(Delivered in Greenock on Monday evening, 26th October, 1959. By Rev. John Colquhoun, Glendale, Skye).
We see from the beginning of this short epistle that the Apostle John addresses it to “the elect lady and her children.” Some think that the “elect lady” is a particular person to whom the Apostle writes, others think that it is addressed to the Church of Christ, not only as it was in the Apostle’s day, but down through the ages. If I may be allowed to express a personal preference, I prefer the latter sense, and with that in view I shall endeavour, as enabled at this time, to notice two things in particular from the words read as the basis of a few remarks. I. The doctrine of Christ. II. That which is said of those who abide not in the doctrine of Christ.
I. The doctrine of Christ which He came into this world to reveal and which we have in the Bible, and systematised in the subordinate standards of the Church.
I shall here endeavour to notice a few of these doctrines which are “most surely believed” in the Church of God, but which are rejected in our degenerate age
(1) There is the doctrine of God.
Throughout the world there are many gods among the heathen, and the followers of each god believe and proclaim that their god is better than any other god. However, the Holy Spirit settles that matter by causing the psalmist to write, “Our God is in the heavens; he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased,” and also showed the inability of the heathens’ gods to help those who trust in them. In the land of the Bible and among professing Christians things are not better. Without at present referring to the images of the Church of Rome, professing Protestants have pictures in their minds of God, and their idea of Him is that He is a God who will connive at their sin. “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” He cannot see further that they can see, and His power is non-existent. The God of the Bible, and therefore, the God of the true Christian, however, is a God of infinite perfections. No human language can describe Him better than what we have in the beautiful words of the Shorter Catechism:—”God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”
That there are three Persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, is a doctrine that is most surely believed by the Church of God. Christ, when He tabernacled in the flesh, clearly reveals the doctrine of the Trinity. In His baptism at Jordan we have the Son being baptised, the Father acknowledging Him as His “beloved Son” by an audible voice from heaven, and the Holy Ghost descending upon Him in a visible form. In His teaching He claims that “I and the Father are one,” while in comforting His mourning Church, in prospect of His leaving them, He says, “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”
(2) Among the doctrines of Christ we have the Fall of Man, the corruption of his whole nature, and his utter inability to save himself.
Christ not only gives this doctrine a place in His teaching but His coming into the world to save sinners implies that those whom He came to save were so ruined that it was beyond creature power to save them, for without shedding of blood there is no remission. But “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins, wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.” All that the creature could do was, at best, but the shadow of good things to come. Man was too ruined to be justified by the works of the Law. His whole nature is depraved, his will rebellious, his conscience drugged, his whole being bent on satisfying the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. From that fearful condition nothing but the grace of God can deliver him. All who abide in the doctrine of Christ believe this concerning man and the fearful condition to which the Fall brought him.
(3) The decrees of God.
Although we rightly speak of them as many there is only one act of His infinite mind by which He “foreordained for His own glory whatsoever comes to pass.” He decreed to create man, to permit him to fall, to elect some to everlasting life, and, in His sovereignty, to pass by others by leaving them to the consequences of their sins, and to provide salvation for the elect. This opens up the wide field of the Covenant of Grace where God provided salvation for all His elect, and reveals to us in all its glory the electing love of the Father, the redeeming love of the Son, and the sanctifying love of the Holy Spirit.
(4) In the wonderful revelation we have in the Bible we have Christ coming “in the name of the Lord” to save sinners.
Here we must consider the Person who came. It was not the highest angel in glory who came, for, although such a being is “great in might,” he would utterly fail in setting his face towards the work that it was necessary to accomplish in order that self-ruined and hell-deserving sinners should be saved with an everlasting salvation. None could do this great work but God Himself. It could not be God as an absolute God, for “our God is a consuming fire.” His Deity would require to be veiled, therefore we read, “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.” Thus we have the glory of the Person of Christ as “God and man in two distinct natures and one person for ever,” and we have the great Daysman Who is able to lay His hand upon a holy God and upon sinful man, and in His own Person reconcile God and man on the ground of an all-sufficient Atonement.
