Surely, we have been shown the highest praise a pastor could give to one he has taught. What pastor would not desire that his parishioners learn so well the things he teaches that they begin to resemble him in their own faith? It's the goal of all preaching to raise others up to the place where the preacher is. Titus was a true child to Paul. Of course, this implies more than just his having sat under Paul's teaching. It speaks of his having been first brought to recognition of saving grace by that ministry. By Paul's faithfulness to his calling, Titus heard of his own calling. Faith calls out to faith!
But, the implication is clear, in that this child is of a shared faith. Their beliefs, their understanding of God and salvation, are one. What the one teaches, so also does the other. They speak, as it were with one voice, though they be separated by miles on end. Can our pastors say this of us? Do we share a common faith and a common understanding? To faith, I feel certain I can answer a resounding 'Yes!' To understanding, I am not so certain. There are points where I hear my pastor's teaching wander from what I hear expressed when his heart is expressed. (Is this the difference between preaching and teaching? Perhaps it is! Teaching comes from the mind and preaching from the heart, however much both may be under the influence of the Spirit.)
I asked myself, at the beginning of this study how one could possibly remain under the care of a pastor to whom we could not declare such a high degree of unity. I asked in part because I faced this dilemma. I had heard things stated as part of church doctrine, the understanding and teaching of this church, which I simply cannot agree with. It was truly upsetting! It still is, although the shockwaves have subsided. It struck hard, to recognize how absolutely opposite was our understanding on matters of fairly great import to belief. It struck hard because I feel I know my pastor well enough to know that God is with him. He stands as a solid example of what Christianity is about. Yet, in these things, he seems to be so wrong! How can this be? Surely, it must be I who am wrong!
However, over the ensuing months, I have heard his heart in many sermons preached. And this is the interesting thing, to me. From his heart, I hear an understanding that agrees most fully with my own! I hear from his heart a doctrine wholly other than what he speaks of when he seeks to teach doctrine. One of our other teachers declares that 'doctrine is not what you say, it's what you do.' Perhaps there's some truth in that! That being the case, the things I see lived out in my pastor's life declare a unity that words don't always express. This is indeed a man with whom I can stand, a man of kindred faith. Can I declare him my spiritual father? No, probably not. A spiritual uncle, perhaps? Certainly, a spiritual shepherd, entrusted with and empowered for that position by my great Shepherd, Jesus Christ.
He does, however, have in his care those of whom he can most fully say, 'these are my spiritual children.' Calvin tells us that they cannot bear spiritual children who have not themselves been spiritually born. How true! In this church, there are many who can trace their spiritual birth back to the pastor, and many more who can trace their growth into spiritual adulthood back to him. Though we may differ on some of the details, perhaps even many of them, yet I would not be grown to the point of maturity to which I have come were it not for the care and feeding given by this church.
Now, then, I have praised the leadership under which I serve, it is true. Yet, this is no attempt to flatter them, nor to give them cause for pride. If there be cause to praise them, it is only because they have succeeded in pursuing the mission of Christ. If others are coming to resemble these leaders, it is only because they are likewise succeeding in that mission. What is that mission? I know, we have the great commission of going forth to disciple all nations, but there is this underlying matter, as well, and I would contend that unless and until we achieve the goals of this first mission, the great commission is beyond our reach.
What mission is it of which I speak? It's the mission of conformity to Christ. The world should be able to look at us - our character, our expressed worldview, our ways - and see our Teacher. Notice that it is not our present and earthly teacher they ought to see, but the Teacher. Jesus warned us against calling any man 'teacher,' for we have One as our Teacher. Those who disciple us on this earth are students of that same One. Those whom we may disciple, as God determines, will be, not our disciples, but His.
Along these lines, I should like to record here an impression I had last Sunday - not a vision, not a dream, nor a revelation, just an impression. Last Sunday was the first celebration of the Lord's Supper since we celebrated His redeeming work at the cross, and His confirmation with power in the Resurrection. As I was about my studies that morning, I was reminded of His experiences during His last days of earthly life. He had been beaten without cause, tormented by authorities both religious and civil. He had been whipped, cursed, reviled, and tortured, and all this for no crime that He could be truthfully convicted of. Now, He was to be the victim of an undeserved death sentence. If ever a man had been wronged, here He was! If ever a man had the right to respond in anger, to put up a fight, here was that Man!
Yet, Scripture tells us that He never spoke a word. Now, that may seem shocking at first, that one could suffer all this in silence. But, I would suggest that many a hardened rebel could do the same. How many revolutionaries have refused to give their captors the pleasure of seeing them show their hurt? The difference lies in the man behind that mask of imperviousness.
