LAW OF CONTRARIETIES

LAW OF CONTRARIETIES [and Unintended Consequences]
R.D.Ice 11-25-07

Law of contrarieties: reactionary - such a person; unthinkingly opposed to change; urging a return to a previous state; very conservative. One who does not think through the consequences of reacting.

Alexander Campbell said Facts Are Stubborn Things. "Fred! I was told you were dead!" "As you can see, I am not." "But you have to be dead. The one who told me was much more trustworthy than you."

It was "Pogo Possum" who said: "We has met the enemy and they is us." The Apostle Paul said: "But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!"
Gal 5:15 (NKJV) Sometimes the most severe enemy of the church turns out to be the church itself.

One of Murphy's Laws says that whatever you do will be wrong for something and cause untended consequences. An example of this was "Old Uncle John." It was said that "he was so strict that he was only in fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that he sometimes had doubts about the Holy Ghost."

"Uncle John" (an imaginary character) is a composite of people and places I have known over 58 years of preaching among the Churches of Christ. Old Uncle John really did love the Lord. But he followed a guiding principle which distorted the way he viewed things. "If the denominations go in and out the door, we will go in and out the window." And so he reacted, bouncing from one extreme to another. He did not preview OR THINK THROUGH the consequences of the choices he was making.

"We’ve got to be DIFFERENT," he said, "or we don’t have anything to preach." "What about preaching Christ?" someone asked. "Oh," John said, "the denominations do that. We’ve got to tell people just how different we are, that we are the true church BECAUSE we are Different and Peculiar."

But Paul said: "For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." 1 Cor. 2:2. The ancient church spoke of the Fish (ichthus). <")))>< - Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. This was their faith. This is our faith!

A Brother came to hold a Gospel Meeting. The first night he preached that NO ONE AT ALL COULD BE SAVED, (except just maybe a tiny remnant). He quoted what Jesus said about "entering in at the strait gate." One of the young people asked, "what about Matt. 8:11 where Jesus said 'MANY will come from the east and the west and sit down in the kingdom of heaven?' And what about the ‘great number that no man can number’ of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, in Revelation 7?"

The next night the brother preached on "how sinful it was to have a kitchen in the church." Uncle John said, "There has been enough gospel preached here tonight to save the world!"
[But isn’t the gospel about Christ Jesus?]

Uncle John was against "premillenialism." "If premillenialism is true, why, you might as well just throw the Bible out the window!" But of course God doesn’t need our advice on what He does or does not do. But Uncle John did not stop there. He began following the AD 70 argument (Preterism). He bought a book on Revelation that taught that everything had been fulfilled when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. For a while he taught that Christ would never come again. This world would just go on forever. But finally he had to give that up when he saw where all this was leading. He knew that Jesus really is coming at the End of the World. And that Every Eye Shall See HIM!

Anything Uncle John didn’t want to have done now, he would say that it was "just for the first century" and write it off. But when someone tried to tell him that "baptism was just for the first century, and only for the Jews," he got really angry.

Someone tried to say that the Lord’s Supper was only for the first century. They quoted 1 Corinthians 11:20. "When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s Supper." "See," they said, "you cannot eat the Lord’s Supper today." But Uncle John would have none of that.

Someone said that the bread should never be broken before passing it. "You are breaking the body of Christ. It is only right when each person breaks off a piece." And for a while Uncle John argued that the bread should not be broken before it is passed. Then another argued that since the ‘elements’ had been blessed in the morning worship, they should not be blessed again when offered at the evening service. And for a time Uncle John offered the Lord’s Supper at the evening service without ‘blessing’ it. But a visiting brother attacked that, and Uncle John once again 'blessed' the Lord’s Supper at the evening service.

Uncle John was sure that the Holy Spirit was just for the first century, and that only the apostles had ever received the Holy Spirit. For a while he began teaching that the New Testament did not really begin until Acts 2:22, that all that Peter quoted from Joel applied only to the Old Testament times. He began teaching that since Jesus lived under the Law, you should ignore everything that Jesus said and taught. But Jesus Himself said HIS WORD would judge us at the last day, John 12:48. And Uncle John did use a red-letter Bible with all the words of Christ in red.

