Question: Rom. 16:17. What sort of offenders is meant by “those causing the divisions and the stumbling blocks,” whom the apostle called the saints to avoid? Y. T.
Answer: They were as yet different from the separatists of Titus 3:10, 11. “Heretic” as in the Auth. V. gives a misleading sense; for in modern usage it means “heterodox.” This is not intended, but one forming a party or sect outside, to which schism ever drifts. Therefore in 1 Cor. 11:18, 19, the apostle says, “I hear there exist schisms among you, and I in some part believe it. For there must even be sects [heresies] among you, that the approved may become manifest among you.” It is not that schisms must lead to heterodoxy, but that, if not judged, parties within (or schisms) naturally land in an outside party or sect. When this happens, disciplinary action is foreclosed. They have gone without. Such are perverted, and sin, being self-condemned to all who know what is due to the Lord, and what the assembly of God is.
But the case in Rom. 16 is an earlier stage. It supposes self-confident and restless zeal inside, inconsistent with the teaching already learned by the saints, and reckless of the pain, shame, evil, and danger treated by striving after innovations without scriptural warrant. In accordance with the word is the amplest scope for every kind and measure of true gift; and gift ordinarily is apt to be overestimated, as we see it was in Corinth and is today. But the self-seeking and self-important are never satisfied with the place of subjection which scripture claims from us in deference to our Lord. Hence the desire for popularity and excitement. “From among your own selves,” warned the apostle, “shall rise up men speaking perverted things to draw away the disciples after them.” For such men chafe under the protests and reproofs, urged by spiritual experience and insight into scripture, to save them from a course as dishonoring to the Lord as ruinous to themselves and any swayed by them.
Those in our day gathered to the Lord’s name have labored in and according to His word for near seventy years; about the same time it was from Pentecost till the canon of scripture closed and the apostle John died. Gifts various and great abounded then; as by grace in their measure they were not lacking in our day. Yet no man ever rose up so presumptuous as to organize what is called an “all-day-ministry.” We have known offenders, some of them men of light and leading, who fell away now and then; but no one so much as proposed what on the face of it is outside the teaching of the apostles and their fellowship. This was enough for ordinarily faithful men. Even the bold did not dare to canvass, still less to carry out, a device unauthorized by God’s word. Our profession was to have left human associations and plans, no matter how many pious persons might sustain them. We took, and are resolved in divine mercy to keep, the only hallowed ground of obedience.
We eschew therefore all definitive authority but the written word. “What is the harm?” is the excuse of unbelief and disobedience. An apostle might choose a personal companion in ordinary ministry: so may a wise brother now; but no apostle ever arranged anything even resembling an “all-day ministry.” This settles the matter to faith; and one can but grieve over the want of faith which thought of action so unscriptural, borrowed by rash inexperience from the bustling spirit of the age. Where Christians do not own the Spirit’s presence any more than subjection to scripture alone, such methods are natural. But how sad that any who professed to turn their back on such unfaithfulness should do their utmost to foist in among us an unquestionable departure from the word! For it has not the paltry merit of an invention, but is a plain imitation of a novel fashion even in fallen decrepit Christendom. “The time shall be,” said the sorrowing apostle in his last Epistle, “when they will not endure sound teaching, but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers according to their own lusts, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables” (2 Tim. 4).
May grace preserve from such an issue! If we are to be kept, it is and must be as sanctified by the truth. And sanctification of the Spirit from the starting-point is “unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” What then does the apostle prescribe, when there are those that cause divisions and stumbling-blocks contrary to the teaching we learned? He commands us in the Lord’s name to “mark” and “avoid them.” It is no question of “division” in the sense of people gone out, but that such innovating work habitually gathers a group of unsuspecting supporters, in opposition to what the mass of saints have ever believed and practiced. Were there a scrap of modesty or active grace, the remonstrance of those whom scripture calls “chief men among the brethren” would have peacefully hindered the project; whereas to the self-willed that is only another incentive to go on at all cost. In such a state one’s own way is dearer than anything else; and people are not wanting to back it. As the apostle adds, “They that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the guileless.”
Tender conscience shows itself in readiness to obey the word of the Lord. Our bounden duty is, not to put such misleaders away, but to keep clear of sanctioning them in any way, till they abandon their wrong course and are content themselves to obey. There is holiness, not hardship, in that. “If any one think to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the assemblies of God.” As long as the agitation continues, the willful who persist ought distinctly to forfeit the confidence of the godly. More is at stake than the disorder of women’s independence about a veil, though the apostle ruled this to be intolerable, even if they were prophetesses. Those that serve in the word are surely bound to submit to it themselves. It is no question of liberty to minister, which all own to be of God, but of a new-fangled license to organize the work of others; which is not only unscriptural but trenches on the Lordship of Christ and the ways of the Holy Spirit as revealed by the word.