The Waning Authority of Christ in
the Churches
Is He Lord or Merely a Beloved
Symbol?
By A.
W. Tozer
With a recommended reading list of Tozer’s
works
From
the back cover of the printed
booklet:
As A. W. Tozer writes,
“Among the gospel Churches, Christ is, in fact, little
more than a
beloved symbol. The Lordship of Jesus is not quite
forgotten, but it has been mostly relegated to the
hymnal where all responsibility toward it may be
discharged in a glow of pleasant religion. Or if it is
taught as a theory in the classroom, it is rarely
applied to practical living. The idea that the Man
Christ Jesus has absolute and final authority over the
whole church and over all of its members in every detail
of their lives is simply not now accepted as true by the
rank and file of evangelical Christians.”
A. W. Tozer was,
indeed, a 20th Century prophet, not in the
sense that he spoke new truth, but in the sense that he
spoke as one who knew his times and what God was saying
to the people of his times. This booklet contains one of
Tozer’s most well known and most powerful articles. It
appeared in The
Alliance Witness—a publication Tozer edited for many
years—on May 15, 1963, just two days after Tozer’s
death. In a sense it was his valedictory, for it
expressed the concern of his heart. This article was, in
fact, the one that began the editor’s thorough study of
Tozer’s writings and prompted his book The Forgotten
Tozer, a review and analysis of
Tozer’s thought on contemporary
Christianity.
The Waning Authority of Christ in the
Churches
Here is the burden of my heart; and while
I claim for myself no special inspiration I yet feel
that this is also the burden of the
Spirit.
If I know my own heart it is love alone that
moves me to write this. What I write here is not the
sour ferment of a mind agitated by contentions with my
fellow Christians. There have been no such contentions.
I have not been abused, mistreated or attacked by
anyone. Nor have these observations grown out of any
unpleasant experiences that I have had in my association
with others. My relations with my own church as well as
with Christians of other denominations have been
friendly, courteous and pleasant. My grief is simply the
result of a condition which I believe to be almost
universally prevalent among the
churches.
I think also that I should acknowledge that I am
myself very much involved in the situation I here
deplore. As Ezra in his mighty prayer of intercession
included himself among the wrongdoers, so do I. “O my
God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee,
my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head,
and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens” [Ezra
9:6]. Any hard word spoken here against others must in
simple honesty return upon my own head. I too have been
guilty. This is written with the hope that we all may
turn unto the Lord our God and sin no more against
Him.
Let me state the cause of my burden. It is this:
Jesus Christ has
today almost no authority at all among the groups that
call themselves by His name. By
these I mean not the Roman Catholics nor the liberals,
nor the various quasi-Christian cults. I do mean
Protestant churches generally, and I include those that
protest the loudest that they are in spiritual descent
from our Lord and His apostles, namely, the
evangelicals.
It is a basic doctrine of the New Testament that
after His resurrection the Man Jesus was declared by God
to be both Lord and Christ, and that He was invested by
the Father with absolute Lordship over the church which
is His Body. All authority is His in heaven and in
earth. In His own proper time He will exert it to the
full, but during this period in history He allows this
authority to be challenged or ignored. And just now it
is being challenged by the world and ignored by the
church.
The present position of Christ in the gospel
churches may be likened to that of a king in a limited,
constitutional monarchy. The king (sometimes
depersonalized by the term “the Crown”) is in such a
country no more than a traditional rallying point, a
pleasant symbol of unity and loyalty much like a flag or
a national anthem. He is lauded, feted and supported,
but his real authority is small. Nominally he is head
over all, but in every crisis someone else makes the
decisions. On formal occasions he appears in his royal
attire to deliver the tame, colorless speech put into
his mouth by the real rulers of the country. The whole
thing may be no more than good-natured make-believe, but
it is rooted in antiquity, it is a lot of fun and no one
wants to give it up.
Among the gospel
churches Christ is now in fact little more than a
beloved symbol.
“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” is the
church’s national anthem and the cross is her official
flag, but in the week-by-week services of the church and
the day-by-day conduct of her members someone else, not
Christ, makes the decisions. Under proper circumstances
Christ is allowed to say “Come unto me, all ye that
labour and are heavy laden” or “Let not your heart be
troubled,” but when the speech is finished someone else
takes over. Those in actual authority decide the moral
standards of the church, as well as all objectives and
all methods employed to achieve them. Because of long
and meticulous organization it is now possible for the
youngest pastor just out of seminary to have more actual
authority in a church than Jesus Christ
has.
