A celebrated statesman made a speech lately, addressed to University students. He said:
“There never were, in my opinion—when you survey the international sphere—there never were conditions which made it more necessary for us to go back to first principles.”
The phrase, “Back to first principles”, is striking, and worthy of a place in our thoughts in relation to the things of the Lord. As to the realm of politics we can, and should, as Christians, steer clear of it. “Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth” (Isa. 45:9), said the prophet; whilst our Lord said, “Let the dead bury their dead” (Matt. 8:22).
But in the sphere of the Lord’s interests we may well consider the demand, “back to first principles,” for it is sadly needed.
Look at Christendom today, divided into sects, systems, and divisions, the most enlightened Christians unable to say they have had no part in the failure. Look at evil doctrine rampant, worldliness among Christians the rule rather than the exception. We may well be exercised.
“Back to first principles” is an acknowledgement that they have been departed from.
As I write, a great gathering of University students from all parts of the world is in conference in Glasgow. Long reports of the different addresses have been given. These addresses, by their very departure from first principles, emphasize the necessity for the return to first principles.
Dr. John R. Mott, Secretary of the Christian Students’ Movement, sent a message to the gathering as follows:
“May delegates have revised vision of the necessity, urgency, practicability of enthroning Christ in social, international and inter-racial life of mankind, and to this end may they return to confront the present student generation with the living Christ through their lives, witness-bearing and united service.”
Now one of the first principles in which God is acting is “to take OUT of them [the nations] a people for His name” (Acts 15:14); whilst our Lord said, speaking of His disciples, “They are NOT of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16).
A first principle is to grasp the truth that the Christian Society is an unworldly society, and the seeking of a place in the world the prime way for its enervation and ultimate destruction. The devil knew what he was about when he sowed tares among the wheat; that is, introduced mere professors into the Christian circle. The result of that was to pave the way for the pretension of Christendom, set forth in the parable of the grain of mustard seed, and seen in all the political aggrandizement and imposing pomp and ritualism of Rome, and in a lesser way both in Church and dissent. All true barriers gone, the way is open for the leavening of the Christian doctrine with evil teaching, as set forth in the parable of the woman introducing the leaven in the three measures of meal. And surely the Christian profession today is leavened through and through with evil doctrine.
Thus we are faced with the signs of apostasy on every hand, soon to result in absolute apostasy, once the true Church is raptured to heaven.
As to Dr. Mott’s desire to see Christ enthroned in the social, international, and inter-racial life of mankind—that cannot be till Christ Himself comes to reign, and Scripture warns us that the great tribulation must take place, bringing judgment on God’s enemies, and deliverance to His people Israel, brought to repentance through the terrible ordeal of the tribulation. Evil men and seducers are to wax worse and worse, and the millennium cannot be till Christ arises and takes the reigns of government into His hands.
No; never more than now the necessity of the believer, if he is to carry out God’s mind, is SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD, including separation from a worldly religion.
Bear Paul’s inspired exhortation:
“Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light with darkness? and what concord has Christ with Belial? or what part has he that believes with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate” (2 Cor. 6:14-17).
If this were acted upon, every Christian would leave churches and chapels where unconverted ministers, officers, and members were knowingly allowed. And Christians, true Christians and unworldly, simply following the teaching of Scripture, would exert far more power in the world for God, and in the salvation of sinners out of it, than by this unholy mixing up of things that leads to such disaster.
Another speaker, Mr. J. H. Oldham, London, said:
“We must have an international Society, and the Christian Church should be that Society.”
The apostles had no such outlook, and no diligent reader of the Bible could gather such a false idea from the Scriptures.
The apostle Peter wrote to the believers, “I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims” (1 Peter 2:11), and spoke of them as partakers of Christ’s sufferings and being reproached for the name of Christ; an unworldly society, belonging to “another-worldly” society, if I may be allowed to coin a word, rendering them strangers, as not belonging to this world, and pilgrims, as travelling to that world. Would that the Christian students had the truth of separation from the world put before them.
The apostle John, in his inspired writings, draws a very clear line of demarcation between the believer and the world. The following is a sweeping statement:
“ALL that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away and the lust thereof; but he that does the will of God abides for ever” (John 2:16-17).
Whilst the apostle Paul is equally clear:
“For our conversation [our citizenship] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20).
First principles lead us to take up an unworldly position, yet diligently seeking to spread the Gospel and “show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9), recognizing the unworldly character of the Church, and knowing that blessing for the world as such can only come when He, whom the world crucified, comes to reign.
The Bishop of Peterborough, in his address, said:
“If Christianity was to grip the world it would not be done by a mere collection of free lances, however admirable or enthusiastic. It would only be done by the organized community which they called the church.”
Here the Bishop has the right idea, but he applies it to the wrong thing. What he has in view is the highly, organized, religious community of saved and unsaved—the latter, alas! in the preponderance, which he calls the Church. Whilst thanking God for the Reformation that released these favoured lands from the superstition and thraldom of Rome, alas, rearing again its head and gathering strength in these last days; yet we cannot but acknowledge that it came partly as a political affair, in the which the ungovernable moods of Henry VIII, whose life was one long act of cruelty and wickedness, had part. He became head of the Reformed Church of England, and whatever the character of the reigning monarch is he holds this office by virtue of his kingship. The union between Church and State is diametrically opposed to the teaching of the Word of God, as also the order of priesthood, for all believers are priests in God’s account.
But let us get back to first principles and endeavour to get a true idea of the Church of God.
Before God it consists of every blood-washed, Spirit-indwelt believer on the face of the earth. As a professing thing on earth it is composed of all baptized individuals, who are thus held by God responsible for their profession. The former is seen in Ephesians (see Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4, 16; 5:25-33); the latter is seen in the addresses of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, which are set forth under the figure of “the seven golden candlesticks”.
In the midst of profession and amid all the confusion caused by the mixture of saved and unsaved, the link between Church and State, the worldliness and political efforts of the Churches, the evil doctrines, the divisions, denominations, sects and parties, we need guidance, and this we get from the Lord by His Spirit through His Word.
Amid all the ruin we should associate with those who seek without assumption to cleave to the Lord, maintain an unworldly position, and recognize in a practical way the truths of the assembly, carrying out the order laid down in Scripture, as far as the confusion of the day allows.
That being so, what the Bishop of Peterborough says as to ‘free lances’ is true and weighty. The discipline of an army makes no room for free lances, nor does the navigation of a ship, nor the running of a business, nor the building of a house. Each individual employed is under a master mind, and labouring for the complete result in co-operation with all who are under the direction of that master mind.
What should definitely be before each servant’s mind is the objective of building up God’s thoughts in souls. We may minister the Gospel, or our limit may be the truth of a very simple nature, but, in learning that, souls would not be under the necessity of unlearning anything in order to receive further and deeper truths.
We are assured, with the right object before us, that we should be better evangelists, pastors, teachers or helps.
An earnest evangelist in France, recently writing to a brother in Scotland, said, “The preaching of the truth does its own separating work”. He never wrote a truer word.
There must be in the last days of the Church’s history upon earth a revival of truth, a returning to first principles we feel sure, as we study Revelation 2:17 and 3:10-12. Though Laodicea may, and does, characterize the present day with its sinister omens of the apostasy prophesied by Scripture abounding on every hand, yet Philadelphia, blessed be God, goes on to the end of the Church’s history on the earth, terminated, as it is, at the Lord’s coming.
We have written, pointing out the need of returning to first principles; perhaps some abler pen may be used in describing more fully and in a more orderly way what they are.