A visiting brother said, "You can buy all the Holy Spirit that is in the world for 10 cents. The holy spirit (sic) exists only in the written word." He was speaking of a paperback New Testament. But Uncle John said, "You’re wrong. The Holy Spirit is God. Simon the Sorcerer tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit and got into trouble. The Holy Spirit is the Author of the Bible. And if the Holy Spirit is the written word, how did Mary become pregnant with Jesus by the Holy Spirit?"

But when some of the young people began singing: "There’s a Sweet, Sweet Spirit In This Place," (page 882 in Praise For The Lord), Uncle John called the elders together and said those young people should be put out of the church to protect it. "Why, there never was a Spirit in this place, sweet or otherwise." But Paul said: "Quench not the Spirit." And: "In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Ephes. 2:22

For a while Uncle did become convinced that the Holy Spirit was the Written Word, and that anyone could only have the Spirit as he read the Bible. But someone asked, "What about those who cannot read, or who do not have a Bible? Is the Holy Spirit out of reach of such a person? And if you say we no longer have the Holy Spirit because we now have the Bible, would you also say we no longer need Christ because we now have the church?"

When one of the young people reminded Uncle John of Cornelius being baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:15-17), and that Philip’s four daughters had prophesied (Acts 21:9), he began teaching like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. "The holy spirit (sic) is just a power like electricity. ‘It’ is not a person at all." One preacher said "It (the Spirit) is just a messenger like Moses." Another preacher wrote a book in which he tried to prove that all the restoration pioneers were UNITARIANS like the Jehovah Witnesses. And someone put up a web site to make fun of "The Holy Spirit."

But the JWs have strange ideas about Who Jesus Is. They teach Jesus was only a man, or perhaps an angel. Uncle John read in the JW Bible Version that John was preparing the way of Jehovah (Luke 3:4 LORD = Jehovah) and compared this with Isaiah 42:8 ("I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another...") and he had to change again. Surely Jesus was Jehovah and the teaching about the Trinity was true. Father-Son-Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14). [Campbell could speak of Jehovah the Father, Jehovah the Son, Jehovah the Holy Spirit.]

Uncle John decided that the Holy Spirit "is just the Spirit of God." Someone said that was like saying "Jesus is just the Son of God." Campbell insisted that this is THE NAME [singular] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19-20).

Uncle John met some Pentecostals who spoke about the Indwelling Holy Spirit and quoted Bible to prove this (John 7:37-39; 1 Cor. 6:19-20). "Impossible!" he said. "Why, the Spirit would just burn them up! The Holy Spirit could never actually indwell anyone. It’s just a figure of speech." Then he got to thinking. If the Spirit would just burn them up, how could Jesus be the Son of God in the flesh? So for a period of time, he began teaching that Jesus "just wore a disguise" and was not really God in human form. But the Bible does teach with emphasis that Jesus is the Son of God who came in flesh and blood (2 John 7; 1John 5:6), and he finally had to give this idea up. Note 1 John 4:1-4. One who denies that Jesus is the Christ who came in flesh & blood has committed a serious sin. And the Cross & Resurrection is a vital doctrine. Gal. 3:1-3; Romans 10:9-10.

A contentious young man from another congregation came to harangue Uncle John. "You've go to trouble people." he said. "Hell fire and brimstone!" Then he said, "Your baptism is no good. You didn't repent right. I know you didn't. You’ve got to be totally troubled first to repent." He kept on at this and finally convinced Uncle John to be rebaptized. "Now" he said, "you are a novice. You can't continue to be an elder anymore." So Uncle John stepped down. About three months later Uncle John began to think things over. "The Eunuch was baptized on his statement of faith in Christ. He wanted to be right with God. I was baptized on my faith in Christ. There was nothing at all wrong with my baptism." And so he went back to being an elder again.

A much older man visited from another congregation. He went to one of the other elders and tried to convince him that the qualifications were so strict that no one could possibly be an elder (except this man of course). The elder finally became so convinced of how unworthy he was that he resigned. And then he left the church altogether. When Uncle John tried to reason with him, he would not talk about it at all.

Another contentious young man said: "The King James translators were all crooks and scoundrels." "NO!" said Uncle John. "That can't be! They were surely Christians since they handled aright the word of God." One of the young people then said: "So the borders of the kingdom extend farther out than we thought. Wasn't that what Campbell said?"

