Truth Magazine

By Larry Ray Hafley

For better or for worse and probably some of both, the grace-fellowship issue is on the front burner again. Frankly and personally, I would rather be attacked by a Campbellite-shouting Baptist accusing me of water salvation. Perhaps the readers of this journal would like it better, too. But an assault by a faith only Baptist is about as rare as an Indian attack on a covered wagon. Today, we skirmish with diplomats and make faces at one another with our missiles. It is not as exciting as the calvary coming to the rescue, but it is the reality of our modern age. So it is with the unity-in-diversity movement. The conflict is not as easily dealt with, but it is the reality of our day.

Some of you are tired of reading and hearing about “imputed righteousness” and similar expressions. You are weary of reading about Carl Ketcherside and his satellites. Well, welcome to ‘the club! There are those who are as tired of writing about such things as you are of reading them. However, that is where the struggle is in many places. It must be and it will be tended to. Subscriptions are not the point of concern. Scriptures are.

No, you are not against scriptural studies, but you deplore and detest the injecting of personalities into the fray. There may be too many personality conflicts, but remember this, false doctrines do not spring from the ground. They spring from men, and often men must be cited and indicted as they are closely tied and identified with a given controversy (3 Jn. 9; 2 Tim. 2:17). Sometimes Paul called names; sometimes he did not (1 Cor. 15:12). Good judgment may not always abound in this regard, but consider that your judgment may be the one that is not the best. This business of naming names is a two-edged sword. Being called a “legalist,” a “witch hunter,” and being accused and accursed as part of a political power structure for personal advantage has its sting, too. That is not a whimper, but articles appearing in Truth Magazine do not have a monopoly on the name calling market.

The present strife is not a mere “heretic Calvinist” versus “party power politics” shouting match. The issues are fraught with intense, serious consequences. The role of the sacrifice of Christ in the scheme of redemption, the nature of the church, the conditions of pardon from sin, the scope of fellowship in the truth, the purpose of the New Testament, these and other subjects are at the core of the current grace-fellowship discussion. Spoken kindly but candidly, if you do not recognize that these factors are at the heart of the very faith in and of Christ, then you do not know enough to pass judgment on those who are carrying on the fight.

Truth Magazine XXII: 22, p. 364
June 1, 1978

By Wayne Walker

Evolution is a subject which is still being taught in our schools and a topic that is still controversial and worthy of discussion, even though it is not so much talked about now as maybe a few years ago. In this short article I cannot hope to present all, or even many, of the problems which evolution poses to the Bible believer, and which the Bible poses to evolutionists. But I would like to consider one major fault that can be found in the presentation of evolution in academic circles.

My major contention is that evolution, as it pictures the stages of human development from a primeval unicellular organism to man, is based solely on assumption and has never been demonstrated to be true. Thus, it cannot be considered as a fact, although it is many times taught as such to students in the classroom. In order for their theories to be proven, evolutionists would have to find evidence of one long line of gradual changes from organism to organism until finally the level of man had been reached. This has not been done, however, and therefore, these hypothetical changes are referred to as “missing links.” All the evidence that has, been found can easily be explained from a creationist viewpoint as well as from an evolutionary one.

True science, which is simply a systematic body of observable, factual information about nature, and the Bible never contradict each other because the same God established both. Man’s fallible and often faulty interpretation of the facts – science falsely so-called (1 Tim. 6:20) including evolution – often contradict both. The scientific axiom of cause-effect states that something cannot come from nothing. The Bible complements this by revealing that the prime cause of this universe and all that is in it is God. However, evolution teaches that original matter must have appeared out of nowhere or existed eternally. In reference to the eternal matter theory, the second law of thermodynamics affirms that the universe is slowly running down to a total cessation of activity, and indicates that there must have been a starting point from which to do so. The Bible speaks of “the beginning” (Gen. 1:1) and the end (2 Pet. 3:10-11) of the physical order of things. The evolutionary assumption, on the other hand, is that all things are growing bigger and better and will continue to do so eternally by the natural processes now at work.

