Truth Magazine

By Bruce Edwards, Jr.

“Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say to them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?” (Ex. 3:13). There is something very remarkable and significant about the Lord’s answer to this question by Moses. The people will want to know just who this God is that Moses claims to represent; what can be said? “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Ex. 3:14). How profound! How astounding! This One whom Moses will represent speaks of Himself in terms of personal pronouns; when Moses explains his encounter to the people he will speak of “He” not “it;” he will say “I AM hath sent me” not “the great ultimate cause.” God is a person! He has personality! And having a personality, and intellect, He is eminently capable of communication. In fact, the eternal, self-existing One has always been communicating-even before you or I or anyone like us ever appeared on the earth. Before “times eternal” (Tit. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:9; Gen. 3:22; Isaiah 6:18), the triune God has been communicating-the Father with the Son, the Son with the Holy Spirit, all Three with each other. Divine unity is a complexity; the divine One is neither the mathematical “1” nor the homogeneous, “one” like a grain of sand. God is a trinity, a fellowship of three persons, and before anything was created He was there loving and communicating. God did not need to create in order to love or communicate. Creation was not a necessity; God did not need man in order to express Himself. The eternal One was and is self-sufficient.

But God chose to create and to communicate with His creation. “In His image created He them” that God could communicate with man, walk with man in sweet communion. The first man He created was given the ability to communicate in verbal language that he in turn could name the other creatures that God had made (Gen. 2:19). God’s communication then, -what He says and how He says it, is an important and natural subject for scrutiny by the believer. The existential theologian labels the Scriptures a “record of the revelation ‘experience’ of .others.” In other words, the Old and New Testaments in some sense “contain” God’s word, but not necessarily in God’s words. We are exhorted to approach the Bible as a human, fallible document-a curious “religious” journal-but assuredly not as an authoritative communication from God Himself. “Christianity,” as it were, becomes no longer a “seeking of God’s .will” as much as a “seeking for a ‘personal encounter’ with God.” The modernist claims, therefore, that “revelation” is not “information about God,” but rather, “God Himself.”

“God Himself” in this context becomes a pseudonym for religious experience;” something to be felt rather than discussed-something to be acknowledged rather than understood. The inevitable consequence of this concept of divine communication is the depersonalization of God. The modernist Paul Tillich, toward the end of his life, confessed “I no longer pray, I meditate.” Modern theology notwithstanding, how does the testimony of the Biblical writers compare with this view of God’s communication?

The consistent Scriptural picture is that God is the real source of the concepts, the ideas, even the very words of the Bible. He is, in a sense, portrayed as the “ghost writer” behind the efforts of the Biblical writers. “Thus saith the Lord” is the persistent claim of those who heard the call of God. Throughout the prophets, sanction ‘is repeatedly given to the notion that God is the originating source of their message. The New Testament bears significant witness to the Old that it is “from God.” In Matt. 19, Jesus suggests that the words of Gen. 2 are attributed to He “that made them.” The apostle Paul argues in Acts 28:25 that the Holy Spirit spoke through Isaiah. Again, the Hebrews writer (4:7) contends that God was “in David” as he wrote the Psalm under consideration.- Further, not only is the Old Testament given a place in “The Scriptures” as from God, but also the New. In his second letter (3:15, 16), Peter suggests that the epistles of Paul are “wrested” just like “the other Scriptures.” The outlook of the Biblical authors is then that God is the true source behind their efforts.

In First Corinthians, Paul discusses how God effected His communication through His servants. In the second chapter he portrays both a divine source of information and a verbal means of communication; he stresses four main points. First, he points out that the things he and the other apostles have .spoken and written are not secured in human experience; instead they proceed from a divine source (vs. 6-9). No one imaginatively devised the Bible-no one recorded it in response to a “revelation experience;” rather, such information was communicated by God. Secondly, Paul declares that God has communicated this information by the agency of the Holy Spirit (v. 10). It is one thing to deduce information from observation or to record a historical event from memory, but it is quite another to know entirely by divine communication. Thirdly, Paul establishes the purpose of the communication: that we might know and understand the “things that were given freely to us of God” (v. 12). He wants us to know, not guess. A “human, fallible book,” one which is a “record of a revelation experience” offers no confidence for guidance. A “divine communication” subject to human error is no communication at all. Lastly, Paul suggests the medium through which God has made known His will: “Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words” (v. 13). God communicates verbally. He uses words whereby we can truly know what He says. What Paul claims here is the clearest affirmation that The Scriptures represent a dual effort: God provides the thoughts and the very words, the human writers provide the personalities and the pens.

