《Modern Theses》
Alternative Title: The Need of Reformation in the Church
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ForewordAuthor's Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 / Need Of Reformation In The 16Th And The 20Th Centuries
Chapter 2 / Definite Theses For Various Churches
Chapter 3 / Concisely Stated, Diversified, Epigrammatic Theses
Chapter 4 / Paragraphical Theses
Chapter 5 / Dangerous Shoals
Chapter 6 / Bigotry
Chapter 7 / The Master's Withering Condemnation Of Proselytizing
Chapter 8 / The Modern Sale Of Indulgences
Chapter 9 / National Sins
Chapter 10 / Errors Of Leaders -- Evangelistic Malpractice
Chapter 11 / Pharisaism And The Unpardonable Sin
Chapter 12 / The Burning Message Of Christ's Forerunner
Chapter 13 / Justification By Newly-Invented Modern Methods Futile
Chapter 14 / The How Of Salvation -- Futile Human Answers
Chapter 15 / The How Of Salvation -- The Answer Of Jesus
Chapter 16 / The Lordship Of Christ
Chapter 17 / The Lord's Promise To Remove The Stony Heart
Chapter 18 / The Master's Reason For His Life
Chapter 19 / Christianity A Manifestation Of The Spirit Of Christ
Chapter 20 / Complete Freedom Found Only In Christ
Chapter 21 / Complete Freedom In Christ
Chapter 22 / Faith Begotten And Sustained By Manifestations Of Supernaturalism
Chapter 23 / Kind Words Of Remonstrance With Sectarianists
Chapter 24 / The Sin Of Disunity
Chapter 25 / Victory Chapter
Chapter 26 / The Triumphant Life
Chapter 27 / No Fellowship With God Sans Fellowship With His Humblest Followers
Chapter 28 / A Plea For Manliness
Chapter 29 / The Spirit's Manifestations
FOREWORD
When Jesus had finished cleansing the Temple of those that sold oxen, sheep and doves, pouring out the changers' money and overthrowing their tables, then the disciples remembered that it was written -- "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." -- (John 2:17).
What a perfect picture of much present day Churchianity! A quenchless zeal for secondary things in the house of God co-existent with the loss of the God-consciousness! That which is heaviest does not weigh heaviest! Christ, the Head of the Church, an unreleased prisoner in His own House! Zeal for it, obscuring Him! Zeal for the externals of the House of God obliterating the vision of God! Our darkening incense hiding God!
The task of the next Reformation will be to restore to us the lost sense of the presence of God so that men coming into the God-impregnated atmosphere shall report that "God is with you of a truth."
Christ shocked those who substituted devotion to the temple for devotion to God, by saying -- "In this temple is One greater than the temple" -- One greater than all of its formal service; One greater than all of its multiplied activities; One greater than all of its socialized program; One greater than its forty and six years in construction, which the Jew boasted of in describing its greatness; One greater than its mammoth blocks of stone; One greater than nature which yielded the material of its construction, -- Yea, One greater than the universe which the Pantheists adore but of whose Creator they are ignorant -- (the created universe being an expression of His power, men not finding Him through it, primarily, although "day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge" -- but truly appreciating, it through Him).
Let us say of all temples made with hands that they cannot contain Him whom the heavens cannot contain; that He dwelleth not in temples made with men's hands; let us say to all churches which arrogate to themselves the Name of God that there is One greater than their ecclesiastical system; One greater than all of its machinery; One greater than their "ISM;" One greater than all their form; One greater than their shibboleth; One greater than their most cherished tenets; One greater than their particular doctrinal moulds; One greater than their polity; One greater than their educational scheme -- it is He who inhabiteth ETERNITY, whom the heavens cannot contain, much less the weak institutions of men! He who, by wondrous grace, has come, in this dispensation, to dwell in these earthen vessels -- the bodies of regenerate men!
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
We intend this to be a pungently searching book; but fidelity and harshness are not identical. Fidelity to truth is perfectly consistent with the deepest love of the people. It is not love to silently suffer sin upon our fellows. This cowardly course renders the prophet a partaker of the sins of the people. Earnest, courageous protest, at wrong everywhere, is the highest evidence of Christlike love. Many a life has been saved by the surgeon's knife. And many a soul has been saved from sin and hell by those courageous preachers of righteousness who are termed by Christ the violent men who take the kingdom of heaven by force, (Matt. 11:12), or, as one marginal reading renders it, "They, (i.e., the violent men), who thrust men," take the kingdom of heaven by force. How this recalls that similar statement from the Old Testament, -- "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, (R. V. negligently), and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood." (Jeremiah 48:10). So, my dear reader, will you not remember that back of the cutting, heart searching truth this book contains, is a heart of love? Whatever is said of wrong conditions in various movements in no wise reflects upon the good sincere people of God in those movements.
