Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Thursday, June 12, 2008 4:40:13 PM
“Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Forbid him not...” [Luke 9:49-50]
The Gospel of Christ not only differs from all other systems of religion in the superior excellence of the truths it reveals, but also in the directions it gives for the propagation of its doctrines. Other systems seek to advance themselves by invoking the aid of the secular power, and by forcing men, against their convictions, to accept a theory repugnant to their views.
They have thus succeeded in thronging their temples with hypocritical worshippers, bound to their altars through fear and slavish dread. They pride themselves in that members of their church are the true worshippers of God. They have a security based on a false authority or a hope based on false promises, not realizing that they are on the broad way that leads to destruction.
These systems, in order to maintain themselves, find it necessary to condemn all who differ from them, either in their articles of belief or mode of worship. But the Gospel of Christ, though it is the infallible truth of God, expressly prohibits a resort to any such measures for its advancement. It not only teaches its adherents to utterly abandon the use of carnal weapons for its propagation, but it also charges them not to condemn those who differ, based on the teaching of the apostle who expounds Christ’s doctrine of sovereignty…
‘For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?’ [1 Corinthians 4:7 KJ]
Where is the pride and boasting and arrogance? The spirit of enforcement of one man’s views over another is put to death and buried here. Men must be taught of God or they will remain in darkness, regardless of our best efforts.
The teaching of the Savior has been violated, however, even by his professed followers. In the name of the meek and lowly Jesus, men have gone forth with oppression and persecution to advance their own opinions and crush out the liberty of thought and those rights of conscience given to man by His Maker.
Even the Pilgrim Fathers of colonial American, who fled Europe and its religious persecutions under the name of conformity, had to be taught this lesson. From whom did they learn religious liberty and the rights of conscience? Who was it that gave us the doctrine of religious freedom expressed in the First Amendment?
[Credits to John Quincy Adams work on Baptists: Thorough Reformers 1876]