Furthermore, there is the scientific law of biogenesis, that life can come only from pre-existing life. The Bible informs us that all living organisms were originally created by a living God (Gen. 1:11, 20, 24). To the contrary, evolutionists believe that original life must have come from non-living materials. Finally, a simple observation of the law of reproduction, leads to the. conclusion that like begets like – one does not plant a corn seed and reap a tomato plant. The Bible reveals that it was God who ordained each organism to produce after its own kind (Gen. 1:12, 21, 25). Yet the evolutionist teaches that at some time, some organisms must have borne offspring radically different from themselves in order for the variety to exist that evolution requires to be true. And so it goes.

Organic, naturalistic, atheistic evolution teaches that man is merely a descendant of animal ancestors, though more highly developed, and totally a product of his physical heredity and environment. What does the Bible teach? “God created man in his own image” and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 1:2627; 2:7). This is what Christians believe. We cannot prove by factual data that the Biblical record is the way it happened. But, neither can the evolutionists prove by factual data that what they believe is true. It is important for all Bible believers to remember, when considering evolution, that it takes just as much faith, if not more, to believe in the evolutionary theory of man’s existence as it does in the Bible account of the creation of God. “By faith, we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God” (Heb. 11:3).

Truth Magazine XXII: 22, p. 363
June 1, 1978

By Jeffery Kingry

During World War II in Britain when armaments were becoming scarce and use of manpower was critical, time, and motion studies were made of gun crews in the artillery. It was hoped that the speed of operating; each gun could be increased. In one such study of artillery crews a peculiar act was noted. At a certain point, just before the firing of the gun, two of the men stood at attention for three seconds, then resumed the sequence necessary for the next firing. This was puzzling. The men themselves could not explain it; it was part of the technique they were taught in gunnery school. Neither could the officers nor the instructors explain it. All anyone knew was that the three second standing at attention was a “necessary” part of the process of firing the highly mechanized piece of artillery. One day an old, long retired artillery colonel was .a shown the time and motion studies. He, too, was puzzled at first. Then his face, cleared. “Ali,” he said; when the performance was over. “I have it. The two, men are holding the horses” (Robert Nisbet, The Social. Bond, p. 318)!

Horses, of course, disappeared from the artillery 50 years before World War 1I. We may laugh and say that this is one more example of the idiot inertia of the military but the story is no different except in details of the history of many more “progressive” and “relevant” institutions. We have only to look at the place tradition plays in the Roman Catholic Church and some of the older, more liturgical Protestant denominations to see how habit replaces thought among “religious” people. Once “control” is gained through some kind of institutionalization of behavior, no effort ordinarily will seem too great to protect that form of control. The appeal of habit is its ability to suspend conscious thought. The consequence is that few of us can be said to welcome change because change from tradition, habit, or ritual requires thought and effort.

Christianity Means Change

The dictionary defines conservative as “one who adheres to traditional methods and views, a cautious and discreet person.” In one sense, I wish to be identified with other brethren who are conservative in their view of the all-sufficiency of the Word and the church. When it comes to the teaching of the Bible, “be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace” (Heb. 13:9). When it comes to our faith, “Be ye steadfast, unmoveable” (1 Cor. 15:58). But “conservatism” in religion should not mean stagnant, unmoving, unchanging, dead living and service.

Change and conservatism are often thought to be antonymous — but the only thing that is unmoving and unchanging about Christianity is its incessant call for the revolution of the spirit of man. Jesus was a spiritual revolutionary in the full sense, of the word. His attitudes, methods, and words got Him lynched by the religious hypocrites of His day. He was a militant opposer of that brand of religious complacency that put “the way we have always done it” over true service to God. Whether it was His cleansing of the temple (Jn. 2:13-17), healing on the Sabbath (Matt. 12:10-13), or breaking the Jew’s petty rules and regulations (Matt. 12:1-9), Jesus was an iconoclast of the first order. “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace but a sword . . . he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt: 10:34,38,39). Jesus demanded that men let their old personality — the old man — die. .The cross is not a symbol of suffering, but of death. Jesus is demanding a death to self that a new life in His likeness might have birth. The call of God is to “newness of life.” The Roman letter was addressed first to Christians: “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3,4). This spirit of change was inculcated in the Lord’s disciples as well. The enemies of Christianity looked in dismay when the evangelist entered town and exclaimed, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also” (Acts 17:6)!