We saw it in the play done at our church for Resurrection Sunday. As the plight of the Jews in Egypt was portrayed, two women played the part of Jewish ladies, working at making their bricks under the care of a cruel Egyptian taskmaster. He threatened and yelled, and occasionally whipped to make his point. The reactions of these two showed both of the reactions which we might expect from those subjected against their wills. One displayed fear of that punishing presence, and out of fear worked the harder. The other displayed a barely controlled anger. There was a threat present in her face that promised of being made real, should the opportunity present itself. Here was the rebel in captivity. She spoke not a word, yet her eyes spoke volumes.
Jesus' eyes made no such betrayal of His inner state, for His inner state was as silent in the face of events as His outward state. He knew He was firmly on the path of God's purpose, of God's choosing. He knew the great truths of Scripture, He knew that God's purposes were ever for the good of those who served Him. He knew that, even in death, as painful as that event was to be, God was working for His good, for He was, above all others, God's servant, obedient in all things.
This One, who bore so much on our behalf, and bore it with love unperturbed, is our One Teacher. He is the example set. He has warned us that oppression will come, we will know trouble in this life, but He has shown us how children of the Living God will respond. Love unperturbed. That is our primary mission. It is when the world sees this, men and women who refuse to take offense, however just the reason for offense might be, then they will have seen our Teacher. Then, they will have seen something undeniably different. Then, they will have seen something to desire. Then, we will have prepared the good earth to receive the Gospel, which is, after all, our great commission!
The message of this letter is a description of God's Church: One Spirit, One Truth, One Faith, One Savior. Through the centuries, each of these has required defending, as the enemy came against the power of God's people. It is precisely because this is our power that the enemy comes against it time and again, and it is also for this reason that there are ever those who will give their all in defense of these things. The great battles over doctrine have not been about men who happened to hold to different opinions on matters interesting only to scholarly theologians. They have been over matters of utmost import, matters upon which depend the unity and the power of the Church, inasmuch as the Church depends on humanity at all. Men have come preaching a different spirit, and rightly have they been condemned, even as Paul declared they must. Men have come offering different truths, and still do. Yet, the one who knows Christ knows that these other truths are lies, and the strong man in Christ will defend the Truth in power. Men have tried to turn the eyes of faith from the record of Scripture to the record of man's exploits, but man's exploits are a pitifully weak thing in which to place such trust. The best of man's knowledge is still a changing and imperfect thing. By contrast, the Scriptures reveal to us a God perfect in knowledge, unchanging through the eons because no change is necessary in what is and always has been perfect! Men seek and proclaim other avenues for their salvation, yet God provides only One Savior, and allows for no other.
So, if this unity of belief and profession is so critical to the Church, what has happened to this common faith of ours amidst all our denominational subdivisions? This is a difficult thing! In the early years of the Church, it became necessary to establish certain creeds by which the pure faith was made recognizable from the impure. Over the ensuing centuries, these creeds had to be updated to reflect the answers to such challenges as came against orthodoxy, to make clear, once more, what was the One Faith. There's a lot to be said for the thought of our reviewing these creeds, to see if the faith we have is that same faith which has been handed down.
The Church on earth has forever, it seems, suffered from these denominational divisions. We can see it even in Paul's work. Distinctions arose between his Gentile mission and the Jerusalem mission. There were disagreements between these two, yet there was not an absolute break. There were differences of opinion, matters that required resolution, yet there remained between them that One. In spite of their differences, there remained a core unity, a unity unavoidable in the presence of Truth. What was happening, then? I think we have to see that God was tuning His local church to local needs. While His plan and purpose is sufficient for all, its application to particular peoples and times has been uniquely fit to the task. To some degree, I think this still applies to modern denominationalism. To a degree, but not completely.
Certainly, amongst the Protestant denominations, each has particular aspects of doctrine that they accent more strongly, and each has aspects that they downplay in some degree. This is not to say that all present day denominations are within the fold of true faith, nor even to say that all within a particular denomination can be marked one way or the other in this regard. There is that matter of the Church within the church. Within each visible division we can see, there is also the invisible division that divides those who truly hold to One Faith, and those who chase only the shadows devised by the minds of men.
