The Things We Stand For

[Resource Manager]

 

THE THINGS WE STAND FOR

 

THE FAITH OF THE CHRISTADELPHIANS

 

All religious bodies stand for something, just as all political and social bodies do; and it is just possible on that account that the title of this essay could give a wrong impression. People who “stand for” things, or who “won’t stand for” other things are quite often ready to fight to gain their ends—and sometimes give the impression that they are spoiling for the fight. We have only to think of those who stood for votes for women, or the rights of the working man, to feel the bitterness between the sexes and the warfare between the classes which went on while these problems were living issues. All the domestic and industrial unrest of our own day hinges upon things which men and women “stand for”, or “won’t stand”.

 

The title is not meant in this way at all. Of course we have our principles, and of course we would like to see them spread, But we are not among those who tie themselves to railings, or go on hunger-strike, or march in procession and wave banners, or down tools and picket premises, so as to achieve our ends. It is really quite the reverse: people have been heard to complain that we take too little interest in public affairs, and are not active enough in political causes.

 

All that we want to do is to explain why we are here, what it is which distinguishes us from others, and why we feel we need to stand alone. Everyone knows that there are countless churches in the world, big and small: and when an enquiring person comes upon a fairly small community, with an uncommon name, and with none too long a public history behind it, he has a right to be told why that body is here. There are Roman Catholics to whom it is unthinkable that a person should ever be anything else; there are members of the big non-Roman churches who, in lesser degree, feel similarly about their own faiths. There exist well-established and respectable communities of closely similar standpoints (the Baptists, the Methodists, the Congregationalists, the Presbyterians both of the Church of Scotland and of England) who cannot easily see that there is any justification for the existence of bodies smaller and less respectable than their own. There are numerous evangelical bodies with great enthusiasm within their own camps, and yet with profound antagonisms or differences from each other, which divide the remaining ground amongst them.

 

We could instance among the latter the Pentecostal Churches (Elim, the Assemblies of God, and others), the Brethren of various loyalties, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Church of Christ, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. There are others whose bases are rather different: such as the Society of Friends (the Quakers), the Unitarians, the Christian Scientists, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), the New Church (the Swedenborgians) and the Spiritualists.

 

It is a bewildering display. Faced with it, Catholics are apt to be indignant, Anglicans superior and aloof, the bigger nonconformist sects contented with their own positions and faintly amused by the variety beneath them, and that variety itself dogmatic and mutually exclusive. Outside it all the enquirer can very well be struck with a feeling of deep perplexity. He might even feel that if Christianity comes to this, there is a case for doing without it altogether.

 

Men of good will have recognised this. A good many differences have been sunk so as to try to remove the reproach. The churches of South India have largely united in response to such an urge, and many of the religious bodies of Canada have done the same. The process will quite possibly be carried much further, either by actual unions, or by mutual openings of doors.

 

But there are some worshippers who see no possibility of their own communities taking part in such a movement, and who believe that the things they stand for are too precious to be compromised in the interests of such a peace. These people have then the particular duty of explaining themselves. Enquirers have a right to ask and be told why we continue to emphasise the disunities of Christendom, and “The things we stand for” is our attempt to tell them.

 

We are a community with convictions. If we were not, compromise would be easy, and religious peace a small step the nearer. We could open our doors to any others, or close them behind us, and go where we pleased. As it is, we think we stand for something precious, and must speak and write in its defence. It will involve criticism of others, for if we did not feel critical we should not be disposed to be separate: but we would ask any whose body is named, or whose private opinion is opposed, to realise that no malice is intended. He will judge whether we are right or wrong, and we only ask him to believe that we are not being wrongheaded.

[Resource Manager]

We must begin with our name. A religious body choosing a name for itself has to think of two possible dangers: the name might be so general that no one would know who was referred to; or it might be so out of the ordinary as to mark out its adherents as eccentric. It would be useless simply to refer to ourselves as “Christians”, for the answer to the question “Are you a Christian?” might be “Yes” a hundred times before we met one who is really of our convictions. It might be thought, indeed, that the name Christadelphian has gone squarely to the other extreme, but this is perhaps made less likely by the meaning which was intended in the word. The coiner of it knew that one of the greatest honours ever to be paid to true believers was that contained in Hebrews 2:11 “He is not ashamed to call them brethren”, and therefore he pieced together two Greek words, ‘Christou adelphoi’ to convey the thought “Brethren in Christ”. He wanted it to be generally known that we rejoice in the thought of being “children of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26).