Modern theology finds itself in a paradoxical situation. Its only source for “religious truth” is the Bible; without the Scriptures, concepts such as “grace” or “law” or “atonement” or “resurrection” could never have been formulated or even suggested. Yet; as the Bible to these is “only a human, fallible document,” modernists ironically discredit and assail the very foundation upon which their tottering theological system is built. The anchors of faith thus severed, such proponents are sentenced to drift farther and farther from the shores of absolute authority. If the written documents ascribed to Moses and David and Luke and Paul and others are mere superstition or mythology or legend, as infidels and liberal critics have affirmed for centuries, then who really knows “who” or “what” God is really like? By what standard could we determine just when we have experienced a “personal encounter with God?”

The Scriptures, however, voice no “uncertain sound” about God. The eternal, triune God who is really there communicates! His communication comprises more than various mighty acts throughout history; in addition and more importantly, God has also communicated in words, words that explain and interpret for us the significance of God’s activity. Belief in God is not predicated upon blind credulity, a “leap of faith” motivated by a despairing hope in “something out there.” To the contrary, this faith is based upon the historical testimony of those who denied they followed “cunningly devised fables” but rather “that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life . . . .” With a confident faith and an intellectual integrity we can proclaim “God communicates!” For “we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 5:20). With John we conclude, “This is the true God, and eternal life.”

Truth Magazine XIX: 44, pp. 699-700
September 18, 1975

By Paul K. Williams

The progress of institutionalism and centralization in the Church of Christ in South Africa is, as in America, many faceted. In 1963, when the Turffontein (Johannesburg) church precipitated the split by sending out letters of “withdrawal” labeling Gene Tope and Ray Votaw as Bowers of division, the liberals managed to make the main issue seem to be whether the church could relieve non-Christians from the treasury. They imported James Judd for a one night debate with Ray Votaw on this subject and have since .steadfastly refused to have any more debates on that or any other issue separating us.

But with the division accomplished and with the free hand which this gave them, the liberals began introducing the same centralization which their brethren in America were already infamous for. The particular form which is most popular is the preacher training school. There is one in Benoni (near Johannesburg) for whites and one in Pietermaritzburg (50 miles from Durban) far non-whites. Another one is being planned for Cape Town. They are under the direction of elderships in America, etc.

The Benoni school (Southern Africa Bible School) is governed by a board of trustees who are chosen by an advisory board made up of white preachers in Rhodesia and South Africa who are selected by “the Board of Elders of the Church of Christ with business headquarters at 10715 Garland Road, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A.” The school solicits and accepts money from churches and individuals wherever and whenever it can get it. And the whole mess is defended as nothing more than a “Sunday School.” It is no wonder these brethren won’t debate! I would hate to have to defend such a “Sunday School,” too.

The Head of The Church of Christ

Another aspect of centralization has affected faithful preachers more directly. The South African government allows whites into the Homelands (rural African areas) only when they possess permits to enter-permits issued by the Bantu Administration in Pretoria. Gene Tope and I have had permits to enter Vendaland for a long time. Mine was first issued in 1968, his before that time, and they have been renewed each year on application. But in 1972, when Ron Chaffin and Ray Votaw applied for permits, they were refused. On inquiry it finally became apparent that the applications had been referred to the “Head” of the Church of Christ in South Africa and had been turned down by him.

