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JOHN WADDEY, EDITOR
Published by the Church of Christ
12213 West Bell Road,
Suite 211, Surprise, AZ 85374 Volume 3,
Number 3
CURRENT ISSUE:
November, 2003 |
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Table of Contents:
HOW CAN GOD JUSTIFY SINNERS?
Justification has been called "the supreme paradox of he gospel."
It means that the just God accepts the sinner as just. It seems more rational
thing to say that God being just must therefore condemn a sinner as a
criminal. But the paradox is that even though He is just God somehow, in his
remarkable and miraculous grace revealed in Jesus, accepts we sinners, not as
a criminals, but as beloved children.
The explanation of how God can justify sinners is found in the great doctrine
of imputation. The prophet Isaiah foresaw the Messiah who "was wounded for our
transgressions...bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was
upon him; and with his stripes we are healed...and Jehovah laid on him the
iniquity of us all." God would see the travail of his soul and be satisfied
and his righteous servant would justify many (Is. 53:5-6, 11). Our sins were
imputed or charged to Christ who paid the penalty for us. Peter writes that
"Christ suffered for you...who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the
tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness: by whose
stripes ye were healed" (I Pet. 2:21, 24). Similarly, Christ's righteousness
is imputed to us. Paul tells us, "Him who knew no sin he made to be sin
(bearer) on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him
(II Cor. 5:21).
Again, Paul exalts this grand truth in Philippians 3:8-9: "that I may gain
Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness so my own, even that
which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the
righteousness which is from God by faith." We see a beautiful illustration of
imputation in Paul's message to Philemon. He writes about a runaway slave
named Onesimus, who was guilty of numerous offenses. The apostle was willing
to assume full responsibility for his slave-friend's obligations. He writes,
"But if he hath wronged thee at all, or oweth thee aught, put that to mine
account; I Paul write it with mine own hand, I will repay it" (Phile. 18-19).
This too is the typical lesson of Azazel, the scape-goat of the ritual of the
Day of Atonement. The high priest laid his hands on the head of the living
goat and confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel. "And
the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land; and he
shall let go the goat in the wilderness" (Lev. 16:21-22). Thus Jesus bore the
sins of humanity, symbolized by his cross, outside the gates to the place of
death.
Our sins were imputed to Christ, but not so as to make him a sinner. Likewise,
his righteousness is imputed to us, but it does not make us personally and
actually worthy of God's favor. Jesus assumed our legal responsibility and was
treated just as if he had been the sinner. We have received his righteousness
in our justification and are treated just as if we were righteous.
With David, we praise God for his marvelous grace. "Blessed is the man, unto
whom God reckoneth righteousness apart from works...Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not reckon sin" (Rom. 4:6-8).
In the Gospels we see Jesus treating sinners as if they were the men and women
they had the potential to become. The Jews treated Zacchaeus as a sinner,
hopelessly lost. The Lord treated him as a potential saint. The same was true
of the woman taken in adultery
(John 8:1-11).
The Corinthians were justified when they were washed and sanctified ( I Cor.
6:11). The washing occurred when they were baptized to wash away their sins
(Acts 22:16). So today, when in faith we are baptized into Christ, the great
God of the universe justifies us and makes us his beloved children (Rom. 5:1).
Ph.D.s and Th.D.s
In my 48 years as a member of the Church of Christ, I have been
privileged to meet and personally know hundreds of the preachers and teachers
of our brotherhood. In addition, I have read the articles and books of many
more. Since the middle of last century a large number of our brethren have
pursued their education to the terminal degree. Among those brethren who could
legitimately claim the Doctor's Degree, three distinct types have been
observed.