How are we to know? The Creeds are one tool that can help us navigate these waters. God's Word is another, the same tool by which we are to test all that comes to us as doctrine. Listen, the dangers of the Liberal schools of supposed theology are not past us. Many in the world today still hear their voices. Many seek out their voices to represent for them the 'official Christian stance' on this and that matter of debate. Why? Because these voices don't speak from faith in God, but from the scattered and damaged philosophies of the twentieth century. I can still hear it in the voice of a minister chosen by public radio to speak the message of 'faith,' for their hearers, to explain this religious business to their cosmopolitan audience. What was this message of faith? "I want the pillars of my church to be agnostics! Don't give me believers, they're to unmovable." Well, dear lady, I don't know what you have been studying in seminary, but apparently it didn't have much to do with the record of Scripture, did it? The apostles were not terribly 'movable.' They had a faith that the worst efforts of the Roman Empire couldn't shake. "Jesus was all about inclusiveness?" So says this strange shepherd, but our Shepherd says "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword (Mt 10:34)" The sword is hardly a tool of inclusiveness. Inclusiveness is not come to 'set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother.' Inclusiveness will not require us to choose. Inclusiveness does not require commitment. The God of which my Bible speaks does require these things of those who would claim to believe. "Many will tell Me how they have served Me in that day, but I will tell them that I never knew them, and will command them to leave My presence, for all they have served is their own lawlessness" (Mt 7:22).
No, it is clear that many amongst every denomination, from the leadership through the parishioner are far from One Faith and One Truth. Yet, there remains a remnant. This remnant knows no particular denomination. It is not limited by the walls of the church, nor by the boundaries set by councils and synods. It recognizes that same Faith whatever badge it may wear. The remnant can see true belief, belief in that same One Truth, depending on the same One Savior, in the most charismatic believer, and in the most traditional Calvinist; in the sternest of Baptist brothers, and in the most orthodox of Catholics. True Faith will find its way to the True Believer in whatever way it must. From every tribe and every nation on the earth, God is calling out His family. From every denomination, non-denomination, call it what you will, God calls to those who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, and His children hear Him with ears of faith.
Surely, there will come a time when all of these divisions we have made will be erased. No, the Church will not be all-inclusive at that time, but all who have held to the Truth, however poorly they may have understood it in the dimness of our present capacities, will behold Truth Himself. They will know Him who is Truth as they themselves have been known by Him, and in that fullness of knowledge, all cause for disagreement will have come to an end. As I have said before, only one line of division will remain. On one side will stand those whom God has called, those who have laid hold of His gracious offer of salvation as to a lifeline. These will be those ones this strange minister desired not, the ones whose faith in God and in His revealed Word was unshakable in life, the ones whose grip on their Redeemer was made fast and certain. On the other side will stand all those who have attempted to shape the unity of faith to their own standards, who have chosen to bend the unbendable rules of God rather than bend themselves to His rule. Many will say to Him on that day, "Lord, Lord." But He will ask of them the same question He asked others as He walked this earth. "If you call me 'Lord' why is it you do not do as I have commanded?"
We can disagree as to where truth lies in this question or that. We can do this, and still hold to the truth with all that is within us. Yet we must, all of us, in the end recognize that our understanding of truth is imperfect. Some have said that denominations stand to mark a move of God that has come and gone. I disagree. I think that denominations stand to remind us of truths that matter, to mark the road that keeps us connected to the historical church. That road has been traveled by many a saint in search of a better understanding of Truth. As they walked the road, many walked with them who wandered off on side roads of deception. We, who stand at this end of the roadway have a distinct advantage in looking backwards. The path of Truth should stand out to us more clearly, as we view the road that has led us here. There are still debates, some centuries old. There are debates that will doubtless continue until His return. These may seem silly to us, but they are not. They are matters that deserve our attention, our study, and our understanding. They require us to understand our own limitations. They require us to understand our own positions. They require us to understand the opposing positions, and to understand that they who hold to those opposing positions are not enemies of the faith, but are as true to Faith as are we. They are no more or less fallible in their understanding than we. They seek nothing different than do we: to know God and to serve Him wholeheartedly.
Our grasp on truth may be strong or it may be weak. If we don't recognize the possibility that we are wrong on certain particulars, though, we are in great danger of taking one of those side roads ourselves. Not every debate is a debate between two faithful positions. There are matters of faith that are not subject to such misunderstandings. Witness the creeds. They detail matters upon which true faith cannot but agree. To deny the Virgin Birth, to deny that God and man were united in the Christ, to deny His death, His very real and actual death, or to deny His equally real and actual resurrection: these things are to deny any real faith whatsoever. Permanent election? The scope of Atonement? The proper rites of the Church? These matters are important, yet they do not, in the end, define the reality of faith, only the bounds of understanding. One day, we will see Him as He truly is, and in that day the imperfect will be done away with. We, who have been seeking as best our dim vision allows, will find Truth revealed. In the end, we will find that, whatever have been the peculiarities of our particular understanding, Truth remains Truth. Our acceptance of it, our comprehension of it does not change it. Truth is, for Truth is of God's essence. It is as unchanging, permanent, and perfect as God Himself, who is Truth.
