In This Issue

• "HE WHO IS NOT AGAINST US IS ON OUR SIDE"
• NO SUCH COMMANDMENT
• UPCOMING GOSPEL MEETING SCHEDULE
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"HE WHO IS NOT AGAINST US IS ON OUR SIDE"

The apostle John spoke to Jesus: '"Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us.' But Jesus said, 'Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is on our side.'" (Mark 9:38-40).

This conversation took place in the midst of Jesus' rebuke of the apostles' desire for personal greatness. It almost looks as if John was seeking to change the subject and put the heat on someone else. But he had missed the point. There are at least two related lessons we should learn from this conversation.

First, those who teach and practice God's truth are not our enemies, no matter what their background. The cause of truth is greater than us and our immediate associates. Jesus had followers John didn't know. 

Second, we must learn that those who believe what we believe, teach what we teach, and do what we do are what we are religiously, even if they didn't attend our schools and associate with our associates to get that way. 

In fact, as time continues, we see more and more the importance of this last lesson. In the world today, there are numerous churches or religious organizations that claim to be the church of the New Testament on the basis that they supposedly can trace an unbroken line of succession to the churches or to the bishops of the first century. The largest of these organizations claims its bishops today are the successors of those named in the New Testament. They claim to have an unbroken list of such successors. Their list is severely suspect. But our main point of disagreement is that unless their bishops today teach and practice what Jesus and His apostles taught and practiced, their "line of succession" becomes meaningless. Scripture foretold that some bishops of New Testament days would apostatize and lead men astray, Acts 20:28-30.

Another large religious body claims identity with the churches mentioned in the New Testament on the basis of supposedly being able to trace an unbroken chain of congregations extending all the way back to the first century. This cannot be done - but if it could it would have little significance. There were congregations, even then, who had so strayed from the faith that they were in danger of losing their identity as churches of Christ. See Rev. 2:5; 3:15-16.

The real test is whether we teach what was taught and do what was done under inspired leadership. If we believe what New Testament Christians believed, teach what they taught, and do what they did we are New Testament Christians. Otherwise, we fail to be meaningfully identified with them regardless of claims to apostolic or congregational succession.

--Clarence R. Johnson

NO SUCH COMMANDMENT

"Forasmuch as we have heard that certain which went out from us have troubled your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment…" (Acts 15:24). The occasion for the words of this verse and the letter of which they are a part was a gathering of apostles and elders in Jerusalem in response to the teaching of some that the observation of Moses' law was essential unto salvation. After the discussion was ended, it was decided that a letter should be sent to the brethren in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. In the letter the apostles indicated that the teaching of circumcision was unauthorized, for they gave no such commandment in the revelation of the will of God. Concerning this matter, in other words, God had been silent! In view of God's silence on this matter, it was wrong for these teachers, however sincere and conscientious, to teach what God had not taught and to require what God had not bound.

Just as the silence of the Scriptures was the basis of false teaching among brethren of the first century, even today much is taught concerning matters on which the Bible is silent. The two views of the silence of the Word of God involve (1) prohibition and (2) allowance. Some say that the silence of God forbids, while others assert that God's silence allows. It is the teaching of God's Word that silence forbids any teaching or practice of the matter upon which it is silent, except in the area of expediency, where the authority is present in the general command, example, or necessary conclusion. Let us proceed to prove this point.

Necessity of Divine Revelation

Unless God had revealed Himself unto men through the apostles and prophets by the Spirit, men would have known nothing of His will and way. It is impossible for men to discover God's mind. Jesus, accordingly, announced provisions for sending the Holy Spirit to aid the apostles in the revelation of "all truth" before He ascended to heaven, John 16:13. It must follow that, if God kept His promise, He revealed all truth through the apostles and the prophets upon whom they laid hands. The Spirit's work with the apostles, revelation, was His means of convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The Spirit, then, worked with the apostles directly but with the world indirectly - that is, through the apostles and their teaching. When the Spirit came, His work became evident in the revelation of the mind of God, 1 Cor. 2, the inspired Scriptures, 2 Tim. 3:16-17, all things pertaining to life and godliness, 2 Pet. 1:3, and the faith once delivered, Jude 3. As one examines these passages, he must be impressed that without Divine revelation there would be no truth no mind of God available, no profitable Scriptures, nothing relating to life and godliness, no faith delivered. The very presence of the Word of God is, in itself, a very strong argument that God expects men to be guided by His revelation, not by His silence. Furthermore, if man seeks to guide himself in the absence of revelation, from God (silence), he attempts what God says is impossible; for "the way of man is not in himself, for it is not in man that walketh to direch his own steps" (Jer. 10:23). It is God's right to direct man's steps: it is man's obligation to follow God's direction and walk according to it.