This brings before us the Saviour’s humiliation and vicarious sufferings, doctrines which have been vehemently denied in all ages. The Jews denied them, for they would not accept, and do not accept to this day, that He Who was a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief in this world, and who was brought to such a depth of poverty that the foxes had holes and the fowls of the air had nests but He had nowhere to lay His head, was the Son of God. Many professing Christians in our day will not give Him a higher place than that He was a good man, and attribute His death to want of prudence in dealing with the religious leaders of the day in which He lived. The Holy Spirit however, gives an infinitely higher reason for His sufferings and death when He says, “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Here He was carrying out His work as the great High Priest of His Church, offering Himself as a sacrifice by which all the attributes of the Godhead were satisfied and a reconciliation effected between an offended God and offending sinners.
That He finished the work given Him to do is amply testified by His resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father, and thus was fulfilled the truth which says, “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” This doctrine, with respect to the Lord Jesus, was something which the Jews were particularly anxious to suppress, they gave large money to the soldiers, saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept, and if this come to the governor’s ears we will persuade him, and secure you.” Matthew XXIII. 12-14. Not only is this saying “commonly reported among the Jews until this day,” but many professing Christians in the high places of the Church deny His resurrection, some going so far as to say that His body still lies in the “Syrian sands.” The Apostle Paul, however, was under no delusion in this matter. After enumerating those who saw Him at different times after His resurrection, the greater part of whom were alive when the Apostle was writing, he says, “Last of all he was seen of me also, as one born out of due time.” I Cor.XV. 8. In this he gives evidence which no court could refuse, and no unprejudiced person could doubt. In His glorious resurrection and ascension there is great comfort for the people of God. It is not a dead Saviour that they have, but One Who was dead and is alive, and alive forevermore.” He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” Rom. IV; 25. To His ascension belongs the second part of His office as the great High Priest of His people, that is, His intercession. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” I John II; 1.
(5) Another part of the doctrine of Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit in Effectual Calling.
This calling is necessary in view of the sinners condition as “dead in trespasses and sins.” The dead know nothing and can hear nothing, but the Spirit quickens and causes sinners to hear the voice of Christ, as Jesus Himself says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.” John V; 25. Abraham heard that voice, and forsook the idolatry of Ur of the Caldees, and his life afterwards showed that he was a new creature, and such is the case with every one who, in effectual calling, hear the voice of Christ. They begin to manifest the marks of a living soul in renouncing, through grace, the ways of sin, and showing a living gracious thirst after God, the living God. By the same spirit they are justified, adopted, and the work of sanctification begins and is being carried on until they are wholly sanctified, and enter into the presence of their Lord.
(6) We have also in the doctrine of Christ what theologians call “Eschatology,” that is, the doctrine of the last things—Death, the Final Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.
Nominal professors of religion cannot deny the fact that all must die; they speak about a Heaven but it is a heaven that is in accordance with their own imagination. They never speak about a final account with Christ as the Judge, and as for Hell, they consider that it should never be spoken of to a polite audience. The doctrine of Christ brings before us death in all its solemnity. To the Lord’s people it is without its sting, and is God’s messenger to call them home to experience eternally the perfection of bliss which Christ has procured for them. To the wicked it is the separation for ever from all temporal blessings and privileges which they had in this world, and the beginning of that sorrow which is the wages of their despising and rejecting that great and glorious provision which they often heard proclaimed in the preaching of the Gospel. Heaven is the eternal abode of the blest, where they experience unbroken fellowship and communion with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Israel’s Triune God, and where absolute holiness dwells. Hell is the place of eternal torments, prepared for the devil and his angels, and which is to be the abode of all who continue till death, ignorant of Christ and His great salvation. The Saviour Himself speaks solemnly of the fate of the wicked when, in His fearful denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, He says, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” and, in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus, he draws aside the veil between this world and a lost eternity, He reveals to us what John Bunyan so aptly described as “the groans of a damned soul.” At the final Judgment we read that “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
(7) There is the doctrine of Christ with respect to His Church on earth.
