Get your own Free Home Page ..To Ancient SDA's ............ To "What's New?"
This is the Church
by
A T Jones
Part Two
The "trees" choose a king
(All the emphasis has been added by the Protestors)
Church organization (1)
The editor of a church paper presents what is intended to be a strong incentive to "Organization" of the people of the "Church of God." This presentation is worth studying: especially by the people to whom it is particularly addressed. It begins as follows:
"Organization is one of the great and fundamental laws of the Universe of God. The all-wise Creator has demonstrated this, on every hand, and it stands out visibly in all His creation, as a living witness of strength, and the accomplishment of a definite purpose in the earth.
"The trees of the forest, and the beasts of the field, are each one a definite and wonderful organism: a separate being made of many organs, all of which work together in harmony and system, perpetuating the life, growth, and increase, of those of its kind.
"The human body is a wonderful organized organism, each member of which works together as one, all having the same and supreme purpose, of perpetuating its own existence," etc. . . .
And and but,
Who is the Organizer of each and all of these wonderful organisms? Who organizes each tree of the forest, each beast of the field, and each human body? Is not this Organizer, in each and every case, just God and only God by His Spirit?
Who ever knew or thought of the branches of a tree, organizing a tree? or the members of a beast, organizing that beast? or the members of any human body organizing that body? There never was anything of the kind, and there never could be anything of the kind.
So it is not a question of Organization, but of whose Organization. The sole question always and in every case is, Whose shall be the Organization? Who is properly and originally the Organizer, and who shall continue the organizing, and whose shall be the Organization?
The human body is indeed a wonderful organism: "fearfully and wonderfully made; " and made only by God through Christ by His Spirit. Genesis 1:26-27; Job 33:4. Not all the collective individual Christians and all the delegates and all the preachers and all the bishops and all the conferences and all the Councils that ever were in the world, all put together at once, could organize the human body. They would not know, and could not know, how to make the first movement, or even to think the first thought, toward it. It is all infinitely beyond all their reach or realm; and stands only within the realm and comprehension of God. And anybody ever to undertake it, would have to be equal with God, and God of God.
So, in this it is not any question of Organization. The sole question is, Who is the Organizer? and whose is the Organization?
Now the Divine Body - "the Body of Christ which is The Church" - is a much more wonderful organism than is the human body: as much more as the supremely Spiritual is more than the human and natural. And just as none but God, through Christ by His Spirit could possibly organize the Divine and Spiritual Body which is The Church. And just so much the more would anybody who would undertake to organize this Body have to be equal with God, and God of God.
And that is just where the Scripture places the one who first "thought" of it and undertook to do it: "he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." That is not safe ground, for Christians.
And still it is not any question of Organization. The sole and only ground for question, is, Who is and who shall be, the Organizer? and who is, and whose shall be, the Organization?
For the members of the body to undertake to organize the body, in order to have a fully organized body they must necessarily "organize" a head as well as any other part of the body. Therefore in their "organizing" the "Body of Christ, which is The Church" they must "organize" a head of and for that body. But Christ is the Head of that true body which is The Church: and will any of these "organizers" say that they will "organize" Christ as the Head of the body that they are organizing? Oh! no, of course not that. He is already organized, in God's Organization. Christ is the Invisible Head. We "organize" with "a visible head" and "organize" only "a visible head."
And that is all that the church of Rome ever claimed.
And all that the church of Rome is or ever was, is in that theory.
Yes, "the trees of the forest are, each one a definite and wonderful organism." And by the Lord, His true children are called "trees" - "trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified." Isaiah 61:3. And while it is true, as before stated, that no such thing was ever known as the branches of any tree undertaking to organize the tree: yet, sad to say, it is also true that once upon a time the trees themselves did actually do the unreasonable thing of organizing themselves into proposed "harmony and system" in which "to work together." The account of it is as follows:
"The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us.
"But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?
"And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou and reign over us.
"But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?
"Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou and reign over us.
"And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?"
Since they could not get any tree that was good for anything, to be the head of their "organization" - because those were all busy honoring God and blessing men - they then appealed to the one that was good for nothing but to be burned - "the bramble," the thorn-bush.
"Then said all the trees to the bramble, Come thou and reign over us.
"And the bramble said unto the trees, if in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust under my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon." Judges 9: 8-15.
Did anybody ever with either safety or comfort sit down in the shade of a thorn-bush? Yet that they do this very thing, or else be burnt, were the only terms of the bargain. That is, they were to put themselves in an arrangement where they were certain to be pricked; and if they refused that, then they were certain to be burnt.
And they were so taken with the idea of their own "organization" instead of God's that they deliberately entered into that unreasonable arrangement. They did make that bramble king over them, when by every right and every sober consideration God was king over them. They rejected God and chose the bramble; and in that they rejected God's Organization, and set up a structure of their own choice, "like all the nations," and called it "organization."
They asked Gideon with his son and his son's son to rule over them. But Gideon promptly replied, "I will not rule over you. Neither shall my sons rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. Judges 8:23.
But Gideon had a wild son, named Abimalech: and after the death of Gideon this one killed sixty-nine of the sons of Gideon - all of his sons but one - and was made king by the people of Shechem and of the house of Millo, And at the end of three years dissatisfaction entered and contentions arose, with the result that Abimelech and his men slew all the people of Shechem and of the house of Millo, and beat down to a total ruin the city of Shechem, and next was himself slain.
But in spite of this frightful outcome, to both sides of the attempt at "organization," there still lingered the wish to have a king. And in the days of Samuel, again the demand was openly made. "Make us a king to judge us, like all the nations." 1 Samuel 8:5. The Lord by Samuel protested solemnly against it all: and outlined before them what would be the evil and the oppressions of their king and their kingdom and their "organization." But they would not listen, and still insisted, "Nay, but we will have a king over us." Verse 19.
The Lord let them have their persistent way. Yet He declared, "They have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them." Verse 7. They rejected God, to be "like all the nations." And speedily they became "Like all the nations" that rejected God: and finally sealed it all, and their doom, with the wild and desperate exclamation, "We have no king but Caesar!"
What is the Meaning of all this? Is there in it any warning, or any lesson, for God's people in this time or in any time? Or is it true that that part of the word of God is empty, void, and dead?
Where is any difference in principle between then their call for a king, that they might be "like all the nations," and now the like call for a king, that they might be like all the denomi-nations?
oooOooo
To Ancient SDA's ............ To "What's New?"
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page