It is commonly believed that times have their movements and movements have their time so that as time goes on movements become obsolete. This is perfectly natural and obvious when it comes to things relating to technology – we drive cars instead of horse and buggy etc. But is it true of the church?
What do we mean by Restoration Plea? It is not the same as the reformation plea. The reformation was primarily an historical attempt to reform the medieval catholic church. It resulted in a host of protestant churches, which, though having an anti-catholic bias in common, resulted in a more confusing religious scene. Essentially it is dead movement now, and if anything, is probably more disposed to moving back toward catholicism in a spirit of ecumenism, rather than away from it. This is not to suggest that catholicism has changed that much from earlier times.
The restoration plea is an on-going plea for the modern man to be just a Christian as was the case at the beginning of Christianity. It is a plea for the restoration of the authority of His Word, the Bible, rather than the multitude of creeds and dogmas, councils and synods, that have developed since the time of Christ. It is a plea for religious unity with all Christians unified in one body, rather than being fractured and splintered into the hundreds of denominations that now exist.
So it is a call for change – but a certain kind of change. A change back to what Christianity was at the beginning – to what it was when defined by Jesus and His apostles. Others want change too, but in the other direction – for Christianity to become something new and different to what it was at the beginning. The theologians of Catholicism have long contended that the catholic church gave the world the Bible and so the catholic church is a greater authority than the Bible. It isn’t so (since it is the word of God that is sown in the hearts that produces saved people who then constitute the church), but on this premise Cardinal John Henry Newman declared that the church has the right to alter its practices in the interest of converting the pagan. He conceded that the use of holy water, incense, sacerdotal vestments are all of pagan origin but their use is acceptable. There are no apologies for change. Many of us can remember when the Mass was said in Latin, fish was the meat eaten on Fridays etc., but now it is different.
Protestant churches do likewise. In 1910 the Methodists revised their Discipline. One article was totally reversed: prior to 1910 it read children are born in sin but after 1910 it read Children are born in Christ. A more complete contradiction could not be imagined – if it was right before 1910 it is wrong now, and if it was wrong before 1910 is it right now? Such are human creeds. Edward Hiscox states in the Standard Manual for Baptist Churches; is is most likely that in the apostolic age when there was but ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism’, and no differing denominations existed, the baptism of a convert by that very act constituted him a member of the church, and at once endowed him with all the rights and privileges of full membership. In that sense, ‘baptism was the door into the church’. Now, it is different…..
We may well ask, why is it different? By what authority has the difference been adopted? Not only do we see a belief that man has a right to change the design of the church and its institutions, we have seen a change in the basic concept of morality. Several decades ago you would not have found a single religious body professing to be Christian that would have endorsed the sin of homosexuality. Now the defenders of Sodomy are numerous. And why not? If we are free to change Christian doctrines, why not change moral precept also? Some talk about a new morality to match a new world, but in reality it is nothing more than the old immorality! Where does the term Sodomy come from? ( Sodom and Gemorrah, 2000 B.C.) Where does the term Lesbian come from? (The isle of Lesbos in the 8th century B.C.) There’s nothing new under the sun, said the wise man. Name a sin that modern man practices or craves liberty to practice and see if you can’t find it being practiced by peoples thousands of years ago.
When God ordains something, it remains in force for as long as He designed it to last, and no man has the authority to change it. In the times of the Mosaic covenant God said the people were not to deviate from what He had commanded to ensure the longevity of the nation (Deut. 5:32,33). They were not to modify it in any way (Deut. 4:2; Prov. 30:6). Some five hundred years after the giving of the Old Covenant, a King by the name of Jeroboam “modernised” the Jewish religion. He did this by setting up golden calves (despite Ex.20:4); Bethel and Dan became the places of national worship rather than Jerusalem, the place of God’s choosing; the priesthood came from tribes other than Levi; the feast of Tabernacles was changed from the 15th day of the 7th month, to the 15th day of the 8th month.
And what did God think about all this? The expression “Jeroboam made Israel to sin” is repeated some twenty times in the Old Testament! God sent prophet after prophet to turn them back to the truth delivered by Moses, but essentially these spokesmen for God were despised, ignored, ridiculed, and when they wouldn’t go away, killed (cf. Acts 7:52). Jeremiah was one of those and his challenge in Jer.6:16 to return to the old ways was rejected. So it is today. Restoration is an old concept, not a nineteenth century idea, and one needed by every generation. (to be continued)