Apostolic Christianity

(A)

Over the years, apostolic christianity has been compromised in many ways such that what we have today may actually be riddled with many distorted doctrines, practices, and a form of Christianity which may not be loyal to the original one.

Perhaps, it may be helpful to highlight some of the major areas that have been compromised so that believers today may evaluate how far we have gone wrong in our belief and practice.

The value of the work of the church fathers: The doctrines of the Trinity and incarnation; the doctrine of the Atonement and the expounding of Justification by faith; the work of the Holy Spirit; the inerrancy of the Scriptures – all these have been established in the long history of the Church in the ‘battle’ to establish the contents and depths of the revelation which God once for all delivered to the saints and deposited in the Scriptures.

However, society has grown more complex; the church now has to see further into the political and social implications of the gospel than it did at the beginning. But as she does so, the whole process of growth in understanding, which still goes on, must be controlled and judged by that very Word of God which she seeks to elucidate, so as to ensure that she serves simply to display, and not in any way to alter, the distinctive doctrines of original Christianity.

So as Christians, including those in leadership, make remarks and conclusions in political and social arena, and seek to pass them on, must be prayerful and careful not to, in their enthusiasm, communicate the views that distort the teachings of the early church fathers, and that of the Apostles, and the Lord Jesus, in particular.

(B)

We have noted that the whole process of growth in understanding as Christians must be controlled and judged by the very Word of God. To move toward applying Scripture wisely is to grasp the true wavelength and inner unity of the moral law. We tend to think of God’s law as a series of separate commands and because, as humans, we concentrate on one thing at a time, we end up pursuing one virtue or practicing one command at the expense of others.

But the truth is not only that all our doings should express love to God and neighbour, as Jesus taught, but also that Jesus Himself, the embodiment of all the virtues, must be our model, for He is God’s law incarnate. Law-keeping is in truth imitation of Christ and vice versa – the two are one.

The law is not telling us simply to do this or that, but rather to aim at being a certain type of person who behaves in a certain way. In other words, all the commands of God call for Christlike character – the blend of virtues that are to be expressed in Christlike behaviour. We need to ask Him to enable us to show these same qualities as we deal with others on His behalf.

Moral casualness and indifference as to whether or not we please God is in itself supremely evil. No expression of creativity, heroism, or nice-guy behaviour can cancel God’s displeasure at being disregarded in this way.

God searches our hearts as well as weighing our actions. Hence guilt of sin extends to deficiencies in our motives and our purposes, as well as in our performances; that is, God observes and assesses our reasons for action as thoroughly as He does the actions themselves – it is what goes on in our hearts that we are most truly known to Him.

If the whole process of understanding and outworking of the Christian life is to be controlled and judged by the Word of God, then it goes without saying that ignorance of God’s Word would mean that the process would be curtailed and impeded; and ignorance is no excuse as we are exhorted to study the Word of God so as to be approved as good servants of the Lord God.

Before we can practice and teach the Word, we have to know what it says – so we must study it. But before we teach the Word to others, we need to practice it – we must practice what we teach and preach.

God did not reveal the Bible merely to satisfy our curiosity about intellectual questions. He reveals Himself and His ways in order to transform how we live. Pitting doctrines against devotion is a false dichotomy because God intends them to go together.

When people interpret the Bible, even though they may have the best motives in the world, they can still read their ideas into the Bible rather than draw out what the author originally intended. That is where wrong doctrines evolve and how human ideas conceived by proud individuals, engineered and motivated by the evil one, become rooted and grounded in some churches and caused many believers to go astray.

(C)

Apostolic Christianity’s view of man: Every human individual has infinite worth, being made by God for nobility and glory; but every human individual is currently twisted out of moral shape in a way that only God can cure and correct. Each of us by nature is God’s image-bearer, but is also fallen and lives under the power of sin, and now needs grace. Sin, the anti-God allergy of the soul, is a sickness of the spirit, and the tragic sense of life, the inner tensions and contradictions, plus our sense of unrealism, egoism, and our indisposition to love God and our neighbour, are all the symptoms and manifestations of our disorder.

Each of us is radically bad, though providentially kept from expressing our badness fully. It is beyond us to straighten and integrate the human character – man needs God for that.

And God, in His grace, love, and mercy, did respond – He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, to become man, the God-man, that whosoever believes in Him (in faith and repentance) should not perish eternally but have everlasting life in God. Jesus took the wrath of God for sin on our behalf (He drank the cup of wrath), and He took our place as a substitute on the cross to die for us, so that we might be forgiven justly, be freed from the works of the evil one, be released from the guilt and power of sin, and be raised with Him to share His Sonship as His siblings, and His glory in His kingdom, now and forevermore (no longer in the presence of sin but reigning with Him in the new heaven and new earth).