From the Word of God we see clearly that Christ is to have a Church on earth to the end of time. He had His Church in the world under the Old Testament dispensation, which dispensation consisted of types which were the shadows of good things to come, and therefore, in the New Testament we have the fulfilment of these types, so that Christ in building His Church set these types aside. The old order was to vanish away and something new was to take its place. “And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matt. XVI. 18. Throughout the whole of the New Testament there are various references to the Church, and the manner in which it is to be known in the world. To distinguish it from other religious societies in the world it must have distinguishing marks. Calvin gives as the marks of the true Church that there must be in it, the preaching of the Word and the dispensing of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Without these it cannot be a true Church. This is in accordance with the command Christ gave to His disciples, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”
The doctrine of Christ, as that is brought before us in His Word, reveals who are to be the office-bearers of His Church. The Westminster Confession of Faith says, “The Lord Jesus, as King and Head of His Church, hath therein appointed a government in the hand of Church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate. To these officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed; by virtue whereof they have power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both by the Word and censures; and to open it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the gospel and by absolution from censures, as occasion shall require.” (Chap. XXX. sect. 1, 2.) These office-bearers, to whom is delegated this power by the Lord Jesus Himself, are, in the New Testament, called elders or presbyters. This is the title by which the Apostles introduce themselves as we see from I Peter V. I; II John, I; and III John, I. It is also the title by which pastors, teachers, and rulers in the Christian Churches are known in the Word of God. The Word of God and subsequent history after the canon of the New Testament was closed show a parity between these pastors, teachers, and rulers; none appear to exercise a lordship over the rest. This is in accordance with what the Lord Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.” (Luke XXII 25, 26.) Thus we are warranted to believe that the original government of the Christian Church was Presbyterian.
It is necessary for a Church to have standards, and this has been the case with the various branches of the Christian Church down through the ages. In our own land the Church of Scotland had the Bible as its supreme standard, and, since 1647, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger, and Shorter Catechisms, as its subordinate standards. The change from the Scots Confession of 1560 was made because the Westminster Confession amplified the older Confession and in order to bring about a uniformity between the churches in England, Scotland and Ireland. The Confession of Faith and Catechisms were ratified by the Scottish Parliament in February, 1649, and, on account of the contract between the Church and State, the Church had no power to break away from these Standards or to change them and still be the Church of Scotland. As these Standards contained a summary of the doctrine of Christ as set forth in the Scriptures, the Church was bound by law to adhere to them.
II. I now come to notice something concerning those who abide not in the doctrine of Christ.
Ever since the days of the early Christian Church there were subordinate standards to show what the Church believed. This was necessary on account of the fact that false teachers began to disseminate their pernicious heresies. The earliest known of these standards is what is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed. This does not mean that this Creed was compiled by the Apostles, though it is of great antiquity. It is rather a summary of what they believed, and what the Church of God believed. In course of time, as new heresies appeared, it became necessary to amplify this Creed, and thus we have many famous orthodox Creeds or Confessions of Faith still extant in various countries, compiled at various times in the history of the Church. The history of the Church of Scotland clearly illustrates this matter. When the Protestant Church was established in 1560 we have the First Book of Discipline, the Scots Confession of Faith, and, at a later period, the Second Book of Discipline. As far as these documents went they adhered strictly to the Word of God, but there were many things that were only obscurely dealt with, and so, when the Westminster Standards were framed, they were accepted as setting forth in a more extensive manner and in more precise language what the older standards taught. It is a noteworthy fact connected with the Westminster Confession of Faith that not even one heresy is mentioned by name, yet, from beginning to end, we have solid Scriptural statements which, in themselves, are refutations of all the heresies with which the Church of God was plagued in all generations. Thus we have in clear Scriptural language, used with the greatest precision, Standards which show what the “doctrine of Christ” is. This should be enough for every age of the Church. It has been, however, the painful experience of the Church of God in Scotland that there are many who abide not in the doctrine of Christ.
They manifest this by endeavouring to explain away the time-honoured subordinate standards which were drawn up with such care and precision, and thus give a totally different meaning to the statements of doctrine contained in these documents and to the passages of Scripture upon which they are based. They maintained that the old standards were out of date, and that the Church of the present day should not be bound by Standards which were framed three hundred years ago, purposely ignoring the fact that these doctrines were based wholly upon the Word of God, and that “the word of our God endureth forever.” The real reason, however, is, that these doctrines and the carnal mind cannot agree “because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” This is behind all the movements to modify the subordinate standards which has blurred the fair face of the Church in Scotland for the past eighty years and more. These modifications imply a denial of the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God, treating them as antediluvian and inconsistent with the character of a merciful God.
