IS RESTORATION VALID?

My good friend and brother, Ralph Graham, who ministers to the Collingswood Church of Christ in New Jersey, has written in his Witness a provocative article entitled Can We Believe in the Restoration Movement? It would be well to republish the entire article here, bur I will only quote those portions that especially concern this editorial. Brother Graham has serious misgivings as to the validity of the Restoration Movement. I have written to him explaining my intention to examine his criticisms of the Restoration concept, and of course inviting him to say more on this subject in a future issue of this journal, if he wishes.

The “Restoration Movement” is a term used by certain members of Churches of Christ to describe the rationale for their ecclesiastical existence. Its object is the unity of all believers in Christ through the “restoration” of primitive Christianity. It proposes to “restore” the ancient order of things, the apostolic church, the original faith and practice of the inspired apostles of Jesus Christ.

It assumes there has been a falling a way from “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” It was a movement that came after and which proposed to perfect what was lacking in the Reformation. Its method was to “leap” back to the first century and take up with the original apostolic pattern before departures were made.

It seeks to ignore and remain unmodified by the 1800 years of church history that intervened. The movement assumed that the original church went into apostasy and “died out,” or went into the wilderness of the dark ages beyond observation, or continued in a distorted form in groups that did not surrender essential marks of the apostolic order. It would indeed be a miracle if anyone or any group could ever dissociate from a historical context or environment in such a way as to eliminate every mark of such influence.

It is refreshing to see a Church of Christ minister re-examining the idea of Restoration. This takes courage, for surely a man will be branded a liberal or a modernist or unsound or something whenever he questions the brotherhood’s thinking, or its un-thinking as the case may be. I welcome this opportunity of thinking along with brother Graham as to what the Restoration Movement should mean. And he knows that I do so with fervent love for him and with a keen concern for truth.

My first criticism is that he seems to view Restoration from too narrow a perspective. The Restoration Movement embraces far more than what we call the “Church of Christ,” for indeed all reformatory efforts since the apostles have in essence been restoration movements. There is probably little, if my, difference between reformation and restoration.

Church of Christ folk are guilty of me great fallacy in this regard: they confuse the Restoration Movement with the church itself. It must be true that Christ’s congregation has always been among men since Pentecost. The pioneers of the Restoration Movement had no such idea as restoring the church, for the church had existed all long. They believed that the Lord’s church was divided, scattered, and torn by schism. They called themselves Reformers, for they accepted the task of cleansing the church of its impurities.

This places the Restoration Movement within the church at large, seeking to correct its deficiencies and to restore its essential oneness, thus ridding it of the schismatic elements that rob it of its pristine beauty. It falsifies the Movement to equate it with the “Church of Christ,” which is simply one small part of Christendom. Our people are wrong, as brother Graham points out, when they suppose that the true church went into some wilderness or died out, and then came to life again as the “Church of Christ.” Graham is also right in his criticism that we ignore 1800 years of church history and dissociate ourselves from all that has happened since Pentecost. Once we realize that “the gates of death” have not prevailed against the church, and that it has existed through the ages, we avoid this fallacy.

A true Restoration will not and cannot ignore history. The reformed church will consider itself a part of the past. Truth is learned slowly and comes to be practiced even more slowly. Each generation has made its contribution to the discovery of truth. Our own contributions are determined in part by maintaining a continuity with the past. While the past may be only prologue in comparison to what the future may hold for us, prologue is nonetheless an important part of the story.

Yes, brother Graham, our Church of Christ brotherhood has largely dissociated itself both from history and the Christian world of today. It hardly knows there is such a thing as an ecumenical movement. It must even re-baptize those that have been members of the great immersionist churches produced by history. By and large our people are sectarian, self-righteous, and anti-intellectual in that we refuse to listen either to history or to reason.

But back to Ralph Graham’s criticisms:

The aims of “Restoration” are primarily external and therefore do not resolve religious problems because they miss the heart of man. The “Restoration plea” is to restore the authority of the Bible, the New Testament pattern of the church in name, organization (congregational autonomy), worship (a capella congregational music), ordinances (immersion for remission of sins, communion every Lord’s Day), a scriptural or “orthodox” vocabulary, and conformity of faith and practice.