It turns out that John Hardin, official and teacher in the Southern Africa Bible School, director of its annual lectures, etc. was recognized as “Head” of the Church of Christ in South Africa by the Bantu Administration at some time previous to 1972. Since that time all applications for permits have required his approval before being granted by the Government. He has used his position to deny faithful preachers Government permission to preach in African areas!

Words fail me in describing my feelings about this. I cannot fathom how any Christian would ever use his influence with the Government to hinder the preaching of anyone. There is not a hint in the New Testament that Christians are in any way to hinder or persecute those with whom they differ. The weapon we wield is the sword of the Spirit, not the sword of the government! Such tactics can only have been learned from Catholicism; they did not come from Christ.

An intriguing question is: Who appointed Brother Hardin to be “Head” of the Church of Christ in South Africa? Did the churches have a convention at which he was elected? Or was he self-appointed? Or was he appointed by a small group of “interested” men? And I wonder where the scripture is for such appointment regardless of how it was done! It is obvious that he functions as head only in matters requiring Government approval, but where is the scripture for that?

In 1974 when Gene Tope was moving to Durban he attempted to get Ray Votaw a Vendaland permit by asking the Bantu Administration to let Brother Votaw replace him. But that did not work.

I got involved through a different matter. The church in Masakona, Vendaland, wants to build a church building. In 1973 the chief of the village gave them a site to build on and they made application to the Magistrate for permission to build. I helped with the application and all requirements were met. These things take time, though, and the last of April this year I received a letter from the Magistrate. He wrote: “We have been informed that the Department of Bantu Administration and Development is having two branches of the above-named church denomination on its records-or two different church denominations using the same name . . . . We would like you to inform us about the legal name of the one under which Mr. Jim Munyai preaches and who the registered head of that branch is.” So we were bumping up against the same problem.

I made a trip to Pretoria the following week where I talked with three different officials. I went into the whole problem of permits. I received a sympathetic reception and decided that the main problem must lie with the Venda Government. So I made my week-end trip to Vendaland for June a day early. On June 6th I met a white official in the Venda Government and explained the whole problem. I think I talked with the right man and he was very understanding. He suggested that I talk with the Magistrate concerning the church building, so I stayed until Monday and talked with him. He also understood and indicated that everything should now move smoothly.

I hope this problem is sorted out. Leslie Maydell of Pretoria who has just returned from Florida College is now making application for a permit to preach in Vendaland. This will be a test case to determine whether the stumbling blocks have truly been removed. We should know soon.

There seems to be no stopping place on the road to Rome, brethren. The centralized combines naturally attract power-hungry people. Only the “readiness” of the members will govern how soon these people will lead the liberal churches into a fully organized hierarchy.

Truth Magazine XIX: 44, pp. 698-699September 18, 1975

CORRECTION

In my article, “Centralization in South Africa,” (Sept. 18, 1975) I stated that Brother John Hardin was recognized as “Head” of the Church of Christ in South Africa by the Bantu Administration. Furth inquiry has established that at least one department of the Bantu Administration (the one dealing with application to build church buildings) recognizes him as “liaison.” The official in charge understands that he is not “head” of the church of Christ. I sincerely apologize to Brother Hardin for unintentionally misrepresenting this matter.

Sincerely,

Paul K. Williams (signed)

Correction appeared in Truth Magazine XIX: 50, p. 794
October 30, 1975

By James W Adams

One of the manias of modern society is the craze to have too much too soon. The old virtue of waiting and working to obtain is exactly what we called it “an old (obsolete) virtue.” Precocious youth wants a hot-rod when it ought to be pedaling a “bike,” a boy friend.. when it ought to be playing with dolls. Young married people want a $30,000.00 ranch-style home in an elite suburb when they should be living in a frame cottage on Thrift Avenue.

High school boys and girls rush into the sacred institution of marriage and assume the responsibilities of household bills and children when they should be solving algebra problems and attending football games. There is a time for everything that is right and proper, but nothing is made better by rushing into it before time. The divorce courts bear mute testimony to this truth with reference to marriage. Someone has well said, “How can the teenager who isn’t ready to make a success of high school think he is ready to make a success of marriage.”