 

The claim might be thought justified, or not. But, whether it is or not, it can no longer be thought to be ridiculous. It claims no more and no less for itself that the title “Christian” does, but it marks us out, and it is for everyone who reads to decide for himself whether it properly belongs to those who faithfully profess the things we stand for.

 

We continue with our daily devotions. In our homes, apart from our morning and evening praying and our grace before meals—for this custom is still fully alive amongst us—the Bible is very much in evidence. There are likely in all our homes to be at least as many copies of this book as there are members of the family who can read: and they are likely to be well-thumbed. It is a widespread custom among us to read from the Bible every day, and we have a reading table called the “Bible Companion” which helps us to read systematically. At the price of about half an hour a day—it might be less if we merely read without comment, or more if we had the time to spare—we read the Old Testament annually, and the New Testament twice in the same period. It is the same all over the world, wherever Christadelphians are to be found. Many of us, of course, read more widely than this, and study specially for the duties we have in hand, but this daily discipline is the minimum with which a “good Christadelphian “ is usually content.

 

Quite apart from this reading, however, we come frequently into contact with the Bible. We may attend one or more Bible classes on weeknights each week. We not infrequently have Saturday gatherings at which chosen speakers give addresses on Bible topics for our encouragement and exhortation. On Sunday evenings public addresses are given—at which those who are not Christadelphians are especially welcome—in which we endeavour to establish from the Bible the things which we believe.

 

Earlier on Sundays we hold a service which a visitor would recognise as having something in common with the “Holy Communion” of other bodies, but which we commonly refer to as the “Memorial Service” or the “Breaking of Bread”. Here, all our members partake of bread and wine, and, here too, the Bible is publicly read, and an address based on the Bible is given. Attendance at this service is the focus of our religious life.

 

In short, we are people of the Bible. It could of course be said that we are not the only ones: there are other people, and other religious bodies, who read their Bibles and give them prominence, and it could be added that there is possibly not one Christian sect which does not give attention to the Book. We will not dispute the claim: there are perhaps few bodies which read the whole Book as consistently and as thoroughly as our own, but we are glad of every news of Bible-reading by others. Among the spiritualists, perhaps, the Bible plays little part, and there must be many lay people of the larger bodies who rarely or never open their Bibles for themselves: but we are not trying to compete in zeal. This is merely a very important matter which we stand for, and when others stand for it too, so much the better.

 

The way we look at this Book is important, too. It is for us the “Word of God,” that is, a message given by God and guaranteed by God, containing all that is needful for salvation, and not to be subjected to human criticism. Here, regrettably, we begin to part company with other bodies. This outlook on the Bible is not shared by many members of the present day Unitarians, nor of the Society of Friends. It is not wholly shared by a big proportion of the Church of England nor the bigger non-conformist bodies. The same is true, no doubt, of the major non-catholic churches of other lands. In greater or lesser degree all these bodies teach or tolerate the view that the Bible is largely a human production, not wholly reliable on matters of fact, and not wholly reflecting the mind of God on matters of doctrine or morals. It is not for us to question that these other views are honestly held; but we are bound to hold ourselves apart from them. The Book to us is “given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16), and its authors “spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).

 

Moreover, we cannot agree to be associated with the opinion that, in addition to the Bible, there are other authorities to whom we must look as well. We must refuse the Roman Catholic contention that his Pope and Church, in specified circumstances, are infallible too and must be trusted in their exposition of doctrine. We must refuse to set the Bible side by side with the Book of Mormon (as the Mormons do), or with Mrs. Eddy’s “Science and Health” (as the Christian Scientists do), or with the works of Emmanuel Swedenborg (as the “New Church” do), or with the inner light of the heart (as the Quakers do), or with the presumed revelations of departed spirits (as do those Spiritualists who would also claim to be Christian). We issue our own writings to defend the Bible and expound its teaching, of course, but our constant call is that men should test these by the Bible, and not that the Bible can only be understood in conjunction with these.

[Resource Manager]

If this consideration at once cuts us off from the biggest of all denominations and from a variety of smaller ones it is unfortunate, but it cannot be avoided: it is the price of the things we stand for, and the price of a good conscience before God. There are of course many still who would agree with us. We have not yet reached a point which explains why we stand apart from many earnest evangelicals who look upon the Bible in the same way as we.

