What is churchianity?

It is, in result, the human imitation of the church, a creation by man of the vast profession around us today, which has been moulded and defined by certain Christian doctrines and practices which are distinctive in themselves from other religious or heathen observances. Hence we have Christendom and Heathendom.

We have now to enter on the detailed examination of the evil characters which the apostle points out as impressing on the last days the stamp of "grievous times". The first and last words are remarkably and painfully instructive. It is Christendom which comes before us; yet those bearing the Lord's name can only be designated as "men", morally as corrupt and violent as the heathen (compare Rom. 1:29-31), if not so gross, yet having a form of godliness while they have denied its power.

As Christians we have to do with divine things, and it is possible for us to possess the form of these things without any true knowledge of their power. The Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy warns him of the perilous last times. Describing their characteristics as they affect men, he refers to them as having “a form of godliness but denying the power thereof” (2 Tim. 3:5). This description is terrible. Godliness is the one thing worth having. All else is corruption and evil. To have the form of what is good, and for it to be a mere form, evacuated of all the power that is inherent in true godliness; to be a mere shell without a kernel, is sad beyond words. Of what use is a shell in living nature, if there is no succulent kernel?

(19) “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”. Thus in the closing days of Christendom the professing mass will be found abandoning themselves to every form of evil, while seeking to cover their wickedness with the cloak of sanctity. Thus nominal Christians become more wicked than pagans, for, while indulging in all the evils of paganism, they add to their wickedness by seeking to hide it under the form of Christianity, though utterly devoid of its spiritual power. What can be more desperately wicked than the effort to use the Name of Christ as a cloak for evil? It is this cloak of sanctity that constitutes the last days' “difficult times”, for the show of piety at times deceives even true Christians.

The Apostle's words have, surely, a special warning for us in these last days, when this judaising teaching, which was such a danger to the primitive church, has developed into Christendom becoming a corrupt mixture of Judaism and Christianity. The result is that a vast profession has arisen in which forms and ceremonies have taken the place of worship by the Spirit; in which the works of men according to the law have set aside the work of Christ according to the gospel; and which appeals to man in the flesh, while raising no question of new birth or personal faith in Christ. Having formed itself after the Jewish pattern, Christendom has become an imitation Jewish camp, having the form of godliness but denying the power thereof. From this corruption, the Apostle, in his other epistles, warns us to "turn away", and to go forth to Christ "without the camp, bearing His reproach" (2 Tim. 3:5; Heb. 13:13).

Thus, in Christianity all is vital. There is a work of God in the heart and worship by the Spirit. It has a living Christ for its object, and utterly refuses the flesh. The corrupting movement, within the Christian circle, would set aside all that is vital while retaining the form of Christianity. It would substitute the profession of Christianity, by subscribing to creeds, and submitting to forms, for the true circumcision of the heart. It would establish an outward form of worship by means of buildings, music, vestments and ritual, in place of worship by the Spirit of God. Instead of having no confidence in the flesh, it would make every possible appeal to the flesh. It would end, as the apostle foretells in another epistle, in the corrupt Christendom of our day "having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." The Philippians were solemnly warned to beware of this corruption in its inception. We are warned to "turn away" from the corruption in its full development. (2 Tim. G: 5).

Although many in Christendom have but a remote connection with the religious ceremonies of the professing church, there is still a great mass of formal religion uniting the different institutions of the so-called Christian world. Alas! it is but the form of godliness, for there are relatively few among the many who profess Christianity who have a living link with Christ. There is great store laid upon membership of the church, but few who stress the necessity of living faith in the Son of God, and the resting of the soul on the finished work of the cross.

From all this we learn the solemn truth that the most Satanic resistance to God's testimony, in the world, is offered by those who, though they imitate the effects of the truth, have but "the form of godliness," and "deny the power thereof." Persons of this class can do the same things, adopt the same habits and forms, use the same phraseology, profess the same opinions as others. If the true Christian, constrained by the love of Christ, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits the sick, circulates the scriptures, distributes tracts, supports the gospel, engages in prayer, sings praise, preaches the gospel, the formalist can do every one of these things; and this, be it observed, is the special character of the resistance offered to the truth "in the last days" — this is the spirit of "Jannes and Jambres." How needful to understand this! How important to remember that, "as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do" those self-loving, world-seeking, pleasure-hunting professors, "resist the truth!" They would not be without "a form of godliness;" but, while adopting "the form," because it is customary, they hate "the power," because it involves self-denial. "The power" of godliness involves the recognition of God's claims, the implanting of His kingdom in the heart, and the consequent exhibition thereof in the whole life and character; but the formalist knows nothing of this. "The power" of godliness could never comport with any one of those hideous features set forth in the foregoing quotation; but "the form," while it covers them over, leaves them wholly unsubdued; and this the formalist likes. He does not want his lusts subdued, his pleasures interfered with, his passions curbed, his affections governed, his heart purified. He wants just as much religion as will enable him "to make the best of both worlds." He knows nothing of giving up the world that is, because of having found "the world to come."

