Watchman Magazine

“My dear child: Memories and emotions are such powerful forces. When I wrote to you the last time, I mentioned a part of my memories of your childhood. I don’t know how that affected you, but it had a tremendous effect on me. Just speaking of these things intensifies my desire to see you restored to the fellowship of God. You were so happy then and I wish for you this same happiness once more. “Indulge me just a little more and see if you can remember when you were baptized. Since religion is no more an important part of your life, I am interested if you recall the sincerity with which you expressed a desire to me to obey your Lord by being baptized. I remember talking with you since you were a little young, I thought. You reminded me that people were taught to be baptized when they knew they were sinners and that you knew you had done things that were wrong and believed that you were lost. You said that you wanted to go to heaven when you died and knew baptism to be right. Your mother and I realized that this had to be your decision and were proud of you. We have the date marked down somewhere. It is printed indelibly in our minds. But can you remember your feelings then? Surely you must have loved God and had faith in Him at that moment in your life. You were not pressured into being baptized; it had never been a matter of force. You came seeking to do God’s will and seemed to do it gladly. I am wondering what importance you put on this even now. It was a great event for us then, and it remains so to this day. For us, it meant that you were a part of the kingdom of Christ, a member of His church. Your sins were washed away and as much as anything, it seemed that you were taking the initiative in living right. No one pushed you into baptism; it was something you wanted to do. Do you have any regrets about it now? If you had it to do over again, would you be so eager to be right with God?

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PrefaceMany Christians know the ache of David’s heart when he wept for his rebellious son, saying: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son!” (2 Samuel 18:33). David went aside by himself and wept bitter tears.Many Christians know the bitterness of such tears — the helplessness that David must have felt — the burden of regret and sorrow. One of the most terrible feelings known to Christians is that which is felt when a beloved son or daughter turns their back on Christ and becomes unfaithful. There are no words adequate to describe the broken hearts.

This series of “letters” will describe some of the feelings that parents have when children reject God. No one family is described; rather a composite family drawn from many experiences is projected. It is hoped that parents will use these articles to open the door of young people’s hearts to the tender love of Christ and remind them of their parents’ love. They are also an appeal to our young people who have forgotten the most important lesson they will ever learn, “Love God and keep His commandments.”

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Introduction:

I. Congregational Autonomy (Definition of Terms)

A. Congregation (Local Churches)

1. Local churches the only government (organization) God ever gave his people

a. Church “Universal” has no structure (cf. Matthew 16:18)
“And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”

1) Simply the “called out” of God; Christians; Relationship, not structure.

b. Church “Local”, an organization (Organized by God, consisting of various elements) (cf. Phil. 1:1)

“Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:”

2. When we speak of congregational autonomy, we mean the autonomy of the local church

B. Autonomy

1. Webster’s New World Dictionary (College Edition) “Self-government”
2. Etymology - “auto” (self); “nomos” (law) ~ Self law

“Nothing is more plainly taught in the Word of God with greater misunderstanding than the scope of activity of the local church. I especially make reference to the autonomy of the local church. If Christians fail to grasp this truth, then untold harm will result as they are swept into complete apostasy.

“Autonomy is defined: ‘The condition or quality of being autonomous. especially, the power or right of self-government’ (Funk & Wagnalls). When the word autonomy is used with reference to the church of our Lord, it should be understood that allusion is that each church has the divine right to govern itself.” (Robert L. McDonald, The Discerner, Local Church Autonomy, October 1991, Page 2).

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What is integrity? Webster says it is “honesty and soundness.” Integrity is a principle, or a quality that is taught throughout the Bible.

If God Has Integrity, Must We? One of God’s traits is that He does not change. Malachi 3:6, “For I am the LORD, I do not change.” He has integrity in that His will and word are changeless. He does not “double-deal” with Mankind. How does this trait affect us? He has given us law to live by and when we are obedient we will receive blessings that are wonderful and great. BUT when we are disobedient to this law, we will suffer the consequences every time without fail. Examples:

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For the first time since the fifties and sixties, an effort is being made to destroy the Church of Christ. The “liberals” have referred to a movement among them, and those who are directing the movement, as “Change Artists.” In a very real sense, we have many among the conservative cause who are also “Change Artists.”

“Institutionalism” moved many of our brethren out. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). This caused a split in the Lord’s church.

Following that conflict, it has been advocated: (1) “Accentuate the positive, and eliminate the negative,” (2) “Preach the man and not the plan,” (3) “Preach Christ, and not the church.” All of these efforts were for the purpose of erecting a “straw man,” so they would not have to deal with the arguments against the issue.

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Introducción.

A. Según el diccionario Larousse, el centinela es el “soldado que se coloca de guardia en un sitio. Fig. Persona que vigila una cosa”.

B. En el Antiguo Testamento se refiere a aquél que estaba puesto como centinela sobre las murallas de una ciudad. Isaías 21:6, “Porque el Señor me dijo así: Vé, pon centinela que haga saber lo que vea”; Isaías 62:6, “Sobre tus murallas, oh Jerusalén, he puesto centinelas; en todo el día y en toda la noche jamás callarán”; es decir, siempre estaban listos a avisar del peligro. El centinela había de clamar cuando el enemigo se acercaba o cuando había peligro de cualquier clase.

C. Jeremías 31:6, también habían de clamar “en la región montañosa de Efraín: ‘Levantaos y subamos a Sion, al Señor nuestro Dios”. “Efraín” era el reino del norte que había caído en apostasía.