Jesus is now ascended, seated at the right hand of the heavenly Father, above all authorities, interceding for us, praying for us, and undertaking for us in our pilgrim’s life on earth. He and the Father had sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in all believers and in the church, to be our teacher, guide, comforter, enabler, and as the One who works from within us to transform us into the image of the Son.

But why is it that we know so little of the power of the Spirit in our churches today? To lack the Spirit’s powerful working in a church’s life is therefore by biblical standards unnatural, just as heresy is, and this unnatural state of affairs can be accounted for only in terms of human failure.

We may quench, and have quenched on many occasions, the Spirit by resisting or undervaluing His work, and by declining to yield to His influence (Acts 7:51; Hebrews 10:29). The image is of putting out a fire by pouring water on it. In 1 Thessalonians t5:19, the words “do not quench the Spirit” are flanked on the one hand, by exhortations to follow the good, and to rejoice, pray, and give thanks in all things, and on the other hand, by warnings against disregard for ‘the messages of God, however and whomsoever declared’), by failure to discriminate, and by evil involvement.

When the Spirit has been quenched, it is beyond man’s power to undo the damage he had done; he can only cry to God in repentance to revive His work. This is, in fact, the general state of the churches today.

(D) Repentance and ‘Continuous Conversion’

We noted that when the Holy Spirit has been quenched, it is beyond man’s power to undo the damage – he can only cry to God in repentance to revive His work. And this brings us to the truth that growth in holiness cannot continue when repenting from the heart has stopped – this applies equally to individual Christians and the church.

Following on from “the hour I first believed”, conversion must now become a lifelong process until we ‘finish our race’ and meet the Lord. This is an essential truth taught, and to be upheld in Apostolic Christianity (original Christianity). Our knowledge of God and ourselves grows (and the two grow together), so our conversion needs to be repeated and extended constantly – sometimes referred to by some as “the perseverance of the saints”.

It is helpful to refer to John Calvin, in his ‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’, who set forth a concept of conversion as the practice of lifelong active repentance, the fruit of faith, springing from a renewed heart. He wrote:

“The whole of conversion to God is understood under the term “repentance”….The Hebrew word for ‘repentance’ is derived from conversion or return, the Greek word from mind and purpose…and the thing itself fits each derivation, for the essence of it is that departing from ourselves we turn to God, and putting off our former mind we put on a new one. So I think repentance may well be defined as a true conversion of our life to God, issuing from pure and heartfelt fear of Him, and consisting in the mortification of our flesh and old man and the vivification of the Spirit”.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way:
“You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).
Someone commented on this in a helpful way: ‘It is like taking off the old clothes and putting on the new – and this is done continually whenever the ‘new clothes’ become tainted and need to be removed – it is a continuous process, not a one time event.

The Apostle Peter’s life has always been an encouragement to me, for like him, I have failed the Lord again and again throughout my Christian life. But what encourages me most are his exhortations at the end of his life when he wrote two letters to the churches, 1 Peter and 2 Peter.

“Be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:8-10).

In this passage, we are reminded of spiritual warfare and the fact that we have a formidable enemy – hence the need to be vigilant and to be dependent on God. What Peter shared is that suffering is to be expected, and it is not peculiar to you or me – it is in fact experienced by all true believers throughout the world. Therefore, do not fret and complain as to why “such and such problems are happening to me, and why others seem to get scot-free”. If you are not suffering at all, perhaps your conversion is not real and the devil is glad to leave you alone and to concentrate on those who present a ‘threat’ to him. Peter went on to tell us that God Himself, who called us, would restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish us as we continue in our continuous conversion – and not to forget that our ‘fellowship of suffering’ with all the genuine brethren will only be for a short while (when compared to eternity).

It is interesting to note that stability and steadiness are prominently enforced in the writings of Peter – the one who denied the Lord and failed Him on many occasions.
In 2 Peter 3:16-18, the Apostle wrote:
“You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen”.

Peter is telling us not to lose our stability in Christ, especially when various ones offer many other options (that are errors and not of the Lord God), and when we feel difficult and discouraged. But instead, we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ – we are to continue in repentance and continuous conversion – it is a lifelong process, no matter what may come, and no matter what situations may look like – for God is faithful, good, and unchanging, and He is perfectly able, powerful enough, gracious and loving to finish what He has started in our lives and in the life of the church. Amen.