In this connection we may briefly draw your attention to the position of the Church of Scotland in our own day. It is the Church of the Reformation? Is it the Church of Knox, Melville, Henderson, Chalmers, and a host of others too numerous to be mentioned? Is it the Church of the Rev. Donald Macfarlane, Dingwall, and the Rev. Donald MacDonald, Shieldaig, and those who continued with them, and the Church of your fathers and mothers? Verily no. To prove that, we do not need to go further back than the Union of 1929 between the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church, and, for a few minutes, examine the Basis of that Union. In the doctrinal Basis of that Union we have (1) The Westminster Confession of Faith; (2) The United Presbyterian Declaratory Act of 1879; (3) The Free Church Declaratory Act of 1892; (4) The Church of Scotland Act on the Formula (1910). Thus we see that though the Westminster Confession is given first place, it is to be understood in the light of the other documents mentioned. If we take the United Presbyterian Declaratory Act of 1879 we find that such subjects are accepted in it a universal atonement, a universal salvation, a denial of the total depravity of our nature, an assertion that sinners can be saved without the Gospel, and that the Confession of Faith is to be understood in the light of this Act. As the Free Church Declaratory Act of 1892 was framed in order to bring the Free Church into line with the United Presbyterian Church so as to effect Union, the statements of the two Acts are practically identical, and therefore, I shall not take up time to refer more particularly to the Act of 1892. If one’s life was spared and time given, I think a useful series of articles could be written on this latter Act, showing from the Word of God, from the other writings of the Westminster Divines, and from the writings of their contemporaries the fallacies of the Act of 1892. By the Act of Parliament of 1921 the Church of Scotland got liberty to alter her Creed as she pleased, and by the Act of 1925 she succeeded in retaining the emoluments of the State. Both Acts were engineered through Parliament by the late Dr. John White of the Barony, Glasgow. By these Acts one can see that it is left for the Church from time to time to “declare what is the substance of the Reformed Faith.”
This is largely the result of the Higher Criticism which came from Germany, and, as an overflowing flood, swept over the length and breadth of Scotland. The fruit of this destructive criticism was to undermine the faith of the people of Scotland in the Bible. It found its chief exponents in the divinity professors from Robertson Smith to the present day. The future ministry of the Church, while they sat at the feet of these destructive critics, became partakers of their plagues, and they, in turn, passed these plagues on to the people so that the whole land became polluted, and the people became alienated from the Church. No other result could be naturally expected, for if we were to accept the teaching of these critics, as many of the people of Scotland have, the Bible to us would be a tissue of falsehoods, contradictions, and forgeries, and there would be no rule to direct us how we might glorify God and enjoy Him. The God of Truth is taken out of the Bible by these men, even though He himself declares that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” The Deity of the Saviour is denied, His virgin birth, His vicarious sufferings and death, His resurrection and ascension, and the perfection of His atoning work, are all denied, while the work of the Holy Spirit is wholly left out of account.
Another step, manifesting that the Church of Scotland is on the down-grade, is the length she has gone in coquetting with Episcopacy. Our forefathers shed their hearts’ blood, suffered untold agonies and privations in their fight against “black prelacy,” and yet, the present-day leaders of the Church of Scotland would again bring our beloved land into that unsufferable bondage. True, it is the case that negotiations have been dropped, but it is only for the time being. On this point I would observe that history has a rather peculiar habit of repeating itself. Those of you who know the history of the Church, and everyone of you should, will remember that in May 1873 the proposals in the Free Church Assembly for Union with the United Presbyterian Church came to an end for the time being. This continued until such doughty champions for the principles of the Free Church as Dr Begg, Dr Kennedy, and many others, in the course of nature, were taken out of the world. When that took place the Union negotiations were resumed, and, it does not require the spirit of prophecy to say that in a few years the same thing will happen with regard to the Union that, lately, has been dropped. Those who are endeavouring to bring about this Union, as far as the Church of Scotland is concerned, reveal too clearly that they brought not with them “the doctrine of Christ” for which their forefathers fought and died.
