not be broken.” It was ever the word, the truth, ever the word of truth and the Spirit of truth. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Every soul, ignorant tho he may have been of theology, who has yielded to God’s way of salvation in Christ, has found salvation. Pitiful work the ages have made of the truth of the way. Weak and maimed and lame the great divided church has gone on. But the great God respected her motive of standing for truth, and He blessed her despite her errors. Holding to man’s inherent immortality in a way she has trusted Him for life, and He has in a slight measure bestowed upon her His Spirit. But when that church in its various branches or by its leading minds and spokesmen repudiates the Way of the Cross, ignores or compromises His Truth, makes His word a shuttlecock of criticism, and declares to be a divine immanence in every man what the Bible declares can come only through faith in Christ, how can we hope for true-life union? At the best, it can be but federation, and federation spells compromise, and compromise means suppression of truth. For instance, the Baptist must hold in suspension his views of baptism, practically saying that his position of the centuries has been one of obstinacy over a non-essential. There is no reason why he should not go over in a body to the Congregationalists. Episcopals and Presbyterians are saying, at least one of the bodies, that our separation for all these years was foolish, and all our efforts were misdirected. Believers in the perpetuity of God’s law fellowship antinomianism. Believers in the near advent of Christ are yoked up with those who believe in world conversion and utterly repudiate a second personal coming of our Lord. Believers in the Bible as the word of God compromise conviction and stand with the higher critics who have no standard left but each man’s own changing inwardness. And so it goes on. 1. To uphold tradition contrary to the word of God; namely, the Sunday-sabbath. 2. To shut out and crush, if possible, by their force of numbers, any small denomination who may refuse to join them and stands in opposition to the scheme. 3. To assume the place of authority in religious matters on their platform of compromise, and to rule out those who may not see fit to follow their regime. 4. To take charge of the education of the masses, and seek by education to mold them after their standard. 5. To parcel out the foreign mission fields among the constituent members of the federal body and order off from their self-assumed preserves as poachers any religious body that still has convictions of a whole Bible, a whole Gospel, an all-sufficient Christ, who died to save sinners. Here are the two methods: Divine union, life union, truth union, unbound by human creed or dogma, but loyal to Christ and His word, ever pushing on in the path of glorious light, which “shineth more and more unto the perfect day,” yet overtolerant and charitable toward all, compelling none, coercing none, but persuading in the constraining love of Christ. Or the union of the human over a mangled Bible, an insufficient Saviour, a compromise of truth, a union of church and state, an intolerant regime. O brethren, the federation of churches, good as it may sound, is not Christian union, is not truly Protestant. Let us plead for life union and that cooperation which will not stultify our own conscience or seek to coerce that of another, which will lose sight of the human and exalt the divine.