Restoring New Testament Christianity

THE RESTORATION PLEA

Neal Pollard  

 

In 1824 in The Christian Baptist, Alexander Campbell said,

    In religion we cannot think anything of ourselves,  

    but all our sufficiency is of God.  The word of God  

    is the instrumental cause of thought. We cannot  

    think of God without an idea of him, and we cannot  

    have an idea of him without his word.  We

    are taught by, and we think and speak in, the  

    words the Holy Spirit has taught, when we learn,  

    and when we think or speak the truth in religion.  

    If we cannot think anything true or right without  

    the word of God in religion, when we leave

    that word, or change or alter the connection in the  

    statements, or after the terms with their  

    associations in it, our thoughts in religion are     

    wrong.  God's word is truth (Vol. 2, No. 12,  

    7/4/1825).

 

The restoration plea is simple and it is workable. Campbell was simply saying that the only way we know how to be right with God is to stay with what God revealed.  When we leave that, we part ways with the mind and will of God. What can be wrong with that way of thinking.  The late Bobby Duncan once said, "Men have never divided over what the Bible says, but rather about things it never, ever did."  If we could get everyone who believed in Christ to simply submit to what the New Testament specifies, how could we help avoiding denominationalism?

 

If we can fill our hearts with humility and our spirits with submission, we can have the tenderness of heart and childlike faith to seek Christ's will and follow that.  That means, in matters of faith, the Bible is an objective standard rather than a subjective suggestion.  The standard of right will always be the Bible.  Our position on any matter must be what God teaches!