Again, those who promote these modern revivals, such as are connected with the Faith Mission, Tom Allan, and Billy Graham bring not with them “the doctrine of Christ.” We feel that we cannot condemn too strongly these movements which carry with them so much of the excrescences of the flesh. To take for instance the Billy Graham movement. All the paraphernalia which accompanied the services were useful for gathering the crowd, yea, it did more, it worked up the natural emotions producing something akin to mass hysteria, causing people to come forward to say that they were converted. There were days in Scotland when conversions were numerous, but they were days of the power of the Holy Spirit, and the result was that the work was lasting, showing a permanent change in the walk and conversation of those who came under that power. The conversions that have been in vogue lately by “the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music” had plenty of noise accompanying them, but the goodness it produced was like the “morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.” Not only so, but it is followed by a hardness and a deadness which is appalling, and where any cleaving to religion is observed as a result of it, Arminianism and Antinomianism lift their heads unashamedly. This has been the case with so-called revivals in the past. It was the Moody and Sankey revivals which turned Scotland from a Scriptural Calvinism to Arminianism and, finally, to Atheism. We are still among the dwindling number who often heard the late Rev Neil Cameron, Glasgow, setting life and death before crowded congregations who listened to him amidst a silence, deep as death except for the voice of the preacher. He used none of the orator’s arts, nor any of the contraptions of modern revivals; his manner was calm and serious, and as long as memory lasts some will not forget how he exposed the errors of Moody and Sankey, and showed the damage they had done in Scotland. His own theology was that Scriptural Calvinism already referred to, manifesting that he abode in “the doctrine of Christ,” while the Holy Spirit blessed his proclamation of it, and gave him many souls for his hire. This leaves no room for conjecture as to what his attitude to the Billy Graham Campaign would have been had he lived to see it.
The present Free Church is another example of a religious body not abiding in the “doctrine of Christ.” In saying this we are not depending on statements gathered outside that denomination. A prominent Free Church minister, the Rev Kenneth A. MacRae, M.A., Stornoway, wrote a few years ago as follows:—”So far as some of the Free Church pulpits are concerned, a robust Calvinism has given place to a colourless presentation of the doctrine of grace, which will neither satisfy a Calvinist nor offend an Arminian.” Resurgence of Arminianism, p. 17. Not only is this the case as regards doctrine, but there is no uniformity of worship in the Free Church. In the Free Presbyterian Church you will find the same mode of worship in all our congregations, and a strict adherence to the Psalms as the only manual of praise. Not so in the Free Church. In Lewis, Skye, and probably all the Free Church Congregations on the West Coast of Scotland, together with the Highland Congregations of the Free Church in the City of Glasgow you will find the mode of worship identical with the mode of worship in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the same manual of praise, but let one go, for instance, to the Free Church Congregation of Burghead and he will find something different. There, he will see a choir, the congregation sitting at the prayer and standing at the singing, and more paraphrases sung than psalms. Here is a mode of worship which the Free Church dare not bring into their congregations in Lewis or Skye. That Burghead is not an isolated instance is very evident from the fact that a few years ago a letter appeared in the Free Church Monthly Record by one of their precentors upbraiding their congregations for not making greater use of paraphrases, and claiming that during the time he acted as precentor he sang more paraphrases than psalms.
We have, in our text, the solemn statement that “whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God.” This does not mean that these people have not a god, as has been said already. They have a god of their own imagination, one who will connive at their sin, and whom they can do with as they like. This, however, is not the God of the Bible, who is a God of infinite holiness, justice, and truth, yet who has condescended to look upon sinners in their low estate, and make a Provision by which they are saved eternally. In making that provision, He has revealed Himself in the Person of His only begotten Son as their Redeemer, who has paid a ransom for them, their Judge to set them free, and, through the work of the Spirit, their Sanctifier, to cleanse them and to present them before the Majesty on high without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. This cannot be done by the god of those who abide not in the doctrine of Christ. They have not God, and, therefore, whatever they may put in the place of the living and true God, cannot do what the living and true God alone can do. They have not a God who quickens the dead, and, therefore, they shall remain “dead in trespasses and sins.” They have not a God who “gives the blind their sight” and therefore they see not the matchless beauty and transcendent excellency that is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He continues to them as a “root out of a dry ground.” The Church of old could say, “His mouth is most sweet,” but those who abide not in the “doctrine of Christ,” are strangers to the sweetness of the kiss of reconciliation. He “hath not God” is a solemn statement when applied to a sinner going to eternity, for it implies that he has nothing in prospect of that eternity but black despair. This he has as a result of despising “the doctrine of Christ” and Him whose doctrine it is. “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace.”
May the Lord bless His Word.