Books

Focus On The Fundamentals Of The Faith

By W. Douglass Harris

The Changeable and the Unchangeable Biblically

Change can be either good or bad, depending on the realm in which it is made. In certain prescribed areas biblically, freedom of change is permitted; in other areas it is not permitted without the condemnation of inspiration. This distinction must be made or laws will be made where God did not make any.

Permissible Changes

Inspired wisdom has left so many things in the realms of human judgment, expediency, incidentals, and indifference where change are allowed. This means that they are secondary in importance, but are associated with something more important. Examples are numerous. Inspiration has not set the time for the observance of the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day. Where people are to be baptized has not been legislated by inspiration or what type of water to use. Whether to eat meats or vegetables is a matter of individual conscience (Romans 14; 1 Corinthians 8:4ff). Love for the weaker brother must be the determining factor.

Expedients are permitted when they do not violate the Scriptures. Song books are expedients — they assist in doing the very thing authorized — singing. The same thing is true of pitch forks and pitch pipes — they aid in doing the very thing commanded. They are no more a part of the worship than turning the pages in the song book after the leader had announced the page number. Pews are expedients — they help us to worship. A baptistry is an expedient — an aid, not an addition, in doing what God commanded; so is a church building.

All of the above, and many other areas, are changeable if good judgment dictates and expedites doing what is commanded, but we must not make laws in these areas that have been left to human judgment (1 Peter 4:11). Matters of judgment fall into the realm of where the Scriptures are silent. Binding where God has not bound has been a major source of division in the Lord’s church.

The Unchangeable

In the realm of faith (where God has spoken clearly in unambiguous language) changes are not permitted without divine disapproval. Matters of faith are determined by a direct command (Acts 2:38; 10:48), or an affirmative statement (Mark 16:16), an approved apostolic example (Acts 20:7), or a necessary inference (Hebrews 10:25). “When God said a thing, issued a command, left an approved example or gave a necessary inference, there is no room for opinions and speculations. This is the way it is and we dare not doubt it, deny it, circumvent it, or in any way change it. ‘For the Lord has spoken’” (Guy Caskey).

What the Bible prescribes in the realm of faith cannot be changed with divine approval. Hence, the many warnings against changing the word of God (2 John 9-11; Galatians 1:8,9; Revelation 22:18,19; 2 Timothy 4:2). The structure and worship of the church cannot be changed by divine sanction. Women leaders, human heads, inter-congregational machinery (conferences, synods, associations, dioceses), the single pastor systems, and spectator worship all exist by human authority, not by divine authority. Most of the so-called contemporary worship is nothing more than exhibitionism — worship directed to the audience rather than to God. Hand clapping, group singing, lifting hands, humming in worship all fall into this category. Anything not divinely authorized renders worship vain (Matthew 15:9).

Changes in the divine law of pardon authorized in the accounts of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15,16; Luke 24:45-47) and the book of Acts are unchangeable divine law. According to the divine order, there is no salvation from past sins before scriptural baptism and its scriptural prerequisites (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 22:16). God’s plan must be followed in due order (Cf 1 Chronicles 15:13).

The Lord’s church is passing through another one of those cycles when efforts are being made to introduce compromising changes with the denominational world. We are not the only generation who experienced such. May God help us to join hands with the faithful remnant of the past to save another remnant from apostasy.