Some time later an evangelist from another State came to hold a Gospel Meeting for the church. He preached on Wednesday night that "The church must grow from the inside out." He said that love was even more important than faith and hope, and he quoted Paul to prove it (1Cor. 13:13). That was just too much for Uncle John. "Why the church has gone all these years without love. That’s just these change-agents trying to get their two cents in." [The church really hadn't gone without love, of course.]

Someone reminded him of what Jesus said about the greatest commandment is to LOVE GOD, and the second greatest is to LOVE NEIGHBOR. "Jesus taught about God’s love for us in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. He taught about loving neighbor in the Good Samaritan. And Jesus taught that love is the IDENTIFIER of a true disciple (John 13:34-35)."

But Uncle John remembered a friend who said almost everything in the Bible is negative! This friend could read the divorce issue into every verse of the Bible. He would ask this friend what to do about the "love" issue. "Forget this love thing," he said. "They are making it too easy. Just concentrate on DUTY. The righteous are SCARCELY saved." But of course Jesus Himself said that CHRISTIAN LOVE was the IDENTIFIER BY WHICH ALL WOULD KNOW HIS DISCIPLES (John 13:34-35). John spoke of the eternal hope we have in Jesus (1 John 3:1-3; 4:2-4,13,17-18). Peter spoke of "joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:7-9).

In contrast, Campbell said he tried to approach the Bible every morning as if he had never seen it before. He meant that he tried to read the Bible without any preconceived ideas and biases. When we read a newspaper, we unconsciously use the laws of language and communication to understand what we read. Perhaps it would help to read the Bible as if it were a newspaper, or a letter from God. Paul warned of some who "strive about words to no profit" (2 Timothy 2:14; 1Timothy 6:4). David Lipscomb wrote: "They had such a morbid fondness for questionings and disputings over untaught questions and words that it amounted to a disease. These men deal with subtle, useless and unpractical questions, which have no bearing on ordinary life, and only tend to stir up strife and useless discussions, and make men discontented and rebellious."

Let us never forget what Paul wrote in 2 Cor. 5:18-19. "Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ. and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." NKJV

F.L.Rowe wrote in his book: "The History of Reformatory Movements:" "Forgiveness takes place in the mind of God, and not in the heart of the sinner." Compare Hebrews 8:7-13. "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." (NKJV)

Brinsmead wrote: "It makes a lot of difference whether we think the body is a prison (of the soul) or a temple of the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. 6:19."

The New Testament church had every problem we have today. "The Church (at Corinth), torn with divisions, plagued by sex scandals, involved with lawsuits, weakened by corruption of the worship and the neglect of the poor, was one of Paul’s greatest evangelistic successes. The corrupt urban society of Corinth was a fertile ground for Paul’s preaching. His success in the pagan and hedonistic culture had a profound impact on the development of Christianity throughout the ages. Paul was clearly inspired by the Holy Spirit when faced with the daunting task of changing the Corinthians into the very body of Christ. The two letters of Paul to the Corinthians deal with issues that have been relevant throughout history and will continue to inspire the Church till the end of time. In these letters, Paul deals with tawdry sex scandals taking place within the Christian community and also gives one of the loftiest descriptions of true Christian love ever given."

And this about the Book of Revelation. "Allow God to charge the horses across the canvas of your mind and grant you the sweep of these things. John sees horses and storms and seas and armies; blood and fire and earthquakes; demons and angels and THE GLORY OF GOD! He was swept along by another vision, another revelation. BUT THE END IS NOT YET!"

"To love people, you must really see them, see the horror - but see them as God sees them. John is saying: "I saw humanity in all of its ragged horror. I saw the ocean of wounded, rebellious sons and daughters of Adam. I saw them enslaved by drugs and alcohol, riddled with Aids, aborting babies out of fear and sin, their marriages in turmoil. Nation rises against nation."
"God allows upheaval and ferment and change in this sea of humanity. Yet there is a KINGDOM that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:25-29). Keep this in mind. God is gathering a PEOPLE out of this sea of peoples, multitudes, nations, tongues. John sees THE LAMB standing on Mount Zion. Out of this same sea rises His church! The Bride of Jesus - His church - safe and secure under His Wings, outfitted with the armor of God, swords, helmets. We see them bloody but unbowed, wounded yet not defeated. In submission to God by His Holy Spirit this sea of humanity becomes the church - the Community of Jesus! VICTORY ALREADY BELONGS TO CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH!!!"

Jesus said: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Matt 5:16 As Paul told Timothy, "Preach the word."