 

That point is reached when we begin to consider the Bible’s teaching. For the opening chapters of that Book teach some things so clearly, as we believe, that we can do no other than stand for them. They are not such things as proud men would wish to stand for, and we receive them as true in spite of a very natural human wish to believe the opposite. In Genesis 3 is the record of how sin and death came into the world, and it carries with it two consequences for all of us.

 

The first concerns our moral make-up. When Adam and Eve sinned and were cast out of the garden, dreadful consequences were seen. Abel was murdered by his brother in the next generation (Genesis 4), and the steep decline of human behaviour was such that God “looked upon the earth and it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way on the earth” (6. 12). The Flood was only a temporary remedy, and through recurring crises since it has been revealed that “the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9). Sinful dispositions became part of the make-up of human flesh, so that “the mind of the flesh is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7). We feel in our make-up, too, what the Bible reveals from God, that the tendency of our spirit is constantly to go our own way in spite of God’s claims upon us, and we know with Paul that we have no power to overcome our waywardness alone (Romans 7:22-24).

 

It is not pleasing to stand for such a truth as this, but it is very needful. If we deny it, then we think of ourselves as good people. To do so is to suppose that, given good advice (such as we might get from watching the behaviour of the Lord Jesus), we can succeed in our own strength in pleasing God and gaining whatever reward is to come. And to go to these lengths of “humanism” is to deny the need of a Saviour. This is no uncommon point of view, and amongst the sects we have named is represented amongst the Quakers and the Unitarians, and amongst the Christian Scientists and Spiritualists. But for us it is intolerable. Christianity is the religion of a Saviour, coming to call helpless sinners to repentance (Romans 5:6-9), or it is to us no religion at all.

 

The second consequence concerns our bodily nature. Adam’s sin led to his death. He was expelled from Eden, and in due time returned to the dust. The words, “Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19) were spoken to the one who sinned, and it seems to us a great perversion of truth to say that these words “were not spoken of the soul”. They were, of course: “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4), later spoken of particular punishments to particular sinners, applies here also, and it would be absurd to suppose that, when the soul of Adam conceived the sin in the Garden, God should content Himself with pronouncing punishment on his body. Adam, like all other men, is to be thought of as a whole, and it was upon that whole man that God pronounced His sentence of death.

 

This we find confirmed in numerous parts of Scripture, so that our nature can be compared with that of the beasts that perish (Psalm 49:20), or with the grass cast into the oven as it withereth (Isaiah 40:6-7; 1 Peter 1:24). The condition of the dead is described as that of sleep (Daniel 12:2), and the fate of death is said to fall upon all the children of Adam “for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:20).

 

In contrast, we do not find in the Bible that elaborate doctrine, of immediate reward and punishment at death which is so widespread, in one form or another, in most of the bodies we have named. We can see there no justification for the thought that there is heaven via purgatory for the blessed, hell for the damned, and limbo for the innocent but unsaved, which is characteristic of the Roman Catholic teaching. It is not in accordance with Scripture to suppose that all men, immediately at death, go either to endless blessedness or endless torment, and it is utterly foreign to both Scripture and justice that all men should go to the former alone. And yet this doctrine of the death-state has so taken possession of Christendom that the vast majority of worshippers, and the biggest number of religious bodies, pin their hopes on this expectation. For this reason we must, in deference to the teaching of Scripture, hold ourselves free from the compromise of such opinions, so that we may teach the doctrine of Resurrection without being embarrassed by teaching which effectively denies this.

 

We are already, now, in a very small minority of religious people, yet the separation had to be made; what we stand for in this matter is too important to be shared with an entirely different and, as we think, un-Scriptural view of the future life.

 

Of course, we must now go on to think of how God can save us from our sin, and deliver us from death. Both quests lead us from Eden to the New Testament, and both are brightened by the many precious promises which point the way. Like many others, we see in God’s message to the Serpent that the woman’s Child should “bruise thy head”, the promise of the coming conquest of sin by the Saviour (Genesis 3:15). Unlike many, we attach great weight to the promises which God gave to Abraham about the Seed who should conquer his enemies (22:17), be a source of blessing to all nations (12:3), and multiply as the stars and the sand (15:5). The nation of Israel plays an important part in keeping alive the promises of God (Romans 3:1), receiving the Law, and providing the mother of Messiah; and in spite of all its wickednesses we look forward, with many Scripture prophecies to guide us, to the restoration of Israel in the Land of Palestine. And at that time we look to see the promised King of David’s House ruling over the nations (2 Samuel 7:13).