Individually, the Bible requires a constant introspection and consequent change to conform to the Lord’s perfect example (Eph. 4:13). Many are content to remain with “first principles” in knowledge and action. But one “first principle” they overlook is that God requires all in His family to grow to their full maturity as His children. “By this time you should be teaching other people, but actually you need that someone teach you over and over again the rudimentary principles of the divine revelation. You have become a people who need a diet of milk and cannot face solid food! Everyone who uses milk exclusively is without experience in the Word of truth; he simply has not grown up. But solid food is for full grown men, that is, for those who through constant practice have their spiritual faculties carefully trained to distinguish right from wrong. So then, let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teaching and doctrine of Christ. Let us pass on to our full growth, and let us stop continually re-laying a foundation of repentance from a lifeless formality, of the faith that turned us to God, of the doctrine of baptism, laying on of hands, of the resurrection, and of eternal punishment. Advance we will, if the Lord wills” (Heb. 5:12-14; 6:1-3, New Testament From 26 Translations). Jesus died that you and I might not have to conform to our own carnal nature or the worldly enticements of this earth. The truth has freed us to follow God and Him alone. “Be not fashioned according to this world, but by your new attitude of mind be ye transformed so that you may prove in your own life what is good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2, Ibid.).

Truth or Tradition?

But going beyond God’s call to a revolution of the spirit, the Lord calls us to sincere and dedicated worship and service. Though our worship is unchanging in substance-in spirit and in truth-the forms are as varied as the cultures which follow God’s pattern. Not only do our methods vary from country to country, but even from North to South in these United States. There is nothing particularly condemnatory or laudatory in one way over another, as long as they are in spirit and truth. Jesus and the Apostle Paul kept certain customs and traditions when they were kept as customs. But Jesus flagrantly and openly broke with custom when it became law for those who found it (Matt. 15:7-9).

Brethren would be hard pressed to give scriptural authority for the shameful way they practice “respect of persons” upon preachers. Is the “employer-employee” relationship found between churches and preachers truth or tradition? Where do we find the divine pattern for control of the evangelist’s movements and work by the local church? What management does the church have over the preacher that it does not scripturally have over any other member in the church? That preachers agree and submit to such regulation is not an argument of right or wrong but of tradition. Why is it that the church only exercises her traditional “control” on the “local” preacher, but not on any of the other men she may support in other places?

Why is it that the Bible tells us that the “elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor (reckoned worthy of a double stipend-jwk) especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. For the scripture with, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and, The laborer is worthy of his hire” (1 Tim. 5:17,18). In how many churches are the elders, even one elder, counted `worthy of his hire”?. 1 have heard from men of experience for years that most problems in churches are a result of “do-nothing-elders.” An eldership that does naught but choose preachers and decide where to spend the treasury does not need or deserve financial support. The fact that God envisioned the eldership as a work that needed financial support gives us an insight into the quality and the quantity of the work of the eldeis.’Why are our elders not supported out of the treasury? Manifestly the brethren do not see that the work being done is deserving of support. Many elderships are ignorant as to what “feeding the flock among you” consists of! Is our concept of the work of the eldership truth or tradition?

What about our views on “personal work”? That the New Testament evangelist taught and converted people., no one will dare deny. But the growth of the New Testament church was not in the work of one man or several men, but in the work of the church: “at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were scattered abroad . . . therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:1-4). How many churches “die, on the vine” ; because they are. without a. “minister”? These churches feel that if they could just raise some money and entice a preacher to come “work for us” everything will be alright. Anything a preacher can do in a community to preach the Gospel, the church can do, and do it more fruitfully in direct proportion to the number of brethren who are preaching the word. A preacher might do a better and more efficient job, and spend more time at it, but by himself he will never accomplish as much as a dedicated, zealous, working church can. Is our concept of personal work truth or tradition?

The examples could be drawn out endlessly, but the thesis of this article has been supported. Just as tradition produced “eyes that will not see, ears that will not hear, and “hearts waxed gross” even today much of what we do is lost in ineffectuality just because we have permitted habit to suspend conscious thought. Change for change’s sake is senseless, but refusal to change for fear of losing vain tradition is even more senseless.