The following blunt, homely, Theses, are the outcome of much sorrow and agony of heart over the low state of spirituality in the Protestant churches and their allied offshoots. They were written after many days of fasting and prayer, and thirty-six nights of prayer during their preparation, in the course of as many weeks, and while preaching most of the time, once, twice, and in some instances, thrice daily. This does not imply that they were born in that brief compass of time, as the thoughts taking concrete form in them, are the result of from three to four hundred thousand miles of travel, and impartial, unprejudiced, actual observation of religious conditions in this country and Canada. Often, the agony of prayer for a revival in the whole body of Christ was like unto the expulsive stage of a woman in travail, as the heart was torn and bleeding over the disunity in the Church, and her consequent powerlessness.
Many of the thoughts contained in this volume have been given the scientific test of verification; they have been preached under the signal seal and anointing of the Holy Spirit, and confirmed by the liberation from bondage, of many souls, into the glorious, untrammeled liberty of the children of God, which is ours in Christ Jesus. This message is sent forth in faith, believing that God will further seal and own it. Whatever is helpful is from God; whatever is weak and unworthy is of the creature.
Let me here record my deep consciousness of unworthiness to write the following hortatory paragraphs to my fellows. I write altogether as a sinner saved by grace alone, through faith, and as a subject of Him who justifies the ungodly.
If it be said that some of the exposures are not typical of New Testament Christianity in its highest form, let us consider that the world indiscriminately makes no distinction, and the organized church, in its low state of spirituality, fails to discern it, as a whole. There are, however, exceptions, so much counterfeit assuring the existence of the genuine, and bringing it to the light.
The motive in depicting conditions as they are is not personal, but altogether a matter of fidelity to the trust God has committed unto us, and to the Truth. When a prominent co-worker of many of the leading exponents of the highest life, testifies that none of them live, under close observation, what they preach, in the interest of truth it is time to investigate and to throw quickly to the scrap pile, theories which do not meet the scientific test of verification.
A book of over five hundred pages, recently written and published, entitled "Now It Can Be Told, " by a prominent war correspondent of Great Britain, Sir Philip Gibbs, is having a phenomenal circulation in this country -- in fact it is one of the most popular non-fiction books of the day. We are not aware that the writer of this startling book has been accused of lack of patriotism, or of treason, for making these startling revelations. There are things in the church that have not been told which we are telling, not in disloyalty nor unsympathetically, but solely in the hope and faith that they may be used of God to stir the church and the ministry, the writer and readers, to seek the remedy.
The fact of the publication of this book is a miracle of faith, involving, as it does, several thousand dollars cost for the first economical edition of ten thousand copies, not a penny of Which was in hand before the book was finished in manuscript form, but prayer being answered for its publication when the manuscript was completed.
Arthur C. Zepp
INTRODUCTION
It is not an easy matter to write an introduction to another man's book. One cannot always follow clearly, the vision of another. The author of the present book has a vision, he has brought errors in the religious field to light and truth-seekers will appreciate the effort of the writer to clear the atmosphere. There is still much religious bondage in the world. This book is an earnest attempt to lead the soul into the liberty of Christ. The author has uncovered a Christian Pharisaism (if such an expression can be used) and a religious legalism which must be broken.
The book is an attempt to lead back to the simplicity of the Gospel, and what earnest thinker is there that has not recognized that need? The book is, to some extent, written in an epigrammatic style, and to some readers this may prove tedious, but there are some truths which cannot be expressed in any other way. The ideas expressed have come as a result of experience and contact in a busy ministry. If it should seem to some cautious thinkers that some of the statements are too radical, it must be remembered that all pioneer thought errs on the radical side. Dr. Bruce has said, "One rash, but heroic, Luther, is worth a thousand men of the Erasmus type, unspeakably wise, but cold, passionless, timid and time-serving."
There is certainly nothing timid and time-serving about this book. It is frank, open and straight to the point. It is the style of the cataract and not of the placid river. It will make people think and will shake our quiet dogmatisms and disturb our settled traditions.
It will not be pleasant reading for the dogmatist or the traditionalist. It will disturb our sectarianism and awake our somnambulism.
This book aims at the conversion of our religious ideas. It is a call to get back to simplicity and to "rend our hearts and not our garments." It has a prophetic note in it and belongs to the Elijah type and not to the prophets of Baal.
The book calls back to Christ; Christ is the center of the vision. It will appeal to those whose hearts are crying, "Sirs, we would see Jesus."