 

When the time spoken of in the promises was fulfilled, the Son of God came. The New Testament records leave us in no doubt that Jesus was called Son of God because He had no other Father than God (Luke 1:35), and this we firmly believe. But other views are at large amongst other bodies. The Unitarian church considers that Jesus was born and begotten in the same way as other children, and was “Son of God” only in a special, spiritual sense which had nothing to do with the way in which He was born. It is, of course, impossible to accept this view and believe the first chapter of Luke, and the modern Unitarian prefers to reject Luke. On the other hand, the Doctrine of the Trinity, at least as it is stated in the so-called Creed of St. Athanasius, claims that Jesus was Son of God after his birth because he had been Son of God before it: his birth made him Son of man, but had nothing to do with his relationship to God, which had always been so from times eternal.

[Resource Manager]

The Unitarian view we reject with horror, for it is contrary to all that the Bible says about the divine origin of Jesus (cf. John 1:14; Galatians 4:4), and tempts men to make themselves sons of God in the same sense as he, whereas both the passages quoted make it plain that we can only become God’s children through faith in the “only begotten Son”. Yet the Trinitarian view, too, is unacceptable to us. Not only is it not consistent with the birth-records, but it cannot consistently speak of Jesus receiving his high exaltation because of his conquest (Philippians 2:9); for according to the Trinitarian view Jesus, after his death, simply took up again the power he formerly had laid down. And, worst of all, it makes it impossible for us to think of his temptations as real.

 

The reality of Jesus’ temptations is very important. “He was tempted in all points like as we, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15); he “learned obedience by the things which he suffered” (5:8). This the eternal God Himself could surely not have done? He who “cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13) must have from the start been beyond sharing our infirmities. But for us, both the meaning of his conquest and the value of his priesthood lie in his victory over sin in fair fight. We see the Lord, therefore, conquering as Son of man, by the strength which comes from the Word of God and the power of God through prayer. We see him ministering grace as Son of God, providing a salvation which could never have come by the will of man. All his life he fought the temptations which came to him (for example, those outlined in Matthew 4), in spite of their deep appeal to every human heart. And in his willing death he subdued for ever the dispositions which he had shared with us all.

 

By his death, we learn, “he destroyed him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14): and because we can see very clearly how his death could put an end to the power of sin in his members (a power he had always held at bay), we can understand how this can be true. But we cannot see how any supernatural devil could have been destroyed in this way, and such a devil is no part of our belief. We do not share the belief of Catholics, many of the smaller sects, and some of many persuasions, that there is a fallen angel in control of the fate of sinners. Of the origin of such a being we find no trace in Scripture (for the much-quoted Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 have plainly nothing to do with the case); and because the world-wide conspiracy of human sin is more than sufficient to explain all the many Scriptural images in which this being seems to appear, we look upon the devil as a telling representation of every manifestation of the wrongness of human hearts.

 

To the message of the Cross we must return, but we pursue further the course of the life of the Son of God before coming back to this. After his death, the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.

 

This we understand literally: the tomb in which the body had been placed was empty; and the body which had been there was alive, marvellously glorified, but bearing the marks which show it to have been the same. The bodily resurrection of the Lord is the pivot of the Christian confidence, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:1-28, and we can have no relations with the various alternatives which some communities adopt. It was “many infallible proofs” (Acts 1:3) which the earliest disciples had that Jesus was alive, and it is many infallible proofs that we will not renounce or deny. If Jesus were not risen, we could not believe that he was alive.

 

The risen Lord, then, is now in heaven. He is there both waiting and acting: waiting for a future coming, and acting to give help to his faithful in all their needs. They may approach through him to the throne of grace, and find forgiveness of their unwilling sins, and strength against their further temptations (Hebrews 4:14-16). Any thought that believers are automatically beyond the reach of sin is unacceptable to us: but the hope that no sin is too strong to be overcome when it is Christ who strengthens us is very dear to our needy hearts.

