Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 13
Arpil 26, 1962
NUMBER 50, PAGE 5,13c

The Faith Of Our Fathers

Jesse M. Kelley

Investigation And Controversy David Lipscomb (Gospel Advocate, October 27, 1898)

Unless the contrast between truth and error is kept up, truth itself will lose its brightness, its efficacy, and its sanctifying influence over its devotees. Men will cease to regard it as of value, if error is not kept in contrast with it. Heaven would lose its charm if there were no hell. There can be no sense of salvation, if there were no ruins from which we are to be saved. We may not be able to see how it is, but I do not doubt that it is a provision of infinite wisdom that error and evil are in the world. If so, there must be investigation and controversy, that the good be discerned and be separated from the evil. The contest between the two began in Eden. The serpent embodied the error and the evil; God, the truth. In all ages, in every generation from that to this, good and evil have been kept by God present before man, that he might see the difference and learn the right and avoid the wrong. It is just as important he should see and avoid the evil as that he see and follow the good. Men need to keep these things in remembrance lest they let the truth slip and fall from their steadfastness.

God told Jeremiah he sent him "to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant." The one was as essential as the other. The building and planting could not be done, save as the rooting out and the pulling down were done. The buildings of God and those of the Evil One cannot exist together. To build the one, the other must be rooted out. The mission of God's kingdom is to break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms of earthly origin and to stand forever. "It must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!" Paul admonishes: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God with Idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing' and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

Unceasing vigilance is needed to separate truth from error, that we may follow truth and avoid error. We need this for our own safety; others need help that they may see the right and avoid the wrong. The Christian life is a warfare. "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the father; when he shall have put down all rule and authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (1 Cor. 15:24-26) This work is done through his disciples, who are members of his spiritual body, the church of Jesus Christ. To cease discussion is to compromise and make peace with error, and is to make no difference between good and evil. Such a condition brings about a state of indifference and lukewarmness that is offensive to God and ruinous to the professed Christian and the sinner. Discussions must go on, if we be children of God. Unless truth is separated from error it cannot sanctify, it cannot save. When investigation and discussion cease, then truth rows dim and is lost sight of.

But discussion should able to elicit and bring out truth. Every man should investigate and discuss, to learn truth himself and to teach it to others, because truth is the seed of all good; error, of all evil. When a man holds error, it will bring evil to him and to those under his influence. His greatest aim should be to free himself from error and to gain truth. Discussion with this in view cannot be otherwise than helpful to all who engage in it and to all who are influenced by it. Jesus Christ and all the inspired prophets and apostles encouraged this character and kind of discussion and controversy.

The apostle Jude says: "It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." Fleshly ease pleads for a compromise of truth, for the cessation of the warfare against error; but the Spirit of God exhorts, "Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" by Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. There has never been a time when that faith was not perverted by the opposition, or, worse still, by the intermingling of error into the truths embodied in and growing out of the faith. There has never been a time when it was not necessary to earnestly contend for the faith. Let us not lay our armor by before the warfare is over. But truth must be contended for in the proper spirit. This does not mean error should not be thoroughly exposed and its evil influences and hideous and hurtful results shown; but we should do it in a spirit of love for God and for man. Much contention in the religious world is not for truth, but for personal and partisan ends. We start out for truth, but in the contest our personal and partisan feelings are enlisted, and we lose sight of truth for personal victory; or we so magnify our self-importance that we conclude we are so essential to truth that for us to fail is for truth to fail. Men seeking the truth never misrepresent or falsify each other's position; they are always glad to see how near all others come to the truth; they never represent others as further from the truth than they are, but seek to remove the difficulties, that all may come to the truth.