1.
The Church’s Doctrinal and Moral Corruption
In
the book of Genesis we are told that Adam, the father of the human race, was
created an upright man in the very image of God. We are also told of
Adam’s attempt to rise above his own rank and become like a god, resulting
in his breaking of God’s command and falling into sin. In him are all his
posterity fallen (Rom.
5:12). That is why the
carnal mind, being enmity with God and not subject to His law (Rom. 8:7),
has a desire to overthrow superior authorities and to establish a new order
(Eccl. 7:29). But by the covenant of grace man is freely offered salvation
from sin and death, and those who have been raised up in newness of life are
enabled willingly to submit themselves to their Maker, falling down before
His footstool to give thanks to “the great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity,
and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus
2:13, 14). Our Lord Jesus came to crush the head of the serpent, and having
made atonement for sinners of mankind He will destroy the works of the
devil.
But the Lord’s own
Church today has been shaken to the foundations; the enemy has come in like
a flood and continues to entice man into subverting the order and authority
that God has placed in the world. The device of the evil one is to erode the
belief in an infallible Word, and since the acceptance of Higher Criticism
his purpose has been manifest and his work largely successful – since the
19th century there has been unceasing pressure from within the
bounds of Christendom to suppress the most crucial doctrines imparted to man
in the Holy Scriptures.
C. H. Spurgeon knew it in 1887 when he said:
The
doctrine of Christ crucified is always with me. As the Roman sentinel in
Pompeii
stood
to his post even when the city was destroyed, so do I stand to the truth of
the atonement though the church is being buried beneath the boiling
mud-showers of modern heresy.[2]
This decline, resisted by the Lord’s dwindling flock everywhere,
was alluded to in the sermon preached in 1875 at the funeral of Irving
Hetherington, minister of the Scots’ Church in Melbourne,
Australia, and
friend of Robert Murray McCheyne. The minister, Dr Macdonald, said of
Hetherington:
As
a preacher he had many excellencies, including, of course, the chief that he
himself believed. He preached in a way that I am afraid is going out of
fashion now – logically, doctrinally, evangelically. His sermons were full
of marrow, founded on the first of all gospel doctrines – atonement by
blood, Christ crucified; and no man mourned more than he over the loose
preaching which is becoming popular now-a-days, which does not convince of
sin, and in which sound doctrine and godly experience are dropping out of
sight.[3]
Evangelical Christians
have attempted to stand firm on the doctrine of the atonement, but many of
us have been wounded, failing to take up the shield of faith as we ought,
with the result that our belief in
the infallibility of God’s Word, the immutability of His counsel, the
righteousness of His judgement and the everlasting wonder of His mercy in
Christ Jesus have not been held in our hearts with constancy. The
Scottish preacher Robert Haldane (1764-1842) said:
When
the canker of the principles of German Neology, derived from the Continent
and from America, is perverting the faith of many, and seducing them into
the paths of error, – while a spirit of lukewarmness, and indifference to
truth, is advancing under the mask of charity and liberality, – there is a
loud call on all Christians to ‘stand fast in one spirit, with one mind
striving together for the faith of the Gospel,’ to present a firm and
united phalanx of opposition to error under every name, from whatever
quarter it may approach, and not to ‘stumble in their ways from the
ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up, to make their land
desolate,’ Jer. 18.15. ‘Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and
see; and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and
ye shall find rest for your souls.’ Should believers become unfaithful to
their trust, and be seduced to abandon their protest against false
doctrines, they may gain the approbation of the world; but what will this
avail when compared with the favour of God? But if with prayer to God, in
the use of the appointed means, they contend earnestly for the truth, then
they may expect the gracious fulfilment of that blessed promise, ‘When the
enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a
standard against him.’[4]
As our spiritual forefathers were fearless in convincing men of their sin
(cf. Matt. 14:4), so must we stand strong in the face of evil, and if need
be, reprove our brethren “in love, and in
the spirit of meekness” (I Cor. 4:21). It is vital that Christians
recognise the need to resist on every side an especially powerful attack
which has its roots in the Higher Critical subversion of God’s authority,
and which, if not withstood, will cause further decay in gospel preaching.
This assault is directed against the power of the man in the community, in
the family and in the Church itself – it is a subtler form of Pharaoh’s
action against the children of
Israel
(Exod. 1:22). The promoters of
this error are “chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of
uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they,
selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities” (I Peter
2:10). Their dogma is
permeating the length and breadth of this continent, eroding our culture,
and unless the Lord has mercy on us the literal fulfilment of His word
spoken by the prophet Isaiah will continue its progression in Australia: “As
for my people, children are
their oppressors, and women rule over them” (Isa. 3:12).