 

When we come to the Lord’s second advent, we find ourselves in a strange position. We believe, with the most recited of the creeds, that he will return to judge the quick and the dead. But we all believe it, and we have nothing we would wish to put in its place. With many of the bodies of which we have spoken it is otherwise: the creed is not wholeheartedly accepted as a statement of the literal truth, and though there are many members of other communities who truly do look for the return of the Lord from heaven before they can receive the prize for which they labour, there are many—probably many more—who do not.

 

The Second Coming of Jesus is a thing which is binding upon our consciences to believe; to deny it, or to take-it-or-leave-it, is intolerable to us: and this is another reason why, in a world where opinions so often run contrary to the Word of God, we must stand apart.

 

It is our firm conviction, then, that the Lord will return in glorious bodily form from the heavens (Acts 1:11). We believe that, when he comes, he will find a world, taken as a whole, unwilling to receive him: willing, indeed, to engage in open rebellion against him (Psalm 2; Revelation 19:19). And we believe that he will, as he must, conquer, and take over the rule of the kingdom of the world for himself (Daniel 2:44; Revelation 20:4). We believe that Israel, brought back to Palestine from all nations, will see him there in his glory and be invited to repent from its former wickedness in crucifying him (Zechariah 12:10). We believe that the Lord’s coming will be accompanied by the raising of the dead (2 Timothy 4:1), so that those who have known him may be judged before him according to their works (Daniel 12:2; John 5:28-9). We believe that then, and then only, will bodily immortality be conferred upon those whom the Lord finds worthy, together with an endless inheritance in a blessed earth (2 Timothy 4:8; Philippians 3:20-21).

[Resource Manager]

From those men and sects who would destroy the earth for ever, and transfer the scene of human blessedness from earth to heaven; as well as from those who, while professing to believe in the ultimate return of the Lord Jesus, reduce the hope to unimportance by their nearer hope of heaven—from these, too, we must stand apart in standing for the true teaching of the Scriptures.

 

About other details of the Lord’s work on the earth we do not need to particularise. We believe that his work in that period will have to do with the mortal survivors of the earth he conquers, but it seems plain from Scripture that, because good rule cannot change human nature, there will come a time when men will once again, though now for the last time, raise their hand against him (Revelation 20:7-15). This will mark the end of rebellion, and the end of mortality. All rebellion will be cast into the endless destruction of the “Lake of Fire”, and the end of death is shown by the same fate for the grave. The Lord will reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet (1 Corinthians 15:25), and with the vanquishing of the last enemy, he will hand to his Father a completed work, from which all evils have been abolished (vv. 24-28), so that God will be all and in all.

 

But these glories are, plainly, only of interest to those who will share in them. And who are they? We dare not say “The Christadelphians”, as some would wrongfully say we affirm, for it is ours to serve and strive, and neither to make arrogant claims for ourselves nor to anticipate God’s judgements about anyone. But in faithfulness we must make it plain that there are conditions, and that they are of God’s making.

 

We know that not all will inherit these blessings, for there will be some who are rejected at the Judgement, and some who will not rise to be there (Psalm 49:20; Isaiah 26:14). We know that professing Christians may be rejected (Matthew 7:21-23), and that many of the Lord’s own race have heaped up condemnation to themselves (John 12:48; Matthew 8:12). We are bound, therefore, to stand for the principle that the Lord will not give his blessings away to all. But so far as the Christian era is concerned we are told more. Just as the Lord emptied himself of all fleshly impulses, so must his servants “deny themselves”, which means, broadly, that they must have no confidence in their own powers, and no trust in their own ambitions (Matthew 16:24-26). Just as the Lord was crucified, so must crucifixion be accepted by his disciples, who “crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24). We must, that is, recognise in what happened to the Lord the true way to overcome sin, and be ready to take that way after his example.

 

Having reached this way, there is a precise act of obedience asked of us. It is called baptism, and Paul links it with crucifixion (Romans 6:1-6). The one who is baptised recognises what the Lord has done by his death, and joins him. The one who is baptised admits that there is nothing to be hoped for from the old man, and is born anew (John 3:3-5; Titus 3:3-5). But all this demands choice: intelligent, informed and humble choice. It is such as the Lord himself did when he was thirty years of age: “Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness” (Matthew 3:13-17). “Us”, said the Lord, and he meant himself and the sinners with whom he consented to be associated. It is hard to understand how men can invent reasons for not accepting such an appeal.