The use of such external emphases reflected an intention to identify the church of Jesus Christ with external marks rather than by the Presence of the Spirit of Christ. Man is not transformed or nourished by outward marks, but by a personal encounter and communion with God in Christ . . .

Such a program as the “Restoration Movement” assumes the behavioral principle that changing external habits transform personality. But the historical experience of legalism, formalism, ecclesiasticism, and conformity disputes this thesis. Such things leave man’s heart untouched, unchanged, unhealed, and unredeemed.

The pioneers of our Movement would disclaim the charge that the emphasis of Restoration is external to the neglect of the inner man. The previous number of this journal described the view of Robert Richardson that the Spirit-filled life is the chief end of Christianity. Campbell also stressed personal Christian morality as a necessary ingredient to a true reformation. In his “Synopsis of Reform” (Mill. Harb. 8, p. 530) he lists “Personal and Family Reformation” as an imperative of Restoration: “As personal intelligence, purity, and happiness is the end of all public or private, theoretic or practical reformation, the present standard of personal knowledge, faith, piety, and morality being too low, must be greatly elevated.” He complains that “the church is filled with an ignorant, faithless, carnal, and immoral class of professors . . . The Scriptures are not studied, read, conversed upon, laid up in the heart, and consequently not drawn out into the life of a large majority of professors.”

In another context (Mill-Harb. 7, p. 101) Campbell writes to his Baptist friend, Mr. Broaddus, what he means by “the essential attributes of the proposed reformation.” After mentioning such externals as more public reading of the Bible, family devotions, weekly observance of Lord’s Supper, he says:

4. A more Christian morality in keeping covenants, fulfilling promises, in doing justly to all men, in loving mercy, in visiting and relieving the poor, the afflicted, and in being always ready for every good word and work.

5. More gravity, temperance, and moderation, even in the use of things lawful; more self-denial, and strict self-government on the part of all who profess to follow the New Testament.

6. More piety and devotion — more prayer and praise — more private meditation and communion with God than appear to obtain amongst the great mass of those called Christians.

In his series on “Reformation” (Mill. Harb. 6, p. 83 in particular) Campbell states that “a reformer is one who rises early in the morning, calls upon the name of the Lord, speaks evil of no man, backbites not his neighbor, nor easily takes up an evil report against him, minds his own business all the day, engages in all works of benevolence and mercy to which he can aspire; he is industrious, frugal, lives within his income, has generally something to give to him that is in distress, honest to a scruple, and honorable in all things.”

This kind of teaching docs not neglect the heart. Such language from Campbell can be produced a hundredfold more than what is given here. Barton Stone, Moses Lard, and Walter Scott stressed personal piety just as much as Campbell. In fact it was their contention that a restoration of the ordinances of God would serve the one grand end of personal consecration.

If brother Graham means that the Restoration Movement of our day has degenerated to the level of the materialism and secularism that characterizes the culture in which it moves, then we must sadly admit that his charge is well grounded. The churches of America, including our own Restoration congregations, have succumbed to the religion of “the American way of life,” which is more concerned with things than with spirit. But brother Graham fails to make it clear that “the aims of Restoration” were originally spiritual and internal as well as external and objective.

Our brother mistakes the place and value of external ordinances in the spiritual order. This is apparent when he further states:

Is there a biblical doctrine of restoration? Yes, there is. But it is not the restoration of institutions, ordinances, authorities, systems, or externals. It is the restoration of man to the image of God. For man in his fallen state is dead in sins, sick, weak, ignorant, perverse, irrational, estranged, alienated, faithless, without understanding, and sinful. He is in need of the restoration which the Bible describes as regeneration, renewal, reconciliation, cleansing, sanctification, and reclamation.

This is what logicians call the fallacy of either-or. It may well be that both external ordinances and the inner spirit are a part of the Restoration principle. The truth is that whenever the Restoration concept appears in the Bible it is vitally concerned with ordinances. Nehemiah, Ezra, Zerubbabel, Josiah, and Ezekiel were all concerned with the restoration of externals — institutions and ordinances.

