The mission of the church is to declare, to proclaim, to witness. She has been left on earth to be a witness to certain great eternal truths which she received from God and which the world could not possibly know unless she told it. “Go ye therefore and teach all nations” said Jesus to the infant church. The church was to teach and the world was to listen, and all who received the witness of the church were to be baptized and taught further in the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.
That was the order established by the new risen Christ. Those first Christians had seen and heard such wonders as had first terrified them then fill them with a high spiritual excitement which they could not contain. With joy they turned their backs on the open tomb from which their Lord had walked forth, and literally raced away to spread the news.
A few days later the Holy Spirit came upon them to confirm the truth and to add a new afflatus of moral power to their testimony.
That is how it all began. The early church had the message; the world had only the need for that message. The disciples had seen and touched and handled that Eternal Life which was with the father and was manifested onto men; and driven by an irresistible compulsion they went forth to Jew and Greek, bondman and Freeman, high and low. to tell, to witness, to declare, to testify. Succeeding generations of Christians, not having seen Christ with them mortal eyes but having met him in living encounter and having known and experienced Him by the inward operation of the Holy Spirit, told forth the message with the same zeal as had the original band. They had something to tell the world. They were witnesses eagerly testifying. They were devotees and zealot’s, convinced that they had the truth the world needed desperately and which it could not afford to ignore.
It has been so wherever the church has had eyesight and hearing. When she has been conscious of One walking among the golden candle sticks with a voice like the sound of many waters as she has stood to echo that voice and the world has had to listen. Sometimes that will turn its back upon its benefactors and persecuted them unto death; sometimes it listened as Herod listened to John the Baptist deeply touched by what it heard but unwilling to obey. Sometimes it listened sympathetically and numbers of people repented and went on to follow Christ. But always the world was on the receiving end. The church spoke and the world. Thus it was as Christ said it must be.
But hear, O ye heavens, and be astonished, O earth, for a mighty derangement has occurred in the relative position of the church and the world, a transposition saw radical and so grotesque as would not have been believed if it had been foretold but a few years ago.
The church has lost her testimony. She has no longer anything to say to the world. Her once robust stout of assurance has faded away to an apologetic whisper. She who one time when out to declare now goes out to inquire. Her dogmatic declaration has become a respectful suggestion, a word of religious advice, giving with the understanding that it is after all only an opinion and not meant to sound bigoted.
Not only has the church nothing to say to the world but the tables have actually been turned and the ministers of Christ are now going the world for light. They sit at Adams feet for instruction and clear their message with the wise and the prudent before they dare deliver it. But the certainty that comes from saying and the assurance that springs from hearing–where are they?
But let us be more specific. About whom am I speaking here? The liberal who denies the authenticity of the Scriptures? I wish it was so. No, I write of the liberal as long dead and expect nothing from him. It is of the evangelical church that I speak, and of the so-called gospel churches. I speak of the theology of popular evangelism which quotes the Bible copiously but without one trace of authority, accepts the world at its own estimate, chides sinners like a weak-chinned father of a family who was long ago lost control of his household and doesn’t expect to be obeyed, Offers Christ as a religious tranquilliser who is without sovereignty and without any semblance of Lordship, adopts the world’s methods, counts the favour of rich man, politicians and playboys–with the understanding, of course that the said playboy will stoop to say a nice word about Jesus now and then.
I refer to a religious journalism ostensibly orthodox but which can scarcely be told in appearance, tone, spirit, language, method or aim from the secular magazine it’s so seditiously apes. I refer to the Christianity which says to Christ, “We will eat our own bread, and wear are own apparel: only let us be called by Thy name, to take away our reproach” (Isa. 4:1). I refer to the masses of Christians who have “accepted” Jesus, but who turn their churches into playhouses, are entirely ignorant of worship, misunderstand the cross and are totally blind to the serious implications of discipleship.
Again, I refer to the new crop of borderline liberals who use the language of orthodoxy but are nevertheless fellow travellers with old-line liberal’s and who seek to escape the reproach of the cross buy what they like to believe is a dazzling display of intellectualism.
