The Development of the System

The Development of the System

“I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.” This was the Lord’s remonstrance against the church at Ephesus, and it is indicative of the general trend of things at the close of the times of apostolic testimony. Clerisy did not attain to its full organization till the fourth century, but its growth, fostered by causes already referred to, was likewise considerably due to the spirit of indifference to the truth which characterized the churches generally after the times of the apostles. The existence of that state of things is clear not only in the Lord’s protest to the Ephesian church but in the messages to most of the churches in Asia. Ministerialism was able to mature easily amidst a decline from the faith, a failure to give ear to what the Spirit said to the churches. Instead of spiritual progress there was a declension from the very first.

They were thus ready to listen to the specious appeals both of the Judaizers and of those prominent teachers, or “Fathers,” as they were later called, the successors of the apostles, who supported and fostered, by tongue and pen, the clerical organization. Jewish teachers boldly advocated that Christianity was simply an outgrowth from Judaism, whereas in point of fact it was a complete substitute for it, as distinct as the new creation from the old. In the entire disregard of the teaching of the apostles, and consequent upon the unscriptural distinction between bishops and elders, an official priestly order arose, and priestly offices were multiplied. How the spirit of clericalism was fostered is exhibited, for instance, in the epistles of Ignatius, who in earlier years had been under the instruction of the apostle John. Writing in a.d. 109 to the church at Ephesus he says, “We ought to look upon the bishop even as we do upon the Lord Himself.” In his epistle to the church at Tralles (also in Asia) he says, “Whereas ye are subject to your bishop as to Jesus Christ, ye appear to me to live, not after the manner of men but according to Jesus Christ.” In his epistle to the Magnesians he says, “I exhort you that ye study to do all things in a divine concord; your bishops presiding in the place of God; your presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles,” and then to the church in Philadelphia, “Give diligence to be established in the doctrine of our Lord and the apostles, together with your most worthy bishop, and the well-woven spiritual crown of your presbytery.”

Such extravagant utterances, notwithstanding the early teaching which Ignatius received, afford no ground for the supposition that they represented what the apostle taught, for they are entirely contrary to the teaching of the New Testament. They serve only to show how rapidly the churches departed from apostolic instructions and principles. The rapidity is not surprising after what is recorded in chapters two and three of the Apocalypse. It is noteworthy that the apostles nowhere commended the people of God to their successors; rather they invariably gave warning concerning such, and commended the saints to God and the Word of His grace.

How gross, too, was the failure to recognize the prerogatives of the Spirit of God! According to apostolic teaching “there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit”; “to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal. For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom; and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit.” All gifts are wrought by “the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally even as the Spirit wills” (1 Cor. 12:4–11). Further, oral ministry in the church, instead of being confined on any given occasion to one individual, was open for the leading of the Spirit of God, so that it might be exercised by one and another of those to whom He had imparted spiritual gifts for the edification of the church (1 Cor. 14:29–33). So in the epistle to the Ephesians, “unto each one of us was the grace given, according to the measure of the gift of Christ,” who gave “some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ.” This exercise of the variety of gifts in the Church, instead of being a temporary arrangement for apostolic times, was to continue “till we all [that is, the whole Church, the body of Christ] attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:7–13).

What room could there be in a clerical system, molded according to the traditions and ambitions of men, for the recognition of, and obedience to, this teaching? Clericalism could only be counteractive to such unity. Unity was to be maintained, not framed. Ecclesiastical despotism has sought to enforce it, and, whatever measure of success such methods have outwardly achieved, they have sooner or later tended toward disintegration, and must meet with divine disapproval and judgment. The remedy for human failure and for the abuse of divine principles is not the substitution of methods adopted by human devisings, or of means employed to suit human ideas of what is advisable. Departure from the Word of God calls for a return to it. Failure calls for humiliation, confession and repentance. The Head of the Church who gave His instructions to His apostles, and through their instrumentality left them on record for us in the New Testament Scriptures, gave therein a body of truth and principles adapted to every age, generation and condition. The pattern is complete, and exhibits the divine wisdom in every part. Human tampering has only marred it in its working.

One of the motives entertained by Ignatius in his injunctions to the churches was the prevention of division, but the end does not justify the means. Nothing can successfully replace the instructions of the Word of God. Clericalism is Judaism adapted by human device to a faith from which it is essentially different, and to which it is radically opposed. The era of the Christian faith is the era of a priesthood, not selective as under the Mosaic economy, but coextensive with membership of the Church; an era to be characterized by the exercise of the Holy Spirit’s power in developing gifts in the churches according to His own will. To interfere with this was presumptuous audacity. It paved the way for that papal travesty of the divine pattern which has stamped its impress upon Christendom.

The context of the command “Quench not the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19) shows that it was directed against prevention or obstruction, on the part of any in the church, of the Holy Spirit’s power and work in other members. The precepts contained in the passage in that epistle relate to the responsibilities of the believers on the occasions when they were assembled as a church. “The peace, order, and edification of the saints were evidence of the ministry of the Spirit among them (1 Cor. 14:26, 32, 33, 40), but if, through ignorance of His ways, or through failure to recognize, or refusal to submit to, them, or through impatience with the ignorance or self-will of others, the Spirit were quenched, these happy results would be absent. For there was always the danger that the impulses of the flesh might usurp the place of the energy of the Spirit in the assembly, and the endeavor to restrain this evil by natural means would have the effect of hindering His ministry also. Apparently, then, this injunction was intended to warn believers against the substitution of a mechanical order for the restraints of the Spirit.” *

How wide is the divergence from the instructions given by the Lord and His apostles, when, instead of the exercise of spiritual gifts in the acknowledgment of the Lordship of Christ and under the control of the Spirit of God, the authority for their appointment is relegated to others, whether king, or prelate, or people!

The remedy attempted by Ignatius and his successors did not effect a cure. False teachings abounded, heresies and divisions increased, and the carnal instrument of clericalism became only more carnal in its activities. Clericalism was like the new cart made for the ark, when King David would fain bring it to its appointed place, not according to the divine ordinance for its conveyance, but after the manner of the Philistines (1 Chr. 13). As that human device met with the disfavor of God, so must this. The day of retribution is foretold in Scripture. Let the true believer flee out of Babylon.

The humanly arranged priestly order in the churches degenerated grossly in the second and third centuries. Toward the end of the second century there are complaints of the corruption of the bishops. Their purity of motive was not fostered by the system that came into vogue, whereby officiating ministers not only received stipends but were forbidden to engage in any occupation by way of earning their living. It became their aim also to increase the membership of their congregations, without having regard to whether those who entered into church fellowship were born of God. The thoroughly unscriptural methods adopted by this audacious scheming opened the way, as we shall see, for the influence of heathen religions.

 

 
* Notes on the Epistles to the Thessalonians, by Hogg and Vine.