However we may choose to slice the pie, the truth remains that the New Testament church expressed its inner devotion to its Redeemer through ordinances of God. Baptism is an external. The Lord’s Supper is an external. Even prayer and singing are externals, as well as giving and reading the Bible. The truth discovered by Campbell that became the touchstone of the Restoration Movement was that God has ordained two great institutions through which man enjoys fellowship with God: the institution of immersion which brings the believer into covenant relationship with God, and the Lord’s Supper, which is the institution through which man continues to enjoy the fellowship of God through Christ.

If we deny that institutions are a vital part of Restoration, we find ourselves denying the Bible itself. If the Lord commanded baptism, then it is important to know what he meant by baptism, which makes immersion an “external” of great importance. Indeed, if we love the Christ and seek to conform our lives to his image through the Spirit, we will be eager to express our devotion to him in those ways most pleasing to him. In brother Graham’s effort to emphasize the spiritual life he has thrown out the baby with the bath in that he discounts the importance to Restoration of the very ordinances through which man has access to God.

Brother Graham concludes his interesting essay with a quotation from Campbell to the effect that the purpose of Restoration is “the regeneration of the ENTIRE man” and “the restoration of man to the society of God in the heavens . . . Christianity having for is object, first and last, the improvements and sanctification of the LIFE OF MAN, with a special reference to the glories and honors which shall be revealed to him as his own hereafter.”

But do these great truths in any wise conflict with a concern for ordinances and institutions — the “externals” of the Christian faith? Must it be either-or? Can I not believe that the grand aim of Christianity is to fill my soul with the love of God and the indwelling Holy Spirit so that I might enjoy heavenly blessings with my Saviour forever, and at the same time be concerned about the external features of such ordinances as baptism and the Lord’s Supper? The same Alexander Campbell that taught that a true reformation must reach the heart of man also insisted upon “the saying of the Amen” in the assembly of saints. It just may be that there is a valid relationship between saying the Amen, or bowing the knees and a consecrated heart.

In conclusion I must acknowledge that it is proper to allow a man a certain amount of latitude for overstating his position. A man with a message that burns within him often says more than he intends to, and so he must be given some allowance for exaggeration. If brother Graham is warning us against the sin of the Pharisees, who stressed externals so much that they starved the heart, then I could not agree more. But we must both remember that the Lord explained to the Pharisees: “the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith, you ought to have done, without neglecting the others (externals).”

But if he means that ordinances as such are of no concern to the Restoration Movement, and this is what he says, then I beg that he reconsider. I cannot believe that he is saying what he means when he urges that: “The Restoration Movement as a purpose to restore Biblical authority, the Lordship of Christ, Christianity, or the church, we must repudiate utterly. Such schemes are unscriptural, irrational, and are motivated by misconceptions of Christian responsibility, faith, and purposes.” He complains that “personages, institutions, ordinances, doctrines and authorities have overshadowed the glory of Jesus Christ.”

My dear brother, how can Christ be glorified more than through the doctrines and institutions that he himself ordained? Look at the band of humble saints sincerely partaking of bread and wine in memory of their Lord. How can such an ordinance “overshadow the glory of Jesus Christ?”

If the authority of the Bible is not recognized, then it should be the aim of Restoration to restore that recognition. The same with the Lordship of Christ. I am at a loss to see how an emphasis upon the authority of the Scriptures and the Lordship of Christ could in any wise conflict with the mission of restoring man to the image of God. They rather enhance that mission.

Maybe I have not understood brother Graham. Even so I believe this kind of exchange of ideas is good for us, and we invite him to join us in a further clarification as to the meaning of the Restoration Movement.

Let me add this thought: to honor the institutions (ordinances) of God is one thing, while institutionalism is something else; to obey the “externals” commanded of God is one thing, while externalism is something else; to love and honor the Bible as the word of God and as authoritative is one thing, while a Bibliolatry is something else.
 

 

The great tragedy of life is not merely economic want, but spiritual and intellectual poverty.

I believe that ignorance in our time is perhaps the worst form of immorality. Morality demands constant self-examination.

The goal of education is not the knowledge of history, or geography, or algebra, or geometry, but an understanding of life in all its complexities and dimensions.

(Quotes from Frederick Mayer, Philosophy of Education for Our Time.)