There are those whose education has been subjected to the authority of God's
Word. Their strong faith and love for Christ, His church and His Word allowed
them to sit among and absorb the knowledge of the university world without
having their faith undermined, weakened or compromised. Among those who have
carried their educational attainment with honor and still maintained strong
faith and continued to be useful to the church were Hall Calhoun, Batsell
Baxter, Jr., W. B. West, Ira North, Joe Sanders, Carroll Ellis, J. D. Bales,
Thomas Warren, William Woodson, Jack P. Lewis, Hugo McCord, James O. Baird,
Neil Lightfoot, Bert Thompson, Rex Turner, Sr. Cecil May, Jr. and many more.
A second group of men who gained their doctorates have proven worthless to the
church. Many of them used the church as a source of income while pursuing
advanced education; drawing full-time salaries while most of their time and
energy was spent in school. Upon receiving their degree, they had no more need
for the church and the lowly task of preaching. Many turned to secular
employment and others became spiritual drones or eventually abandoned the
Lord's church.
A third group has stayed among us. Filled with pride and arrogance they have
become professional critics of the church and their lowly brethren who do not
share their advanced credentials. From this group has come many of our change
agents; men proud of their educational attainments and ashamed of the simple
Biblical faith of their fathers. Rather than leave the church of Christ, for
which they have neither love nor respect, and which some actually despise,
these doctors have set themselves to overthrow the faith and practice of their
brethren, replacing them with versions learned in seminaries and secular
schools. I tell you even weeping, they "are enemies of the cross of Christ"
(Phil. 2:18).
True Bible scholars we need and appreciate. Whether or not they have earned
their Ph.D. degree is of small consequence.
BAD BOOKS
John Murray wrote, "A dose of poison can do its work but once, but
a bad book can go on poisoning minds for generations." Each year thousands of
books are published. Among our brethren a steady stream of new titles are
issued. Religious books come in many varieties. They range from excellent to
harmless; from worthless to dangerous.
The champions of the change movement are issuing a raft of books promoting
their peculiar tenets. All of these books are damaging to the people of God
and the church for which Jesus died. Their books attack the basic foundations
of the church. They challenge her uniqueness. They discredit her past
achievements. They confuse and mislead her young and novice members. They are
books that give aid and comfort to the enemies of Christ. They cause discord
and division in the body of Christ by their misleading message.
Change agents will come and go. Many of them will leave the church for the
inviting fields of denominationalism. In a few years all of them will go the
way of all flesh. But the poison books they have written will live on to
damage souls for generations yet to come.
"A book may be compared to your neighbor: if it be good, it cannot last too
long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early" (Brooke). "There is no worse
robber than a bad book" (Italian Proverb). "A bad book is the worse that it
cannot repent–It has not been the devil's policy to keep the masses of mankind
in ignorance; but finding that they will read, he is doing all in his power to
poison their books" (E. N. Kirk). "Bad books are like intoxicating
drinks...The safeguard against each is the same–total abstinence from all that
intoxicates whether mind or body" (Tyron Edwards). Jesus rightly said, "Take
heed how ye hear" (Lk 8:18) and we could add take heed what and how you read.
May God deliver us from false teachers and the books they write!
"Do you sing, ‘Am I a Soldier of the Cross?'"
PILGRIMAGE OF JOY,
THE LIFE OF CARL KETCHERSIDE
This autobiography was published first as a series of articles in
Leroy Garrett's Restoration Review. Later it was issued in book form by
College Press, of the Independent Christian Churches. In my estimation this is
the most valuable book one can read concerning the change movement. This is
the case because it reveals the origin of the movement to change the faith,
worship and practice of our churches. Anyone who reads this volume will be
convinced that what is being promoted today in many of our Christian schools
and in scores of pulpits is the pure gospel according to Carl Ketcherside.
The first 30 years of Bro. Ketcherside's preaching career
were spent as a leader in the camp of those who opposed most of what the
mainstream of our churches were doing. This book records the "pilgrimage of
one blighted by the factional spirit to one enlightened by an ecumenical
outlook" (p. 13). In 1951 he experienced a spiritual conversion that took him
from the extreme right of legalism to the extreme left of doctrinal
liberalism. But his conversion in no way dampened his dislike for the
mainstream of the church. He simply moved his canon from the right to the left
and devoted the rest of his career to its ruin. He found a warm reception
among the Disciples of Christ and Christian Churches, Pentecostal and
Premillennial congregations and was well received by denominationalists of all
sorts and kinds. It was only after his death that his ideas took hold in the
mainstream of our brotherhood.