Necessity of Heeding It

What God says, man is to believe and heed. Man should walk according to Divine directions found in the Word of God. Paul said, "We walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). This is equivalent to saying that we walk by the direction of God. What we believe, practice, and teach must be the result of what God has revealed on the matter. If God has not revealed anything, then it is impossible for us to believe it, practice it, or teach it by faith, for "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Rom. 10:17). Where God is silent, there can be no Bible faith! It ill behooves presumptuous men to say, "Well, I believe it" when God is silent. They do not believe; they merely assume! Again the apostle said "…that ye might learn in us not to go beyond that which is written" (1 Cor. 4:6). Yes, once again the silence of the Scriptures is upheld as forbidding religious activity, for we are restricted to what the Lord has said, "that which is written," not allowed to act by His silence. In deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus…" To teach or practice anything in the name of Jesus is to do it by His authority, according to His will, to do what He would do if He were present. The only way that the Lord has appointed for authorizing religious practices or informing us what He would do if He were present is the inspired Word. We are, therefore, to do all according to the Word of God. Finally, Peter said, "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God" (1 Pet. 4:11). Man is not free and unrestricted to teach and practice as he likes under the gospel system; the silence of God's Word does not permit man to enter the legislating business and start deciding God's will for Him. Man, instead, is to speak what God has spoken. He has no right to speak where God has not spoken, for when he does, he gets beyond what is written.

Bible Examples of Silence

The passage referred to as we began the study shows that Divine silence prohibits man's belief, practice, or teaching in the area of silence. The very error indicated in the teaching of circumcision was that it was lacking in authority from God: "to whom we gave no such commandment" (Acts 15:24).

Hebrews 1:5 uses the silence of God in not saying to the angels what He said to Jesus Christ as a point in showing the preeminence of Christ in all things.

In Hebrews 7:14 the writer used the silence of the Mosaic law to show that a change of priesthood demanded a change of the law. Under the law of Moses Jesus could not have served as priest, for He was of Judah, not Levi. His present service as high priest, however, demands that He serve under another law, for the Mosaic law was silent concerning Judah as a priestly tribe.

Disregard for Silence

Claiming that silence gives consent, many practitioners of religion have assumed a legislative and judicial role in announcing that in certain areas of silence there is not a pattern to which men must conform. While some would be wary of the logical end to which such positions lead, many have already taken the ball and run as far as they want to go with such notions. It was once claimed by the denominations that sprinkling, mechanical music, human societies, and incense in worship were justified by the silence of God on them; but now brethren have accepted this thinking and have applied it to anything they like, such as the human societies and the general oversight of elders.

Confusing Expediency and Silence

Some would argue that expedience justifies certain practices, when in reality God has been silent concerning them. While it is true that expedience involves selecting means about which there is no specific mention in the Bible, their use is authorized by the general authority revealed. As an illustration, we are reminded that some argue that our use of a song book (an expedient) is comparable to the use of an instrument. Upon a study of the Book, however, it becomes evident that the former involved merely an aid or a means of doing what God said to do, while the latter is an addition to what God allowed. When God required singing, He authorized anything expedient to the performance of the singing. He did not, however, by His silence on the piano, give man the right to innovate with a different kind of music. With expediency there is authority; with silence there is not authority, for God has not spoken.

May we determine to be guided by what the God of heaven has revealed and not risk our souls to human thinking injected where God has not spoken.

--Bobby L. Graham, Gospel Guardian, Vol. 24, Number 45

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