The Church of the Past and the Future
By Editor
Speaking of the efforts of some religious reformers to revolutionize the faith of the Christian church, L. M. B. Anderson, in the Pacific Christian Advocate of June 25, 1913, says:— The church "with no devil but a man's inhumanity to man and no hell but a man's own conscience" may be a modern church, but it has not the remotest connection with the church Jesus Christ came to perpetuate, and has nothing in common with the great commission to go "into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." . . . A church "that believes enough in God to believe that he will save to the uttermost, and believes enough in man to believe he will want to be saved to the uttermost," may be the church of the future, but it is not the church of the historical past. The history of mankind since written history came to be, does not furnish a single example of a people wanting to be saved even a little bit, to say nothing of "to the uttermost." If the Jews wanted to be saved, they were in poor business crucifying Jesus; and the world has been in the same business ever since. When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, his wail was, "Ye would not." The writer believes that the church of the future will continue to teach that "there is none other name . . . whereby we must be saved," and that Jesus Christ has "power on earth to forgive sins," and that his blood can "cleanse us" from inborn sin, and give us the witness of the Holy Spirit that we have passed from death unto life. It will continue to "believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord." While we fear that this will not be true of Christianity as a whole, which even now is honey-combed with specious error and infidelity, we believe it will be true of those who come off conquerors in the conflict with sin. In fact, it is only by such a faith as this that the remnant saved by grace will be enabled to come off victorious.