“THE CRUX OF THE MATTER” – III

          I have never read a book put out by our brethren that was so full of error as The Crux of the Matter.  It is shot full of false doctrine, and it would take a volume 500 pages long to answer the errors.  This Volume One of Abilene Christian University and ACU Press’s “Heart of the Restoration Series” is a mixture of Bill Love’s The Core Gospel, Leonard Allen and Richard T. Hughes’ Discovering Our Roots: The Ancestry of Churches of Christ, Rubel Shelly and Randall J. Harris’ The Second Incarnation, Lynn Anderson’s Navigating the Winds of Change, and Richard Hughes, Reviving The Ancient Faith.  It is another sign of the departure from the faith of some among us.  It is a Calvinistic, ecumenical diatribe against the Lord’s church and faithful preachers of the past and present.  Its language is Ashdodic.  Like ACU, it is rotten.

          Peter commanded, “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4:11).  This verse supports the Restoration Plea expressed by Thomas Campbell in 1809:  “Where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent.”

          The ACU professors and authors of the above work deny that the silence of the Scripture is prohibitive. They believe this principle is flawed  because they say it “assumes a patternistic approach to Scripture as a rulebook.”(pp. 28, 183).  Thus, they reject the New Testament as our pattern, though they claim to “want to do Bible things in Bible ways” (p.26).  But why do they care about doing things in Bible ways if it is not a pattern?  They reject the Bible as a rulebook, though Paul exhorted the brethren at Philippi, “Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing” (Phil. 3:16). The word “law” means a rule of action.  The New Testament is our law, or rule of action today (Roms. 8:2; 1 Cor. 9:21; Gal. 6:2; James 1:25).   

          The silence of the Scripture is prohibitive, contrary to the teaching of the ACU professors.  Let us teach and practice nothing unless the Bible authorizes it.  God told Noah to make an ark of gopher wood (Gen. 6:14).  God’s silence on the use of any other kind of wood prohibited Noah’s using any other kind of wood.  God authorized the Passover lamb to be without blemish and a male of the first year (Ex. 12:5).  God’s silence on Israel’s use of any other kind of animal for the Passover prohibited the use of anything other than what he specified.  Nadab and Abihu learned that silence is prohibitive (Lev. 10:1-2).  Their deaths remind us that the silence of God’s word must be respected. 

The writer of Hebrews argues in at least two places that God’s silence is prohibitive.  In Hebrews 1:5 we read, “For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?”  Hebrews 1 establishes the superiority of Christ over the angels.  The argument is that since God the Father was silent in saying to the angels, “Thou art my Son,…,” then, Christ is superior to them. Tell the Holy Spirit silence is not prohibitive.   Then again, the inspired writer of Hebrews argues that silence is prohibitive in referring to the priesthood of Christ:  “For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood” (Heb. 7:14). God said the priests under the law of Moses were to come from the tribe of Levi (Ex.28; Num. 3).  He said nothing about priests coming from any other tribe.  Azariah or Uzziah, king of Judah, learned the hard way that silence is prohibitive.  God struck him with leprosy because he burned incense unto the Lord (2 Kings 15:1-5; 2 Chronicles. 26). Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedec and not after the order of Aaron.  

          Those who argue that silence is not prohibitive are arguing for the use of any unauthorized teaching or practice to be brought into the church.  It would allow the use of mechanical instruments of music, special singing groups, clapping, dancing, burning of incense or candles, counting beads, the wearing of clerical robes, etc.  It would advocate division.  What would be accepted by one would be rejected by another.