Marriage is divinely ordained for man’s good. It is hedged about by divine laws. It should not be entered into advisedly or hurriedly, but in the fear of God. Christian young people should realize that marriage is “until death do us part.” Divorce is not a part of the Christian’s thinking-“what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” is the principle by which he lives. A relationship so sacred and permanent deserves mature consideration. It was never designed to satisfy the whims and unrestrained desires of precocious infants.

Truth Magazine XIX: 44, p. 698
September 18, 1975

By Mike Willis

In the May issue of Restoration Review, editor Leroy Garrett continued his examination of abuses of the scripture by considering Heb. 10:25. If Brother Garrett contributed anything new to interpreting Heb. 10:25, I missed it. He said that he believed that the day of Heb. 10:25 was the day of the destruction of Jerusalem, a position with which I have been familiar all of my preaching life. Really, the editor of Restoration Review used this passage as another occasion to spread his subversive, anti-establishment propaganda. I have not used these adjectives lightly to describe Brother Garrett’s writings. I want you to read his quotations to see the subversive and anti-establishment tendencies in the article.

First, Garrett revealed the “abuse” of Heb. 10:25.

“It is presumed that believers are under absolute and arbitrary obligation to be present at all meetings of their congregation, and this verse is the text to prove it. `Forsaking the assembly’ is thus equated with `missing church; which is often described as one of the necessary five acts of public worship. If one gets to the assembly each time the doors open, he can check off item number one: he has assembled. He is to proceed to the other four. We are told that this is what Heb.10:25 is talking about” (p. 82).

Having thoroughly blended truth and error to construct a mental picture of his opponent’s position, Garrett is now ready to destroy his fabricated straw man. Actually, Garrett believes we have a responsibility to be present as much as is possible, even as, I do, but he does not believe that it is because Heb. 10:25 demands it.

“As for the Lord’s day assembly, as well as other meetings a congregation decides to have, it goes without saying that every member should respond responsibly to them all” (p. 87).

Garrett emphasizes that the reason one misses is because he no longer loves Jesus. We would agree with him, as most of us have preached for years, that forsaking the assembly is a symptom of a spiritual sickness. However, whereas Garrett does not believe that Heb. 10:25 says anything at all to the brother who completely forsakes the assembly, I believe that it does. Garrett said,

“As for the brother who has `quit church’ and no longer seems to love Jesus or his fellow disciples, I can’t see that the writer of Heb. 10:25 has the likes of such ones in mind at all in what he says. But it might in some way be made to apply to such. But the problem with such fallen brethren is not that they have `forsaken the assembly,’ but that they no longer love the Lord” (p. 87 ).

There is some truth that needs to be agreed with and some error in this which needs to be exposed. To illustrate, if a man stole some money, he stole it because he does not sufficiently love Jesus. Nevertheless, the passages which condemn stealing are not irrelevant to his condition. Whereas the problem with the brother who forsakes the assembly is that he does not love Jesus as he should, the passages which deal with worshiping collectively are not totally irrelevant to his needs.

So much for Garrett’s theologically significant comments on Heb. 10:25. The greater part of his article is an attempt to undermine any confidence in the present manner we have of worshiping God. Read his comments for yourself:

“Parents will impose upon their young children by taking them to several adult-oriented services every week, some of them being at night, forcing the children to sleep or play their way through the hours-lest they ‘forsake the assembly.’ Brethren will leave company at home, people that they might well win to the Lord through tender loving care, in order to be in their pew when the doors open even on a Sunday or Wednesday evening. To do otherwise would be forsaking the assembly. Forsaking mind you! To miss church now and again, however important one’s mission might be, Is to forsake the assembly.

“Some of our hard-working brothers and sisters might do the right thing by staying home with their families, by going to bed early, or by visiting grandmother or a neighbor, rather than to be going to church all the time. But the System has latched on to Heb. 10:25 as a proof text, and it is made to mean that ‘you’ve got to be here’ or you are sinning by forsaking the assembly. Brethren will drag themselves to meeting even with splitting headaches (‘You’d go to work if you didn’t feel well, wouldn’t you?’has been part of the harangue), so as not to violate what he has been led to believe is a mandate-be there or you are forsaking!” (p. 82).