This study teaches us several interesting things:
-
We see a demonstration of the pendulum
effect in religious convictions. It is often the case when those that are
radically conservative realize the error of their way, rather than move to
the middle where truth is found, they swing past it, landing far to the
left and enamored with liberalism.
-
We see his never ceasing hostility to the
mainstream churches of Christ which refused to accept his leadership. In
his early years he fought mainstream churches because they would accept his
doctrine of mutual ministry and anti institutionalism. When he outgrew the
limited confines of his small "sect" as he called it, he sought acceptance
in ecumenical circles, but he still viewed the mainstream of churches of
Christ with disdain and sought to imposed his new views on them. His
personal mission was to give the mainstream churches grief. He encouraged
and gave aid and comfort to every disgruntled dissident among us. He
described those who left us as "‘freedom fighters' who had struggled with
the dogmatism and sterile orthodoxy of the institution and had wrenched
themselves free" (p. 304). In the second half of his career, his thesis was
that all preachers of Churches of Christ are guilty of partyism except for
himself and those who followed him.
-
Bro. K. launched his new "crusade" in
1957. He described it as "The Beginnings of Change." His years as leader of
his new movement were spent almost entirely among Christian Churches, at
their conventions, colleges and encampments. With all his talk about loving
all who believe in Jesus, his acceptance of any and every kind of church
that would have him speak, he maintained a hostility toward the mainstream
churches of Christ that would not accept his leadership. "I resolved not to
go anywhere but to stay where I was, regardless of what happened" (p. 211),
as he tried to impose his new ideology on the brotherhood. He says, "I
urged all others to stay where they were until driven out" (p. 211). This
was so they could help to implement the changes he desired.
-
Bro. K. was the self-appointed
representative of "non-instrumental" churches of Christ representing us at
virtually every forum of Christian Churches in the nation (p. 231). The
others attendees either did not know, or refused to acknowledge, that he
represented no one but himself and those forums were opportunities to
promote himself.
-
We can trace his ever expanding ideas of
fellowship. He came to believe, "Wherever God has a child I have a brother
or sister" (p. 17). In his context that included, Catholics, Pentecostals,
etc. "It was a solemn thought to me that I had brothers and sisters meeting
behind other signboards..." (p. 209).
-
We can identify his peculiar doctrines
which became the theological basis of the modern change movement.
-
"I began to wonder if I had ever been
right upon anything" (209).
-
His central message became, "The only
unity that is ever possible is unity in diversity" (p. 17).
-
"I became convinced that what we term
‘the Church of Christ' was not identical with the one body for which
Jesus died, but had been fashioned into a party growing out of a
historical attempt to restore the primitive order..." (p. 117). "... the
first great error of the heirs of the reformers was the equating of the
movement with the Lord's church" (p. 209). These words are parroted by
every modern change agent.
-
"Perhaps the most profound change came
with the realization that the Church of Christ was simply another
denomination..." "We have been betrayed by circumstances into becoming a
non-sectarian sect" (p. 279). "I was made to realize that the sheep of
God were not all in any sectarian fold, but were scattered over the
partisan hills" (p. 334). (Continued on p. 4).
-
He "took the position that the body of
Christ was given no title, and did not need a distinctive name... To name
it was to denominate it..." (p. 194). "It became obvious to me quite
early that we had built up a system around the name we had selected and
we were seeking to save a man by getting him into that system" (p.
333-334).
-
"I dealt with the ‘five steps of
salvation' and showed that we were not saved by climbing a little ladder
into the kingdom..." (p. 211). "We simply took the step of faith and the
grace of God...drew us up into repentance and immersion..." (p. 211).
