A new series on marriage and the family begins in this issue. This teaching is needed and we confess failure in the past to meet the need. Some parents have turned to evangelicals in denominations for the help they felt they were not getting in assembly teaching. Although these men often give advice that is based on Scripture and believers have been helped, there are other aspects of their teaching that does not support New Testament teaching that is vital to the continuance of assembly testimony.
Eugene Higgins’ and Marvin Derksen’s articles emphasize that the Christian home, its pattern and its principles are under constant attack by Satan and all his allies. Children need to learn from their own fathers that Fatherhood is at the core of the universe. The relation of Father and Son is of all relations the most central. We need to recognize that the attack on the Christian home is an attack against God the Father as He has been fully revealed by the Son who has ever dwelt in His bosom (John 1:18). Ephesians 3:14-15 makes this plain, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” The Christian family is patterned after the eternal Father. If we have failed to understand the importance of this teaching, we can be sure that Satan does understand.
“Neither is There Salvation in Any Other”
Will God accept the faith of heathen people so long as it is genuine? This teaching says that God will save heathen people as He saves infants. They are not accountable. Is this correct?
George MacDonald and later C.S. Lewis have taught this “inclusivism” . These authors may have written wonderful things, but we need to be able to discriminate between truth and error (1 John 2:21). The appeal of this teaching is that it makes it easier to accept the dealings of a righteous God with the heathen.
There is no salvation apart from Christ (Acts 4:12). The heathen are not like infants, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Rom 1:19-20). Where there are people who have accepted the revelation of God in creation, God will reveal to them the Christ of Calvary. Why should missionaries sacrifice everything to reach people with the gospel who will be saved anyway?
Is our love for lost souls greater than God’s love? If there was another means of salvation, why Calvary? Even genuine faith does not save. It must be faith in Christ. Faith is no more or less than the hyssop by which the blood was applied to the doors in Egypt. The hyssop could not shelter one soul. God said “When I see the blood” not the hyssop. Thank God “He is able to save to the uttermost,” but sinners can only come to God “by Him,” (Heb 7:25).