The church is in her Babylonian captivity, and as Israel could not sing the songs of Zion in a strange land, so Christians in bondage have no authoritative message to declare. They must wait for the news broadcast for a text and read Time Magazine for a subject. Like the harried editor of a daily newspaper who languishes for a good story when no convenient murder or accident has happened for the last few hours, so the profit of Babylon waits for a war, a new development in the Middle East or a space exploit to rescue him from enforce silence and give him a new lease on his pulpit.
But what is the church call to declare? What other hard, bold, everlasting words she has been sent to give to the world. The 1st is that God is all in all. He is the great Reality which gives meaning to all other realities. “You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, on my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me…… yea, before the day was I am he; on there is none that can deliver out of my hand” (Isa. 43;10,13)
The next great fact is that we are made by God and for Him. the answer to the question, “Where did I come from? Is never better answered then by the mother who says “God made you”. The pooled knowledge of the world cannot improve upon this simple answer. Scientific research has prob deep into the secrets of how matter operates but the origin of matter lies in deep silence and refuses to give an answer to any questions. God made the heaven and the Earth and man upon the earth and he made man for Himself, and there is no other answer to the inquiry why did God make me?
The Christian is not sent to argue or persuade, nor is he sent to prove or demonstrate; he is sent to declare “Thus saith The Lord.” When he has done this, he makes God responsible for the outcome. No one knows enough and no one can know enough to go beyond this. God made us for Himself: that is the first and last thing that can be said about human existence and whatever more we add is but commentary.
Seeing who God is and who we are, a right relationship between God and us is of vital importance. That God should be glorified in us is so critically important that it stands in lonely grandeur, a moral imperative more compelling than any other which the human heart can acknowledge. To bring ourselves into a place where God will be eternally pleased with us should be the first responsible act of every man.
Knowing our sin and moral ignorance, the impossibility of effecting such a happy relationship becomes instantly evident. Since we cannot go to God, what then shall we do? The answer is found in the Christian witness: it is that God came to us in the incarnation. “Who is Jesus? “asks the world and the church answers, “Jesus is God come to us.” He is come to seek us, to woo us, to win us to God again. And to do this he needed to die for us redemptively. He must in some manner undo our sins, destroy our record of sins committed and break the power of sins entrenched within us. All this says the Christian witness, He dead upon the cross perfectly, effectually and for good.
“Where is Jesus now? asks the world, and the Christian answers, “at the right hand of God”. He died but He is not dead. He rose again as he said he would and scores a sober trustworthy eye witnesses saw Him after he return from among the dead. Better than all, His Spirit now reveals to the Christian heart not a dead Christ but a living one. This we are sent to declare with all the bold dogmatism of those who know, who have been there and experienced it beyond the possibility of a doubt.
The gospel is the official proclamation that Christ died for us and is risen again, with the added announcement that everyone who will believe and as a result of that belief will cast in his lot with Christ in full and final committal, shall be saved eternally. He must come with the understanding that he will not be popular and that he will be called to stand where Jesus stood before the world: to be admired by many, loved by a few and rejected at last by the majority of men. He must be willing to pay this price or let him go his way; Christ has nothing more to say to him now. The Christian’s message to the world must also be one of sin, righteousness and judgement. He must not accept in any measure the world moral code, but stand boldly to oppose it and warn of the consequences of following it. And this must be done loudly and persistently, meanwhile taking great care that he himself walk so circumspectly that no flaw may be found in his life to give the lie to his testimony.
There is one thing more: the Christian witness includes also the faithful warning that God is a just and holy Being who will not trifle with men nor allow them to trifle with Him. He is longsuffering and waits patiently to be gracious, but after a while the friendly invitation of the gospel is withdrawn. The effort to persuade the incorrigible sinner is disconnected, death fixes the status of the man who loved his sins and he is sent to the place of the rejected where there is for him no further hope. That is hell, and it may be well we know so little about it. What we do know is sufficiently terrifying.
To his own children God has much more to say, so much that it requires a lifetime of eager listening to hear it all; but his message to the world is simple and brief. It is the work of the church to keep on repeating it to each generation of men till it is either accepted or rejected by those who hear.
The Christian must not allow himself to be entrapped by current vogues in religion, and above all he must never go to the world for his message. He is a man of heaven, sent to give witness on earth. As he shall give an account to the Lord that bought him, let him see to his commission.