 

His example was followed by his commandment. The disciples were to teach men of all nations and baptise them (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15-16), and this is what they did (Acts 2:38,41; 8:12,26-40; 9:18; 10:43-48; 16:33). Two things are inescapable: those who were baptised were taught, and believed and repented as a first stage; and those who were baptised were dipped in water so as to be covered. This is not a common mode of baptism in lands professing Christianity, and the practice of “baptising” infants under the guarantee of godparents, by pouring a little water over them, is foreign both to the Bible and to the earliest practice. We yield to no one in the responsibility we feel for the upbringing of our children in the way of right, and it is our greatest joy when they come to an age when they can understand their need and be baptised in the appointed way: but we cannot admit the right of any man to anticipate the faith of another, nor the right of any religious body to make free with the commandments of God.

 

To those diminished number who entertain the dreadful thought that their children might be tormented eternally if they should die “unbaptised”, we may offer this solid comfort that the Bible makes no such threats. To that greater number who hope for heaven for an infant who dies after such a ceremony, we are bound to add that, as we see it, the Bible makes no such promises. Salvation is a serious affair, to be given to those who accept it seriously: infanticide would be a short cut to the salvation of our children if the Bible held out this groundless hope.

[Resource Manager]

Adult baptism is therefore, on God’s appointment, the inaugural rite whereby men, women and grown children receive the faith we stand for. Only those who, sharing our faith, receive it, are invited to partake of the Communion of the Lord’s Death in our midst. Only these contribute to the normal expenses of the upkeep of our premises and our work. It can be called exclusive, and so it is. But it is not the exclusiveness of those who say: “We are good and the rest are wicked”. It is that of those who say “We are all wicked. Wicked men must take the way which is offered, and not make others for themselves. God has appointed this ordinance and we have no right to tamper with it.” It is not because we want to separate ourselves from others that we keep ourselves apart in worship from the unbaptised: it is because we will encourage no one to choose the dangerous path of disobedience through encouraging him to think that obedience is unimportant.

But still, be it said again, we are not advancing our own righteousness. We know that it is a “fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God” (Hebrews 10:31), and are very aware of the need for constant care and prayer in our weakness. Our weekly memorials help us remember where forgiveness and strength come from (Hebrews 4:11-16), and the exhortations we hear there keep us from complacency. In our prayers we seek, with what faithfulness God will judge, for forgiveness of our wrongdoings, and the strength of His presence and His Son’s grace to keep us in the way. We know of what depth of mercy we stand in need and seek to humble ourselves so that it may be granted. This on the debit side. If ever we thought of judging others, we would hope to remember to “consider ourselves, lest we also be tempted”.

On the other side, we know what power can be made available to them who trust. We know that God is able to keep us from falling (Jude 24), and that to ask for God’s will to be done in us is to be sure of being heard (1 John 5:14). We know that for those who learn to love God and no other there is no need to fear, even His judgement (1 John 4:16-18). It is this consummation which we seek.

In the meanwhile, while we stand firm for our faith, we hope and pray that we may always stand in God’s strength and not our own. Our present responsibility is so to humble ourselves before God that the likeness of His Son may be fashioned in us.

Before men we cannot appear as would-be reformers of the world, nor could we fight to gain our ends, or the ends of human governments. We must altogether deny that “it is lawful for Christian men at the command of the magistrate to wear weapons and serve in the wars”, and to abstain from warfare is one of the principles of our body: “The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient” (2 Tim 2:24). Our Lord himself will direct his servants’ duties when he returns, but since his kingdom is not of this world, we will not now fight (John 18:36). In an unbelieving world the Lord’s servants are spiritually stateless, strangers and pilgrims (1 Peter 2:11), having here no continuing city (Hebrews 13:14). For this reason they consider the world’s politics no concern of theirs, and are concerned only to be obedient, where conscience does not forbid, to the powers who rule over them (Romans 13:1-7).

Our watchword in our pilgrim days might well be this:
 

“Therefore, take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparedness of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, whereby ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.” (Ephesians 6:13-18.)

 

We must stand for these things, for we believe that they are true and faithful. But we have no wish to stand alone from any who on these satisfying terms would stand with us. From such it is always our joy to hear.

ALFRED NORRIS

TheThingsWeStandForNorris.pdf