On more than one occasion, the Lord Jesus Christ commanded and counselled His true and immediate disciples to love one another, under the revelation and influence of His love to them, that all men might know that they were His disciples indeed. Those who are born of God and are believers on the Lord Jesus Christ are to bear the fruit of the Spirit in having love to God and to those who are also begotten of Him, (1st John, chap. 5, v. 1). “The fruit of the Spirit is love,” (Galatians, chap. 5, v. 22). In a manner, they are to have love to all men as directed by Gospel principles and motives; as for example like the Apostle, desiring and praying that others might be saved. And whatever other directions this fruit of the Spirit may take, believers are to follow their Master faithfully according to His mind and claims expressed in His holy Word; and to witness for Him unashamedly and against men, views and practices when dishonour to Christ and injury to His Church and precious souls are involved.
Even in the midst of His ministry of love, the Lord Jesus pronounced a “Woe” to such as the Pharisees, and unto cities which repented not of their sins and unbelief. Later, Stephen the faithful servant of the Lord, charged his Jewish audience with being “stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,” and also with being the “betrayers and murderers” of the Just One. Then Paul upbraids the Galatians thus: “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you,” (Gal. chap. 3, v. 1). And when the Apostle writes to Timothy, his own son in the faith about “perilous times,” he exposes and denounces the wickedness of men. And among other matters he refers to “despisers of those that are good,” and to those “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” He charges Timothy, “from such turn away.” (See II Tim. chap. 5). Then further, we find that the Apostle Peter in his Second Epistle refers to “false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies.” And John in
his First Epistle, wherein he writes so largely on the precious theme of love, has occasion to give warning that “many false prophets are gone out into the world,” (chap. 4, ver. 1); and he uses the following solemn language in dealing with insincere men: “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him,” (chap. 2, v. 4). We cite these references to show that the divine Head of the Church, and the most eminent of His servants did not compromise with evil men or anything that was dishonouring to God or ruinous to the souls of men, although of course their primary activity in their ministry was the promulgation of the glad tidings of the gospel of the Kingdom, in a sin ruined World.
Now Christ said to His disciples, “… the World hateth you” (John, chap. 15, v. 19), and this truly applies to His believing and faithful servants and people in every age right up to the present day, whether they witness on behalf of the gospel of God’s grace or expose the varied evils of the World, the religious World and the irreligious World. “If the World hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the World, the World would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the World, therefore the World hateth you”: (John, chap. 15 verses 18 and 19). We find this wicked attitude of a godless World towards the Church of Christ exemplified in the case of Cain and Abel right at the beginning of the history of men. And in addition to the inspired record in the Book of Genesis regarding Cain rising up against his brother Abel and killing him, we have the observations of the inspired Apostle John, in his First Epistle, on this case. In chapter two he is writing of the message “That we should love one another,” and then proceeds, “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous.” Abel who by faith offered up to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, was hated of Cain on this account. Abel had Christ by faith in the promise of God and in type; and Cain had nothing but his own works, a self righteous and dead religion, and as a man of the World he hated the true religion and piety of his brother and his brother also. Then consider the testimony of the gracious prophet of God, Jeremiah, and how he suffered from worldly men in Jerusalem and Judah, because they hated the Word of God from his lips which condemned and warned them with reference to their back-slidings and sins. They agreed at one stage that he was worthy to be put to death, and cast him into a low dungeon, out of which the Lord delivered him, as we read in the book of Jeremiah. Then there is at the beginning of the Gospel Church’s establishment, the particular martyrdom of Stephen, to whom we have already referred as to his faithful witness against the enemies of Christ. They stoned him to death in their hatred to him, a holy saint holding converse with heaven while he died at their hands. And many other
outstanding and well known cases could be culled from the pages of Scripture and the later history of the Church. The world hated John the Baptist, Paul, Luther, John Knox, etc., etc. As Jesus said “The World hateth you.”
The true Church of Christ Jesus is still hated and must accept the pronouncement of the Lord, “Marvel not if the World hate you.” And the Church is no doubt hated according to the measure of her loving and faithful adherence to Christ, His holy Word and His requirements respecting the life, conduct and conversation of His living, believing people. It is obligatory upon them to be deeply concerned as to their obedience to the Lord’s will in all matters. And they are further expected to come out and be separate from all forms of evil, false worship, worldliness and vanity which obviously are inconsistent with the mind of the Spirit in the Scriptures, and as it is an absolute, permanent and solemn function of the Church to adhere to and teach and preach the whole counsel of God with a view to the awakening and conversion of sinners and the building up of those who fear God, on their most holy faith, in dependence upon the divine Spirit; it is also binding upon the Church to expose and condemn not only open wickedness, but back-sliding, error, false religion and worldliness on the part of those professing the Christian religion.
Now where there is an endeavour to discharge these duties, as unto the Lord, opposition and criticism tinged with hatred may be expected in this present age also, especially from such as have a form of godliness and nothing more. The unregenerate, self-righteous, worldly professor of religion may well be the most active and bitter enemy of the true Church of Christ and a humble yet fearless testimony on the side of Truth. The Church’s Witness undermines the foundation of “sand” which spiritually dead professors of Christianity build their hope upon. This such cannot tolerate or abide from any quarter. They liken the Church and its witnesses to the Pharisees and hypocrites during the days of the Lord on earth. Yet they themselves are the offspring or counterpart of those same Pharisees and hypocrites who opposed and hated Jesus without a just cause. “They hated me without a cause,” said the Lord Jesus Christ. John the Baptist, in their opinion, had a devil, and the Lord was a gluttonous man and a winebibber and an imposter. So it is not surprising at all that a writer in a weekly paper recently described Free Presbyterians as “vicious, narrow-minded and ignorant and living in a nightmare world of hatred and negation.” The writer of these words declared himself to be an elder in the Church of Scotland. He further described Free Presbyterians as “the Pharisees of today who emphasise the externals and ignore the fundamental truths.” Albeit there are fundamental truths which the Free Presbyterian Church does not ignore viz., The Fall of man and his total depravity; the doctrine of Election; the Atonement; Regeneration; Faith; Repentance; and
Sanctification; Heaven and Hell; and final Judgment; and the Inspiration of Holy Scripture. As to “externals,” the Free Presbyterian Church is constantly criticised in regard to her public worship for a seeming sad lack of “externals.” There is today such a deplorable lack of external conformity to moral standards, and the life and conversation which becomes a Christian, that if the Free Presbyterian Church does emphasise “externals” in certain directions, as to denying ungodliness and living soberly and godly; then even the Home Secretary, Mr. Butler himself is seriously concerned about legislation to assist in cleansing London and the nation from the external evidences of moral decay. No doubt there will be much hatred directed toward Mr. Butler from the “Underworld.” And the carnal mind even in an unconverted professing Christian is enmity against God, and holiness, and against those who are witnesses for God. “The World hateth you.” But the Lord Jesus has this also to say: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you,” (Matt. chap. 5, v. 11, 12).