Not only does Christ have little or no authority;
His influence also is becoming less and less. I would
not say that He has none, only that it is small and
diminishing. A fair parallel would be the influence of
Abraham Lincoln over the American people. Honest Abe is
still the idol of the country. The likeness of his kind,
rugged face, so homely that it is beautiful, appears
everywhere. It is easy to grow misty-eyed over him.
Children are brought up on stories of his love, his
honesty, and his humility.
But after we have gotten control over our tender
emotions what have we left? No more than a good example,
which, as it recedes into the past, becomes more and
more unreal and exercises less and less real influence.
Every scoundrel is ready to wrap Lincoln’s long black
coat around him. In the cold light of political facts in
the United States the constant appeal to Lincoln by the
politicians is a cynical
joke.
The Lordship of
Jesus is not quite forgotten among Christians, but it
has been relegated to the hymnal where all
responsibility toward it may be comfortably discharged
in a glow of pleasant religious emotion. Or if it is
taught as a theory in the classroom it is rarely applied
to practical living. The idea that the Man Christ Jesus
has absolute and final authority over the whole church
and over all of its members in every detail of their
lives is simply not now accepted as true by the rank and
file of evangelical Christians.
What we do is this: We accept the Christianity of
our group as being identical with that of Christ and His
apostles. The beliefs, the practices, the ethics, the
activities of our group are equated with the
Christianity of the New Testament. Whatever the group
thinks or says or does is scriptural, no questions
asked. It is assumed that all our Lord expects of us is
that we busy ourselves with the activities of the group.
In so doing we are keeping the commandments of
Christ.
To avoid the hard necessity of either obeying or
rejecting the plain instructions of our Lord in the New
Testament we take refuge in a liberal interpretation of
them. Casuistry [tricky reasoning] is not the possession
of Roman Catholic theologians alone. We evangelicals
also know how to avoid the sharp point of obedience by
means of fine and intricate explanations. These are
tailor-made for the flesh. They excuse disobedience,
comfort carnality and make the words of Christ of none
effect [Mk. 7:13]. And the essence of it all is that
Christ simply could not have meant what He said. His
teachings are accepted even theoretically only after
they have been weakened by
interpretation.
Yet Christ is
consulted by increasing numbers of persons with
“problems” and sought after by those who long for peace
of mind. He is widely recommended as a kind of spiritual
psychiatrist with remarkable powers to straighten people
out. He is able to deliver them from their guilt
complexes and to help them to avoid serious psychic
traumas by making a smooth and easy adjustment to
society and to their own ids. Of course this strange
Christ has no relation whatever to the Christ of the New
Testament.
The true Christ is also Lord, but this
accommodating Christ is little more than the servant of
the people.
But I suppose I should offer some concrete proof
to support my charge that Christ has little or no
authority today among the churches. Well, let me put a
few questions and let the answers be the
evidence.
What church board consults our Lord’s words to
decide matters under discussion? Let anyone
reading this who has had experience on a church board
try to recall the times or time when any board member
read from the Scriptures to make a point, or when any
chairman suggested that the brethren should see what
instructions the Lord had for them on a particular
question. Board meetings are habitually opened with a
formal prayer or “a season of prayer;” after that the
Head of the Church is respectfully silent while the real
rulers take over. Let anyone who denies this bring forth
evidence to refute it. I for one will be glad to hear
it.
What Sunday school committee goes to the Word for
directions? Do not the members invariably assume that
they already know what they are supposed to do and that
their only problem is to find effective means to get it
done? Plans, rules, “operations” and new methodological
techniques absorb all their time and attention. The
prayer before the meeting is for divine help to carry
out their plans. Apparently the idea that the Lord might
have some instructions for them never so much as enters
their heads.
Who remembers when a conference chairman brought
his Bible to the table with him for the purpose of using
it? Minutes, regulations, rules of order, yes. The
sacred commandments of the Lord, no. An absolute
dichotomy exists between the devotional period and the
business session. The first has no relation to the
second.