It will not be necessary to endorse every statement the author has written to endorse the general trend of the book. The writer has been drinking at the fountain of Church History and he has seen the drift of the modern church and modern religious movements from the center of Christianity, which is Christ. He has been comparing notes and thinks the advantage is with the past Reformers.
I think the ideal of the book could be summed up in those splendid words of Sir Robertson Nicholl in "The British Weekly" -- "The revelation is for us completed in Christ. It is God's love that carries forward His redeeming purpose for us all and one by one. Mercy to the Psalmist means more than pardon; it was kindness, loyal affection on the part of God, deep fatherly consideration. We need that, and we have it proved to us in Christ Jesus. We see in Him that God's power is most manifest in His love, in the moral sphere, not in the material; in His victory over sin and death, in His patience as He deals with the material of our faulty lives."
I have read the manuscript of the book and feel that there is real merit in it. The book is a message rather than a treatise. Its whole purpose, as I understand it, is to bring us from our legal and traditional tendencies back to the central fact of Christianity -- Christ Jesus Himself. If it does this for any soul, it will have accomplished its mission to the Church.
George Shaw
Chapter 1
NEED OF REFORMATION IN THE 16TH AND THE 20TH CENTURIES
Definition: The word Theses is from the Greek word Theosis, singular; plural, theses, meaning "to place, " to set, a thing laid down, a statement, a proposition; specifically, a position or proposition which a person advances and offers to maintain.
Martin Luther wrote ninety-five Theses against the abuses of the church of his day. Were he alive today, and should he attempt to write Theses covering the perversions and abuses which have grown out of the Reformation, o.f which he was the leading human instrument, he would need greatly to multiply the original number. In his day, one great church usurped the place of Christ; now the Protestant church is divided into endless sects; separate, apart, and often antagonistic each to the other; wrangling, jangling and warring among themselves and often as unsympathetic as the Jews and Samaritans of Christ's time, who had no dealings one with the other, and this disunified state is the greatest hindrance to the work of Christ in the world; and worse yet, among the allied off-shoots of Protestantism, numerous factions who. preach and profess the highest grace -- the perfectly unifying blessing embodied in Christ's intercessory prayer, who, in some instances, have a doctrinal unity which is belied by separation in practice.
One cause of disintegration in all former Reformations was in the over-dependence upon some dominant human leader, as Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, Knox, Wesley; also in that they gathered about some distinctive doctrine, as for example, justification, predestination, free grace or free will; the witness of the Spirit or sanctification. These distinctive words became slogans for exposition and defense; and while a merciful God overruled to much good their undue emphasis, the tendency was to obscure the Saviour, substituting conformity to doctrines for Him, inducing a subtle idolatry of supposedly infallible tenets.
Shortly before his death, Wesley cast about him to find reasons for the success of Methodism and concluded that it was because of their distinctive doctrines, their polity or form of church government, and their firm administration of discipline; whereas these were only contributary! God, the Personal God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, in the midst, was the great secret of their phenomenal power and growth, working with them, confirming the Word with the signs that followed.
Should God grant a mighty Reformation ere the dispensation closes, the outstanding Personality in it, transcending all others, will be none other than He whom Scripture represents as "Fairer than the sons of men;" whom God has ordained in all things to have the preeminence, leading men, through His Word and by His Spirit, not to partial views of truth, but "into all truth." "The Lord of Hosts hath purposed it, " wrote Isaiah, "to stain the pride of all glory and to bring into contempt all the honorable of earth." Prophecy records, and history confirms the law of rejection of all people failing God's purpose and the new probation of untried nations or movements. The Jews failed God and God called the Gentiles; the Roman Church fails and God raises up Lutheranism; it lags, and Wesley is called and Methodism is given probation. She fails in measure, and the National Association is formed to call her back to pristine glory and power. Keswickianism, with its different emphasis on Perfectionism is tried, the Pentecostal 5Iovement, and various independent movements, Missionary and Higher Life, spring up, one after the other, and of all of them it may be said, in greater or less degree, that -- "By and by each evangelical movement loses its free spirit and settles down into a new form of traditionalism, " zealously contending for the doctrines which, when aflame, gave them being, but now. out from which the life and power have gone: and the words of Isaiah, while primarily spoken in relation to Israel, may be applied ultimately to them all (with of course the exception ever of God's elect) -- "And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen; for the Lord shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name: that he who blesses himself in the earth, shall bless himself in the God of truth." Let us not boast that we are any kind of an "1st." The true Church is an organism -- "The Church which is His Body" -- and someone has well said, and science verifies the statement, that "when we organize the organism corruption sets in."