D. Ezequiel 3:17, “Hijo de hombre, te he puesto por centinela de la casa de Israel; cuando oigas la palabra de mi boca, adviérteles de mi parte”. En este texto observamos que el centinela (1) recibía mensaje de advertencia de la boca de Dios y (2) entregaba ese mismo mensaje al pueblo, sin añadirle, quitarle ni cambiarlo.

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Editor’s Note: Brother Roberts wrote this article in 1979 as a part of his and others’ efforts to battle calvinistic tendencies among brethren. Those tendencies are still present in some today, and make this study as timely now as it was 20 years ago. We commend it to you for that reason, as well as its thorough treatment of the doctrine of Imputation.

The theological system known as Calvinism originated in the voluminous works of John Calvin entitled “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” This man popularized concepts expounded earlier by Martin Luther and others dating back to Augustine (354-430 A.D.). In order to reduce these massive works to proportions that the average student can understand, Calvinism has been summarized into five major points that are usually represented by the acronym “TULIP.” Each of these letters represents one of the five major points taught by John Calvin in his explanation of man’s fall and his redemption. They are: Total hereditary depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace and Perseverance of the saints. The reduction of these concepts into the simplified five points has encouraged many to study this basis of the Protestant Reformation who would not otherwise have been able to do so. Current events within the church of Christ, as well as a revival of Calvinism among Protestant churches, has caused a further study of another of Calvin’s concepts: the imputation of the personal righteousness of Christ to the believer. Without a doubt, Calvin’s idea about imputation is the glue that holds the five points together which were mentioned earlier. Since he denied the ability of man to do anything good due to his inherited depravity, Calvin was convinced that in some manner the personal righteousness of Christ, His moral excellence (in today’s vernacular, the “doing and dying of Jesus”) was transferred to the sinner so that, as man was lost due to Adam’s sin, he was saved due to Christ’s perfection. In this view, Adam’s sin was a corporate sin (involving the whole race and not just himself) while Christ’s perfection was corpporate perfection (involving all believers, not just Himself). As Adam was the fountainhead of sin for lost mankind, Jesus was the fountainhead of righteousness for all believers. And, Calvin taught, since the guilt of Adam became our guilt (by inheritance through the flesh), the righteousness of Christ became our righteousness through a process known as imputation. To be sure, the Bible speaks of imputation and the scheme of redemption includes this as an integral part of our salvation. But there is a vast difference between the scriptural doctrine of imputation and Calvin’s doctrine. We need to be able to grasp the difference between what Calvin taught and what the Bible teaches. To do this, Calvin’s concept of imputation has been summarized in to three main points even as his “Institutes” have been summarized into five points. The three-fold imputations of John Calvin are:

1. the imputation of the sins of Adam to mankind,
2. the imputation of the sins of mankind to Christ, and
3. the imputation of the personal righteousness of Christ to believers.

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In response to the May issue’s review of Bob James, a “oneness” Pentecostal, Cornelia Hutto replies as follows:

The Bible says the Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary and she conceived. Are the Father and the Holy Ghost the same? I submit that it is no harder to believe that Jesus is the expressed person of God, the manifestation, the embodiment of a Spirit (Who was the Father), in a word “His own Father” than to believe He could have TWO fathers. Col. 2 … in Him (Jesus Christ) dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily. The godhead is in Jesus, not Jesus in the godhead. Three manifestations of one God. No denial of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost. The Father in creation, the Son in redemption, and the Holy Ghost in operation in the Church today. The Spirit (Father) had no body, created Himself a body … the Son (Jesus Christ). The Holy Ghost = simply the Spirit of God poured out upon the believers.

Cornelia Hutto

Hafley’s Response:

Who “poured out” the “Holy Ghost” “upon the believers”? Someone did (Joel 2:28; Jn. 14:26; Acts 2:17). Who was it? Perhaps Cornelia Hutto will tell us. Or did the Spirit of God pour out of (from) himself? If he did, let her, by citing pertinent passages, tell us that, too.

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One of the main features of our work in Lithuania is the weekly Bible lectures. We started having lectures when we first started working there in April, 1992, and have continued the practice until the present date. A variety of subjects have been addressed in these lectures, but the one we want to concentrate on in this article is one that I preached in November, 1998. The theme of the lectures that day was, “Creation or Evolution?” The first lecture called into question a number of the main tenants of evolution while the second one was simply an exegesis of Genesis 1. Doing the lectures in this order one has the opportunity to clear away many of the misconceptions which “science falsely so called” has spread concerning the origin of man before approaching the Bible’s account of creation. The advertisements for the lecture brought unexpected interest and I was invited to give it again to a loosely knit Protestant group the following Sunday afternoon. About 70 people were in attendance. I hope to repeat this lecture in other places.

The lecture constituted more work than any lecture I can remember. At least 20 charts were presented, most of which had to be translated into Lithuanian. It was introduced with a chart showing the difference between the general theory of evolution which teaches that everything evolved from a common ancestor and the Genesis account of each “kind” or species having its origin with the creating word of God. We next looked at a picture of the geologic time table as the evolutionists see it from John Clark and David Eakin’s booklet, The Theory of Evolution and Special Creation. This table presents the view of the earth’s rock strata so vital to the evolutionist’s theory which, according to their interpretation, allows billions of years for man to evolve from non-life.

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