What foreign mission board actually seeks to
follow the guidance of the Lord as provided by His Word
and His Spirit? They all think they do, but what they do
in fact is to assume the scripturalness of their ends
and then ask for help to find ways to achieve them. They
may pray all night for God to give success to their
enterprises, but Christ is desired as their helper, not
as their Lord. Human means are devised to achieve ends
assumed to be divine. These harden into policy, and
thereafter the Lord doesn’t even have a
vote.
In the conduct of our public worship where is the
authority of Christ to be found? The truth is that today
the Lord rarely controls a service, and the influence He
exerts is very small. We sing of Him and preach about
Him, but He must not interfere; we worship our way, and
it must be right because we have always done it that
way, as have the other churches in our
group.
What Christian when faced with a moral problem
goes straight to the Sermon on the Mount or other New
Testament Scripture for the authoritative answer? Who
lets the words of Christ be final on giving, birth
control, the bringing up of a family, personal habits,
tithing, entertainment, buying, selling and other such
important matters?
What theological school, from the lowly Bible
institute up, could continue to operate if it were to
make Christ Lord of its every policy? There may be some,
and I hope there are, but I believe I am right when I
say that most such schools to stay in business are
forced to adopt procedures which find no justification
in the Bible they profess to teach. So we have this
strange anomaly: the authority of Christ is ignored in
order to maintain a school to teach among other things
the authority of Christ.
The causes back of the decline in our Lord’s
authority are many. I name only
two.
One is the power of custom, precedent and
tradition within the older religious groups. These like
gravitation affect every particle of religious practice
within the group, exerting a steady and constant
pressure in one direction. Of course that direction is
toward conformity to the status quo. Not Christ but
custom is lord in this situation. And the same thing has
passed over (possibly to a slightly lesser degree) into
the other groups such as the full gospel tabernacles,
the holiness churches, the Pentecostal and fundamental
churches and the many independent and undenominational
churches found everywhere throughout the North American
continent.
The second cause
is the revival of intellectualism among the
evangelicals. This, if I sense the situation correctly,
is not so much a thirst for learning as a desire for a
reputation of being learned. Because of it good men who
ought to know better are being put in the position of
collaborating with the enemy. I’ll
explain.
Our evangelical faith (which I believe to be the
true faith of Christ and His apostles) is being attacked
these days from many different directions. In the
Western world the enemy has forsworn violence. He comes
against us no more with sword and fagot; he now comes
smiling, bearing gifts. He raises his eyes to heaven and
swears that he too believes in the faith of our fathers,
but his real purpose is to destroy that faith, or at
least to modify it to such an extent that it is no
longer the supernatural thing it once was. He comes in
the name of philosophy or psychology or anthropology,
and with sweet reasonableness urges us to rethink our
historic position, to be less rigid, more tolerant, more
broadly understanding.
He [the enemy] speaks in the sacred jargon of the
schools, and many of our half-educated evangelicals run
to fawn on him. He tosses academic degrees to the
scrambling sons of the prophets as Rockefeller used to
toss dimes to the children of the peasants. The
evangelicals who, with some justification, have been
accused of lacking true scholarship, now grab for these
status symbols with shining eyes, and when they get them
they are scarcely able to believe their eyes. They walk
about in a kind of ecstatic unbelief, much as the
soloist of the neighborhood church choir might were she
to be invited to sing at La
Scala.
For the true
Christian the one supreme test for the present soundness
and ultimate worth of everything religious must be the
place our Lord occupies in it. Is He Lord or symbol? Is
He in charge of the project or merely one of the crew?
Does He decide things or only help to carry out the
plans of others? All religious activities, from the
simplest act of an individual Christian to the ponderous
and expensive operations of a whole denomination, may be
proved by the answer to the question, Is Jesus Christ
Lord in this act? Whether our works prove to be wood,
hay and stubble or gold and silver and precious stones
in that great day will depend upon the right answer to
that question.
What, then, are we to do? Each one of us must
decide, and there are at least three possible choices.
One is to rise up in shocked indignation and accuse me
of irresponsible reporting. Another is to nod general
agreement with what is written here but take comfort in
the fact that there are exceptions and we are among the
exceptions. The other is to go down in meek humility and
confess that we have grieved the Spirit and dishonored
our Lord in failing to give Him the place His Father has
given Him as Head and Lord of the
Church.
Either the first or the second will but confirm
the wrong. The third if carried out to its conclusion
can remove the curse. The decision lies with
us.
