Where is âThe True Churchâ found? Who composes it? What are some of its characteristics? How much bewilderment there is concerning it! Many seek a satisfactory answer. A Jewish gentleman and his son made a tour of many churches, resolved to join the âTrue Churchâ if they could find it: more perplexed about their relationship to God than indifferent to it. Others, confused by hundreds of denominations, are reading their Bibles and searching after Christ which is the greatest consideration.
To say association with the people of God is conditional to salvation and absence from the house of God is proof of lapse, the thoughtful reverently ask, âWhere are they?â and, âWhich is it?â Today even to Christians Paulâs word, âNot forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is,â (Hebrews 10:25), has its difficulties.
The âTrue Churchâ is not exclusively Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant, Methodist, Presbyterian or Independent. I asked a company of preachers, half seriously, if any of them could tell me the way to heaven. One replied, âFrankly, I fear not, as that is a special way and we are not that way.â To be nominally any kind of an âistâ excludes being vitally Christian, which is to be like Christ.
Whatever the name, form or government, wherever âThe True Churchâ is found, I seek to write the truth to it in love: harsh criticism ill becomes the least worthy of all saints. Despite spiritual impotence God found the writer through one of the visible communions, in which he still remains.
Yet truth is incisive. New ideas are painful. The Word of God is a sharp sword. I write as far as I see, without conscious acridity towards any Church, for âCowardice never manifested God.â Consequences will care for themselves. One wrote that âToday messages of truth were not half severe enough;â another, âThis materialistic age needs a stiff jolt to awaken it.â The Church equally needs the jolt! Bishop Henderson said âThere can be no conviction for sin in the world until there is first conviction for sin in the Church.â A greater said: âWhen He (the Spirit) is come, (unto you disciples), He will reprove the world of sinâ (John 16:8).* [*But He came to abide in âThe True Churchâ at Pentecost and though oft grieved, has never left it (John 14:16). It may offer Christâs atonement to sinners with the assurance His work of reproof has faithfully been done.] The omnipresent Spirit is not everywhere equally manifested. He sovereignly convicts the world of sin but more particularly through the spiritual Church: âGod is greatly to be feared in the congregation of the righteous.â Conversely: âWhere there is no vision the people perishâ or âcast off restraint.â
The Churchâs great light and privilege fixes its great responsibility, the worldâs degree of conviction being proportionate to its possession by the Spirit: âThat servant which knew His Lordâs will,â and did it not, âshall be beaten with many stripes.â âBut he that knew not,...shall be beaten with few stripesâ (Luke 12:47-48). âUnto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required.â âTo him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sinâ (James 4:17).
Arthur C. Zepp.
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Chicago,
Illinois.
CrossReach Publications