-
"I discussed the nature of worship and
showed the folly of the ‘five acts of worship' when everything that we
did on earth under the sovereignty of Jesus was an expression of worship"
(p. 211-212). "It was a mind-boggling experience... to realize that
everything...was worship...how I mowed my lawn, fixed a flat tire..." (p.
336).
-
"We were no longer under a written
code" (p. 220). "The new covenant was a person. The apostolic epistles
were not a code of jurisprudence. They were a collection of love letters"
(p. 219). "The regarding of the New Testament Scriptures as a written
code of laws has coupled with the idea that God provided an exact pattern
to be meticulously followed in all ages has operated in such a way as to
deny the lordship of Jesus..." (p. 285).
-
"The brethren are guilty of profound
error in their reasoning. They do not distinguish between the gospel of
Christ and the doctrine of the apostles" (p. 286). The gospel...the good
news of what God did for us when we were helpless to do anything for
ourselves... It is God's message for the unsaved... The doctrine is for
those in the body. It is not for the world any more than the gospel is
for the church" (p.337).
-
"The Spirit of God was illuminating me"
(209).
-
Speaking of the St. Louis Forum, "...we
had twice invited women to appear as speakers in a survey of women's
rights and privilege in the church..." (p. 331).
-
Regarding fellowship he wrote, "It is
foolish for mere weak mortals to talk about receiving one into the
fellowship. It is absurd to talk about withdrawing fellowship from him"
(p. 336).
-
"I demonstrated that our restoration
movement...was adapted to the cultural needs of man as the then existed
on the frontier. We no longer live in those times. We must launch a new
movement dedicated to renewal , through recovery of the apostolic
proclamation..." (p. 282).
-
He found a small non-instrumental group
and "sought to get them to begin clearing the ground for accomplishing
some things together with brethren in the Christian Church" (p. 320).
-
This book helps us understand why ACU and
Pepperdine University have emerged as the leaders of the change movement.
While visiting the Broadway Church in Lubbock, Bro. Bill Banowsky arose and
said of him, "There was one who was giving such a fresh and wholesome
outlook to the churches, that he wanted to come and meet him, for the day
was coming when men would say, ‘We had a prophet among us and knew it not'
(p. 241). At the "Southern Christian Convention" in Kingsport, TN (1967),
"There was no warm fraternization, except in the case of Bill Banowsky and
Norvel Young, who seemed to appreciate being invited by the North American
Christian Convention... Bill Banowsky especially treated the folks like
brethren" (p. 244). Both Young and Banowsky later served as president of
Pepperdine. Bro. K. was invited to speak at the faculty meeting at
Pepperdine (p.32). Pepperdine's chorus sang for his meetings at Westchester
(p. 320). In 1970, Bro. K "was invited to speak one night at the Southwest
Park Christian Church...a goodly number of professors from the school
(ACC), together with several visiting speakers joined with a large
delegation of students who were present" (p. 272). In 1977, he spoke at the
Preacher's Workshop at Abilene Christian College ..." "The position I
advocated there is much more widely accepted in these days" (p. 296). Today
we see the consequences of flirting with the heretic. Both of these schools
are in the camp of the change movement.... heirs of Carl Ketcherside.
Factions that divide the church are always
formed around influential preachers and editors. The change movement had as
its founder and earliest spokesman, Carl Ketcherside.
BOUND COPIES OF CTN ARE AVAILABLE
With this issue,
CTN will go to the preachers and elders of some 2300 congregations. Your
$25 monthly contribution will enable us to send it to 50 more. Your prayers
and encouragement are deeply appreciated. Bound copies of Vol. I & II are
available for $6.50 each, post paid. Be sure to visit
www.christianity-then-and-now.com for hundreds of additional lessons. A
new feature is Sermons that Need to be Preached in an Age of Change. This issue completes our second year of publication.
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