I. The Church is the body of Christ, formed by the Holy Ghost sent down to dwell on earth. — As such it consists only of true believers, real members of Christ's body. Such is God's institution; but what is the Church, as man has made it? Throughout a large part of Christendom, the so-called Church, instead of being the assembly of the saved, is held forth as the means of salvation. Unconverted persons are urged to come into it, and are told that deliverance from wrath and judgment is to be obtained by its offices. In other cases the Church is a political institution, and every citizen, without respect to his conversion or non-conversion, is entitled to its communion and its privileges. There are considerable exceptions, no doubt, but in one or other of these two classes the enormous preponderance of nominal Christians are included. To the great mass, therefore, of that which bears the name, and is the responsible witness, for Christ on earth, the solemn words of the Judge may be addressed — "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead" (Rev. 3:1). The professing Church, instead of consisting only of living members of Christ, has merely a name to live, and is dead — "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (2 Tim. 3:5). How needful, then, that where there is true life, the solemn warning should be heeded — "Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God (Rev. 3:2).

"Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead," is the exact moral description, as it is the plain condemnation of nationalism. Of more this, no doubt, but still of this. It is not the idea of the Church of God at all, but a Christianized world, with Christians scattered through it: a place so defiling, that but few indeed can keep their garments undefiled. Connected with the truth, as popery is not, such a system betrays the truth which it professedly upholds. The character of the last days is developed by it: "Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, proud, blas. phemers," the retaining all that is natural to them under the garb of Christianity; "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." The direct command is, "From such, turn away." This is the effect of popularized truth, - popularized as God never meant His truth to be. Of course this is to be distinguished from the preaching of His truth, than which nothing assuredly is more in accordance with His mind. His gospel is to go forth to every creature, and the blessings of an open Bible we could scarcely exaggerate. But by "popularized truth" is meant, what we have already been speaking of, truth made into a party badge, so as to be accepted by those with whom Christ is not; for He was never really popular, and still is not. Popularized truth means, truth that has lost its power. It may be that for which martyrs died, and which when first given of God, or when afresh given, was full of quickening power. Popularized, it is so far lifeless. No exercise of soul in receiving it; no cross in professing it; men have got from their fathers what their fathers got from God: to their fathers it was shame, to them it is honour. There is nothing to test conscience, nothing to make them ask, Dare I take this without human sanction to commend - nay, in the face of all human discountenance? Yet only thus have we got it truly from God. The martyrs they talk of took it thus and suffered for it: they take it from their fathers - a principle which would have condemned the martyrs; and they take it without the slightest thought of being martyrs. Truth is proclaimed as powerless by the unholy lives of its professors, while unholiness is recommended by the practice of those who are orthodox as to truth. And thus truth tends to die out of itself, as valueless, remaining all the while in the national creed, embalmed as a memorial of the past. "Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, which are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God." This has been long experienced with regard to all national systems too manifestly to need more than a bare allusion. It is a system designedly adapted to worldly minds, and to be worked by political machinery. The Word of God is no necessity to it, except, it may be, to furnish a table of lessons; for the authoritative standard is the creed. The Spirit of God is not necessary to it; for colleges can manufacture preachers, and ecclesiastics ordain and send them forth apart from this. Christians are not necessary to it; they are too uncertain as a constituent part of a nation or its government to be capable of being reckoned on; nor is there any means of certainly determining who they are. A sacrament, - baptism or the Lord's supper, - takes here the place of less manageable tests. And the grieved and insulted Spirit may be besought to breathe upon the lifeless mass, and fill the sails of the ship of state. But He must keep within the bounds prescribed by ritual, hierarchy, and parliament, or He will be treated as schismatical. And it must be remarked how often in this case a schism springs out of a large and manifest revival. Souls brought near to God, and made to feel the value of His Word, are not made thereby the more docile servants of a state-religion. The new wine will not be held in the old bottles. Statesmen are not thus favourable to such fresh enthusiasm, and no wonder: it divides the house which it is to their interest to keep as one. But is not here the history of the churches of the Reformation - of Protestantism, in fact, - during the three centuries of its existence? Is not this the true account of its divisions, for which it is reproached? The Spirit of God is not, indeed, the author of confusion, but of peace, - of unity, and not disunion. But when people talk of schism, they should remember to what that term applies. As found in Scripture, it is "schism in the body" that is reprobated, and the body of Christ is not a national church. When men have joined together the living and the dead, - when they have subjugated consciences to formularies instead of Scripture, - to hierarchies instead of God, or to hierarchies in the name of God, what have they forced the blessed Spirit to do but to draw afresh the line they have obliterated between the living and the dead, between man's word and God's, between human authority and divine?