ËËËËËËËËËËËË
The Absolutely Essential
Tozer
By the Editor of Sola
Scriptura
Publications
I agree totally with Leonard Ravenhill, who wrote
the Forward to James Snyder’s biography of A. W. Tozer:
“I advise every Bible student with whom I have contact
by phone or by letter or in person: Buy all the books
Dr. Tozer has written and digest
them.”
I have yet to read a Tozer book that was not a
blessing, and from which I gleaned something, and often
much. I,
therefore, recommend every single one of Tozer’s books
without exception and encourage every Christian to read
every one of them.
There are some Tozer books, however, that I
believe especially stand out as absolutely essential. I
think these should be first in any Tozer “to read list.”
It is my humble opinion that there are six Tozer books
that constitute “The Absolutely Essential Tozer” (taken
from an Appendix in the editor’s book, The Forgotten
Tozer).
Before listing and briefly describing these six
books, I would encourage you not to approach a Tozer
book as you would most other books. Most Tozer books are
short enough that the average reader can read one in one
or two sittings, but I strongly encourage you not to do
so. You’ll miss a lot if you do. Read Tozer
slowly. You might want to read just one chapter a
day, for example, as part of your daily time with the
Lord. Meditate on Tozer, not as a substitute for
God’s Word, rather as a supplement to It. The result will be a deeper Christian
experience.
The Knowledge of the
Holy
Many Tozer reviewers recommend The Pursuit of
God as the reader’s first
meeting with A. W. Tozer, but I dare to be different. I
firmly believe that we need to know Whom we are pursuing
before we can pursue Him correctly and grow spiritually.
As Tozer writes in the Preface, “The Low view of God
entertained almost universally among Christians is the
cause of a hundred lesser evils among us.” Unless our
view of God is right, we will not be able to grow
spiritually or serve correctly. This book is an
unparalleled devotional treatment of the attributes of
God. This is not an academic treatment of God’s
attributes, rather a meditative treatment that blesses
the heart. Tozer’s hope for this wonderful book was that
Christians would “be encouraged to begin the practice of
the reverent meditation on the being of
God.”
The Pursuit of
God
To simply call this “a devotional classic” is an
understatement. As biographer James Snyder recounts,
Tozer began writing at 9:00 P.M. on a train bound from
Chicago to Texas, wrote all night, and finished a rough
draft early the next morning. The words flowed from a
heart fixed upon an intimate relationship with God and a
mind that wanted the same for his readers. More than any
of his other books, this one will help you satisfy your
hunger and thirst for God’s Presence in your
life.
The Pursuit of
Man
Previously published under the title The Divine
Conquest, this book is a sequel to The Pursuit of
God. Tozer here speaks of a
total “invasion” of the Holy Spirit. In the psychobabble
of our age we hear much about “inferiority” and other
concocted philosophies, but there is none of that here.
Here we find the “interiority” of spirituality. “If we
would know the power of the Christian message,” Tozer
writes in the Preface, “our nature must be invaded by an
Object from beyond it . . . the objective Reality which
is God must cross the threshold of our personality and
take residence there.”
That Incredible
Christian
Like many of Tozer’s books, this one is a
collection of articles that appeared in The Alliance
Witness. I think this book is a
good follow up to the three previous books because it
reinforces and applies many of the truths presented
there. Just a few of its 41 articles include: “What It
Means to Accept Christ,” “Why the Holy Spirit Is Given,”
“Marks of the Spiritual Man,” and “The Art of True
Worship.”
Of God and
Men
Tozer arranged and edited this collection of
articles from The
Alliance Witness. This is one of
my favorite Tozer books because it practically confronts
many of the problems and attitudes that plague the
Church today. A few of the articles include: “The Report
of the Watcher,” “The First Obligation of the Church,”
“The Gift of Prophetic Insight,” and “Prayer: No
Substitute for Obedience.”
God Tells the Man Who
Cares
This is the book—which contains the article in
this booklet—that began my study of Tozer’s thought, and
I quoted from it several times in my book The
Forgotten Tozer. Of all Tozer’s
books, this one contains the largest amount of
contemporary comment. It is a book I wish I could put in
the hands of every pastor and Christian leader in the
world. It will only make a difference, however, in the
lives and ministries of “the men who really
care.”
