LESSONS THE CHURCH OF OUR AGE CAN LEARN FROM CHURCH HISTORY
One of the great practical lessons from Church history to the present day Church is her commitment to missions. The early Church despite the oppositions did not relent in carrying out the mission mandate of the Church. The Church’s main function in the world is to bear witness to her Lord and Master, by carrying out faithfully the commission with which He charged her after His resurrection: ‘Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you’ (Matt. 28. 19 f., R.V.). An impossible task, surely, for such an absurdly small and un-influential body as the infant Church was to all outward seeming. But the New Testament shows how actively and successfully the infant Church set about this business, undeterred by any discouragement. As time went on the Church found all the might of the Roman Empire stirred up against her, and attempts were made in one persecution after another to suppress the Christian name altogether. But such was the Church’s survival-power that the last imperial persecution, the severest of all, had barely come to an end when the Empire bowed in acknowledgment of the Church’s victory. This, as we have suggested, did not prove an unmixed blessing for the Church, but the wonder of the fact remains. The Christians of the first three centuries had little, if anything, to aid them in their advance which we have not. We have the Gospel, as they had; we have the Holy Spirit, as they had; and we have a spiritually hungry and disillusioned world around us, as they had. True, in their day the greater part of the civilized world was politically united as it is not to-day, but we have in turn those conveniences of modern civilization which were denied to them.
We are tempted to feel to-day that the tide has set strongly in opposition to Christianity. Not as strongly as in the first three centuries A.D.! A review of Church history is a splendid tonic for despondent hearts. Such a review is afforded by Professor K. S. Latourette in his monumental History of the Expansion of Christianity. Dr. Latourette portrays the expansion of our faith as a series of alternating advances and recessions.
The first advance lasted from the beginning of the apostles’ preaching till nearly A.D. 500. By the end of this period the majority of the subjects of the Roman Empire professed Christianity and the faith had spread outside the Empire—to Ireland on the west, and to Ethiopia, South Arabia, Persia, and India on the south and east. Christianity had begun to influence Imperial Law. It may be questioned in what sense, if any, it is ever right to speak of a Christian nation; but if the spirit of Christianity is written into a nation’s laws and constitution, a case may be made for describing such a nation as Christian. At any rate, Christianity has in this way extended its influence down to the present day in all those lands whose laws have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by Roman law.
The first three centuries of Christian history demonstrate that the church is most effective in the world when it is most opposed to the world system. Our Lord came to bring not peace but a sword. The church must be in opposition to the world, not in conformity with it. The consequence of that nonconformity will be the world’s opposition to the church, and this opposition produces strength in the church rather than weakness. The history of the early church demonstrates the truth of this principle, both positively and negatively.
At no period in its history before the nineteenth-century missions’ movement did the Christian church grow more rapidly, numerically, than in those early centuries when she was under both fierce and subtle persecution. All the efforts of the Roman world to quench the fires of the gospel served rather to fan them. Man meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Persecution became an instrument of propagation: men saw the constancy and the spiritual transport of martyrs and wondered. More souls were won to the gospel by the deaths of some than by the lives of many others.
The fourth century witnessed a significant change, however. The frustration of the Roman Empire at her inability to destroy the fledgling faith led her to adopt the opposite method of accomplishing the same end. Rome ended overt persecution. One could no longer be martyred by political rulers. Rome now embraced the church. Her emperor declared himself a Christian and favored his new faith. Whether the motive of Constantine was a genuine conversion, or a political awareness of the organizational strength of the growing ecclesiastical institution, or the exasperation of having observed the folly of the other methods, or a loss of confidence in Rome’s gods, the church seemed to triumph.
The experience of the Middle Age centuries illustrates the truth that God’s people are always a minority. A few faithful are infinitely more powerful than many mighty. The Holy Spirit, through Paul the Apostle, declared, ‘But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are’ (I Cor. 1:27-28).
A trail of truth was cleared down through the centuries of ecclesiastical Christendom. Believers in diverse places and at diverse times gathered around the leadership of men armed with the Word of Truth. Largely unknown, limited in direct influence, often derided and scorned by the religious establishment, but making much of the Scriptures, they preserved the pure gospel. Though a despised minority, God’s people were ultimately to win.
The turbulent emergence of the Reformation of the sixteenth century witnesses to a third lesson, to the fact that true Christianity is always born and nourished in controversy. In this period particularly, the teacher may demonstrate that the god of this world, the enemy of man’s soul, allows slumbering saints to awaken only with a struggle. The resurgence of genuine Christian faith had to take the form of Protestantism–a protest against an apostate church and against the efforts of that church to continue to deny men the privilege of the priesthood of believers: direct access to God, His Word, and His grace.
Although controversy is not to be sought, it must be accepted. Wherever truth exposes error, error will oppose truth, and truth will be drawn into conflict. The believer must both stand and advance against the enemy. He cannot ignore the strife, though it is not of his making. Love is a noble virtue, but Christian love is love in the truth.
Finally, Church history affords ample opportunity for the present Church to know that Satan’s method is to counterfeit the truth. From the temptation of our first parents to the temptation of our Savior and up to the present time, the father of lies has tried to deceive man into believing that he can please God in his own ways. How many modern totalitarian regimes have attempted to replace God with the state, His Word with an ideology, and His Son with a pseudo-messianic dictator! But Satan’s counterfeits are not always so obvious.
We are conditioned to regard the ‘good’ in every mixture of good and evil, when, as discerning Christians, we should regard the evil. Few would value the scraps of good food in a garbage can. Just as the good food is totally contaminated by its association with the bad, so is whatever of good may seem to be in a spiritual mixture. In fact, the presence of the good makes the evil more subtly dangerous.
In our handling of the Word of God, in our proclaiming of the gospel of God, in our performing the work of God, in our witnessing by word and example, we would do well personally to be both cautioned and encouraged by these lessons. And our teaching must communicate these lessons to those tender souls whom God has entrusted to us
Also, this should encourage us to forge ahead with the missionary enterprise committed to us by our Lord, not to sit back in complacent assurance that this pattern of ever greater advances and ever smaller recessions will go on reproducing itself indefinitely with no effort on our part. It does give us confidence that the Lord continually works with those who obey His commission, and grants them accompanying signs. A study of Church history from this angle confirms the truth of His assurance that ‘…the gates of Hades shall not prevail against the Church’ (Matt. 16. 18), and the abiding validity of His promise: ‘All authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth… and lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the Consummation of the age’ (Matt. 28. 18, 20).
References.
Bruce, F. F. (1949). Church History and Its Lessons. London: Pickering & Inglis.
Church History & Its Lessons. http/www.earlychurch.org.uk. retrieved 29th August, 2014.
Watson, J. B. (ed) (1949). The Church: A Symposium. London: Pickering & Inglis.