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 The
preacher, hoping to reform an habitual thief, asked him to read
Eph. 4:28. As the story goes, the man read, “Let him that
stole, steal! No more work!” If you will check the passage you
will see he misplaced the emphasis.
When
we were children we used to play a game with our reading lesson
— changing the stress or emphasis so that we read the
(sentence) but made the sentence say something very different
from that intended. It was great fun — coupled with the
distress it brought our teachers. Today, when God’s word is so
mistreated, the consequences are too serious to be fun.
But
such abuse of scripture is not common, and would fool only the
most ignorant. We regard as far more serious the subtle changes
in emphasis of subject matter, which indicate a failure to
understand essential elements in the gospel of Christ. It is one
thing to teach the necessity of a faith which obeys — a
trusting in Christ which leads one to repent and be baptized,
for the remission of our sins; and quite another thing to put
one’s faith in “baptism” — as though we merited
salvation because we were baptized. Christ is the
Saviour, and no change in emphasis can change that.
Several
months ago I listened to a young man preach his first sermon. He
said (and I wrote it down), “God sent his Son to establish the
church, so that through living in the church, and by the rules
and regulations which He gave us in His word, we might have
eternal life.” I like to think I “know what he meant” —
and my desire to be charitable,
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and to encourage the young man kept me
from saying anything to him, or identifying him here. But the emphasis
in the statement is wrong. God sent His Son to die for man.
(Rom. 5:8) The church is the people of God — those who put
their trust in Christ; it is not some vehicle that God set
rolling toward heaven, with seats for those who will hop in and
ride. In Christ is eternal life — without His
sacrifice, so that God is justified in forgiving sins, no amount
of “rules and regulations” could save us.
Certain
ones came to Antioch, and preached “the Lord Jesus.”
A great number believed, and turned “unto the Lord.”
Barnabas exhorted with them to cleave “unto the Lord.”
And much people was added “unto the Lord.” Could Luke
have said they preached “the church” or “the kingdom”?
Yes, there is a sense in which this was true. (See Acts 8: 12)
Were the obedient added unto the church? Yes — in that they
were added to the number of people, in heaven and earth, who had
come to the Lord. But the fact remains, Luke placed the emphasis
upon their coming to the Lord, cleaving to the Lord, etc. Surely
the wisdom, and rightness of this emphasis is clear. (Above
example from Acts 11:20-f.)
Do
I believe baptism is essential? I certainly do — because Christ
commanded it. Is the church important? Most assuredly — for
that word says “called out - people” in Christ, when
taken in its N.T. context. I have no quarrel with the words —
it is the misplaced emphasis that makes me believe
this article is in order.
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