LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Back to the Beginning (2)
The question that the Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce allowed the Lord to outline some principles of general validity, which go beyond the scope of marriage. Whenever we have a deteriorating situation, we must look for its remedy in the beginning. Only the principle shows us the perfect will of God, for there is no fateful intervention of man.
Personally, it shows us that every time we want to begin the restoration of some aspect of our Christian walk, we must return to the beginning, that is, to the attitude of the newly converted, to the simplicity and humility with which we received the Lord the first time. Collectively, as a church, it shows us that restoration is only possible when we return to God's original model, to the genesis of the church. And then we have to go back to the Bible, to the New Testament.
All restoration movements have started by rediscovering some biblical truth, and trying to incorporate it into practical life. However, that biblical truth, when it does not undergo a continuous renewal, and when it does not open itself to other biblical truths -to the whole counsel of God- it becomes a particular, exclusivist thing.
Many of the revival movements of the past are today stagnant, preserving only the external form, but without the interior life that all things of God have. Those who cling to lifeless forms, to inheritances without validity, have in their hands a fossil, but not a living being.
As regrettable as this -and even worse- is to go back to the past, not to the beginning of church history, but to some restoration movement, and copy its principles and formulas. If something has already lost life in itself, it is impossible for it to generate life in others. The prestige given by history, or by some spiritual 'giant', is not enough to vivify what is already dead.
The only hope for a true and genuine restoration is to return to the beginnings of the church, because that is where God's perfect will was expressed. But how can we go back to the beginning if there are so many rules, traditions and customs that hinder us? How can we recover the freshness, spontaneity, simplicity and humility of the origins?
The Lord said to the Pharisees: "Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but at the beginning it was not so". Why can't we go back to the beginning? Because of the hardness of our heart. In the heart of man are the obstacles that make the restoration of the church difficult.
To go back to the 16th century, with all the glorious movement of God personified in Luther, is not enough. To go back to the 18th century, with all the greatness of God's work among the Plymouth Brethren, is not enough. To go back to the 20th century, with all that was valuable in the recovery of God's testimony in China with Watchman Nee, is not enough either. God can do something new now in his church, in this 21st century, if we are willing to go back to the beginning.