Truth Magazine XXII: 22, pp. 362-363
June 1, 1978

By Earl Robertson

Anyone familiar with the writings of Augustine, fully utilized by John Calvin in his Institutes of The Christian Religion, and parroted by many denominational preachers and some of our own brethren, knows something about the doctrine of predestination. Calvin wrote, “By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death. This God has testified, not only in the case of single individuals; he has also given a specimen of it in the whole posterity of Abraham, to make it plain that the future condition of each nation was entirely at his disposal” (Institutes, Book III, Chapter 21).

The doctrine says God did eternally beforehand fix the individual destinies of each person. Some he predestined to heaven and others to hell and neither can do anything about it to change it. Who can believe such? One Baptist preacher recently wrote, “First, the word predestination means prearranged destiny” (The Christian Baptist, February, 1978, p. 4). He further wrote, “Predestination does not mean part of the way, but all the way to heaven.” This predestination is, they say, “unconditional election.” One wrote, “. . . if any are saved God must choose out those who shall be the objects of His grace” (The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, p. 95). Frank B. Beck wrote, “There is this great difference in the election of the saved and the rejection of the rest of men. In electing the saved God encounters them and regenerates them according to His own sovereign will (John 1:13; Jas. 1:18), apart from their will (Rom. 9:16-18). A Divine interference!” (The Five Points of Calvinism, p. 21).

So according to this doctrine one’s salvation is “unconditional”; it is “apart from his own will” and is “according to God’s own sovereign will.” “Divine interference” indeed! This would entirely remove man from the realm of choice, and God gives man the power to choose (John 5:39, 40; Matt. 11:28-30). Man chooses his own destiny; God does not arbitrarily fix the individual destinies of men. If He did there would be no reason to preach the gospel (God’s power to save the believer, Rom. 1:16) to anyone; yet, Christ commanded it preached to all and promised to save each one who believes it and is baptized (Mark 16:15, 16). The creeds of men propogating the doctrine that God did eternally decree some individuals to eternal life and some to eternal damnation and that nothing can be done to alter the decree, does indeed circumvent the power of choice vested in each responsible individual by the Lord. According to their doctrine it will do no good to preach the gospel of Christ to anyone. S. T. Tolley, Editor of The Christian Baptist, recently wrote, “I certainly agree with the evangelist (Billy Graham, EER) that there are many from among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples who will be saved from their sins-even those who have never heard him, or any other man try to preach the gospel of Christ,-but it won’t be because any of the poor sinners said ‘yes.’ Because Christ paid the debt sinners owed and couldn’t pay, and..,because God the Father accepted the payment Christ made as full and complete redemption for the sins of His people.” He further wrote, “Primitive Baptist. have always believed that it was unnecessary for the gospel of Christ to be preached in order that sinners be saved from hell” (January, 1978, p. 12).

So it is a “prearranged destiny”; “a divine interference” of the sovereign will arbitrarily acting upon the sinner in his “unconditional election”! This number is “so certain and definite, that it cannot be either-increased or diminished” says the Philadelphia Confession Of Faith.

Since it is not God’s will that any should perish (2 Pet. 3:9), and this creedal system says that God has from eternity decreed some to hell, we must conclude that both God and man can not be right on this matter! Who is telling the truth? Friend, you do have a choice right here! Since man teaches one thing and God another on the subject of predestination, it becomes a question as. to whether you want your trust in God or man.

God says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his: Son . . .” (Rom. 8:28, 29). God’s “purpose” (prothesin) is His placing men before His mind so as to distinctly see then. God ‘did not have to foreordain what a man’s destiny, would be in order to foresee . it; He could foresee the destiny of a free agent just as freely as He could foresee the end of one without volition. All things involved in man’s redemption were set before God, and’ among these was that man should be called by the iospel. The Bible says, “Whereunto he called you through our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:14). Such “obtaining of.glory” is because one has been “conformed to the image of his Son.” God foresaw that He would save this way.. He foresaw all that would accept salvation thus offered.

Truth Magazine XXII: 22, pp. 360-361
June 1, 1978