“But many brethren insist that the assembly ‘cannot be forsaken’ for any reason within one’s control, physical incapacitation being the only excuse. The working man might also be excused for missing Sunday a.m., If he Is present for the evening service and breaks bread then, which has given rise to our second serving of the Supper. If the ox is to a ditch or a neighbor is in need, they will just have to wait until after the assembly. You’ll hear brethren say that they would not ‘forsake the assembly’ in order to stop and render aid to victims of a car wreck. They wouldn’t leave the Lord waiting like that! Such illustrates how we abuse the scriptures so as to uphold a System that puts rules before persons, the very thing that Jesus sought to correct in the religion of the Pharisees” (p. 83).

(Who among us has ever taken the position, Brother Garrett, that it would be sinful to miss services to take care of emergencies? I want to see your documentation of “many brethren” – who state that-that the System-whatever that is-has officially taken this position.)

“Our folk are kept so busy ‘going to church’ that they hardly have time to serve the Lord. When I suggest to our leaders that we discard the Sunday evening service and make it an evening of visitation or studies in various homes, so as to extend our outreach. I am told that the brethren won’t do that. So we go right on corralling them once more, Imposing still more sermons on them, which no one pays much attention to. While we should assemble to worship and scatter to preach, we are always assembling and never scattering.

“It is a common scene in our churches on a Sunday or Wednesday evening to see a young couple gathering up their sleepy children following one more boring experience. The mother has one child in her arms, the father another one across his shoulder, while the six-year-old is tugged out the aisle on his daddy’s hand, yawning every step of the way-the child that is: That is the closing scene. The opening scene is the parents trying to keep the kids quiet and out of each other’s hair. Finally that blessed moment comes when they fall asleep. It is all a rather oppressive scene. But then there is Heb.10:25.

“It is a common scene in our churches on a Sunday or Wedcould say to such families: ‘These Sunday and Wednesday evening gatherings are for the convenience of some of our people, but with your little ones it might not be the case with you. Why don’t you have your own church with them at home? Read some stories to them that they would enjoy together, and then put them to bed early. Then you two might have an hour or so of quiet together and be better ready for work the next day.” But to say such, which of course makes all the sense in the world, he has to become free from the assault of Heb. 10:25. You can’t advise a family to ‘forsake the assembly,’ even if it would be a blessing to them” (pp. 84-85).

(If that advice would be a blessing on Sunday night and Wednesday nights, why would it not also be a blessing for Sunday morning as well?)

Fellow preachers’and elders, how many of the ones who miss the services at the congregation with which you labor are missing because they are teaching someone the gospel, helping the person who is in need, or in some other way engaged in the service of God? When you do say something concerning attendance, are you speaking to this category of people-those who otherwise would have been present but were called away by a last minute emergency or those who miss Wednesday evening Bible study to teach a home Bible study? We all know to whom you are preaching! Our sermons are aimed at the man who could care less whether the church even. assembles on Sunday or Wednesday evening; we are trying to persuade the man who had rather sit at home and watch TV on these nights rather than to assemble with the saints that he is spiritually sick and in need of the Great Physician. But, why would Garrett seek to misrepresent the real problem?

Garrett is an opportunist; he is trying to lead the churches of Christ into new roads and away from the old paths. In order to do that, he must use every subversive tactic he can find to generate discontentedness in the churches. Just as the Communists pit one social force against another to stir up social anarchy and then tell the people that they know how to re-establish law and order if they will just accept communistic government, so also Garrett and his collegue Carl Ketcherside are presently trying to stir up spiritual anarchy in the church as they also promise the people that they know how to find spiritual order if they will but follow them. Our brethren need to be told about such factionalists who, paradoxically, disguise themselves as a “unity movement.”

Truth Magazine XIX: 44, pp. 696-697
September 18, 1975