The Real Issue: God
It has been often pointed out that the division which has taken place between brethren in recent years is the result of a difference in attitude toward the word of God. This is true. But to this writer, the problem seems to go even deeper than that. The charge that our brethren of the institutional persuasion have the wrong attitude toward the Bible stops short of the mark. Since the Bible is a revelation of the wisdom of God, the wrong attitude of these people toward the Bible constitutes in a very real sense an attack upon God himself. The position taken by them places them in the company of infidels who boldly launch blasphemous attacks against God. They need to be made to understand where they stand. Perhaps some of them would be shocked into retreating from such a position and returning to faith in God.
Paul tells us that as God planned for man's redemption he worked all things after the counsel of his own will. He consulted neither men nor angels, but planned through his own wisdom. The conclusion is inescapable that if any flaw, imperfection, or need of modification is to be found in any area of the scheme of redemption, the sole responsibility for it is God's. Any mistake in the plan is an error of divine wisdom.
The church was a part of God's eternal purpose which was kept concealed for ages but finally was uncovered to the eyes of man. The church was planned and purposed through divine wisdom. Hence, as my watch is an expression of the intelligence of its maker, so the church is an expression of divine wisdom. We see the wisdom of God manifested in the church. That is what Paul had in mind when he wrote that through the church the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.
Is any defect to be found in the New Testament church? any need of modification? I think not. This position about the church is forced upon me by a prior position taken about God, namely, that God is an infinite God — infinite in all of his attributes; infinite in wisdom.
It was this infinite wisdom which planned the church. If the church of the New Testament is not all that it ought to be in every detail, then I must give up the position that God is infinite in wisdom, for infinite wisdom would prohibit there being any mistakes or imperfections in the church.
The man who seeks to modify the church in any respect thereby confesses his lack of confidence in the divine wisdom. That is why I say that those brethren who have substituted human inventions in place of the divine arrangement in the church are making a blasphemous attack upon the nature and character of God.
The one and only issue between brethren today is the character of God Himself. Let us keep this at the front in all of our discussions of present problems. Let us push and press these liberal brethren until they see where they are — not in sectarianism, or near Romanism, but in infidelity. Maybe some of them will get the fear of God in their hearts and repent of their blasphemy.
— 1254 Enota Drive, N. E., Gainesville, Georgia