This artful device the devil
has used since the Garden of Eden to degrade and destroy our race.
Persuading the woman to rule and the man to obey her, he assaults the
doctrine of Scripture which teaches the primacy of the man over the woman.
The Inspired Record teaches that while equal in value, men and women are
different in rank: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man
is Christ; and the head of the woman is
the man; and the head of Christ is
God” (I Cor. 11:3). The Lord’s will is that these differences be
always observed in human society, and that men and women behave themselves
in such a manner as not to confound the distinctions by introducing new
inventions, contrary to sound doctrine. Distinctions are necessary in the
clothing of men and women (Deut. 22:5), and the respective places accorded
to them in society provide foundations upon which to build an understanding
of such differences.[5]
It is crucial that the
Church not accept any practice or doctrine which is contrary to God’s
revealed will, and error must be assailed with spiritual weapons, with the
shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. John
Knox (c. 1505-1572), Protestant
Reformer and one of the fathers[6]
of the Scottish church, said:
If
fear, I say, of persecution (I Cor. 9), of slander, or of any inconvenience
before named might have excused, and discharged the servants of God
(Matt. 26; Acts 18, 21),
from plainly rebuking the sins of the world; just cause had every one of
them to have ceased from their office. For suddenly their doctrine was
accused by terms of sedition, of new learning, and of treason: persecution
and vehement trouble did shortly come upon the professors with the preachers
(Psalm 2; Acts 4): kings,
princes and worldly rulers did conspire against God and against his anointed
Christ Jesus. But what? Did any of these move the prophets and Apostles to
faint in their vocation? no. But by the resistance, which the devil made to
them by his supporters, were they the more inflamed to publish the truth
revealed unto them and to witness with their blood, that grievous
condemnation and God’s heavy vengeance should follow the proud contempt of
graces offered. The fidelity, bold courage, and constancy of those that are
passed before us, ought to provoke us to follow their footsteps, unless we
look for another kingdom than Christ hath promised to such as persevere in
profession of his name to the end.
If
any think that the empire [i.e.,
rule] of women, is not of such importance, that for the suppressing of the
same, any man is bound to hazard his life, I answer, that to suppress it, is
in the hand of God alone. But to utter the impiety and abomination of the
same, I say, it is the duty of every true messenger of God, to whom the
truth is revealed in that behalf. For the especial duty of God’s
messengers is to preach repentance, to admonish the offenders of their
offences, and to say to the wicked, thou shalt die the death, except thou
repent.[7]
As man was created male
and female, in the image of God, there is a moral and spiritual equality
between all men and women, and this is most wonderfully manifested when
fallen sinners of mankind are created anew in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28). All
believers – men and women, parents and children, masters and servants –
have equal and glorious access to the throne of grace. In another respect,
though, we are not all equal: the man is the head of the woman, he is above
her, and she is his subordinate. God created the man first, in His own
image, and the woman afterwards, for the man.
For
a man indeed ought not to cover his head,
forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of
the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither
was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause
ought the woman to have power on her head
because of the angels (I Cor. 11:7-10, cf. Gen. 2:7, 22).
“It is an unseemly
thing”, says John Bunyan (1628-1688), “to see a woman so much as once in
all her lifetime to offer to overtop her husband; she ought in everything to
be in subjection to him, and to do all she doth, as having her warrant,
licence, and authority from him. And indeed here is her glory, even to be
under him, as the church is under Christ.”[8]
God, having distinguished the woman from
the man and made her subject to him, calls her “the glory of the man” (I
Cor. 11:7). The French Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564)
comments:
There
is no doubt that the woman is a distinguished ornament of the man; for it is
a great honour that God has appointed her to the man as the partner of his
life, and a helper to him, and has made her subject to him as the body is to
the head. For what Solomon affirms as to a careful wife – that she is a
crown to her husband,
(Proverbs 12:4,) is true of the whole sex, if we look to the appointment of
God, which Paul here commends, showing that the woman was created for this
purpose – that she might be a distinguished ornament of the man.[9]
[2]
C. H. Spurgeon, The Blood Shed for Many, a sermon on Matt. 26:28 (preached at the
Metropolitan Tabernacle, 1887).
[8]
John Bunyan, ‘Christian
Behaviour’, Works, vol. 2
(Banner of Truth, 1991), p561.
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