The Temple of God Is Holy

Recall a sermon by President Wayland, preached while I was a student, in which he spoke thus, in brief, about amusements: “You ask me if it is sinful for Christians to play cards. Well, you remember that the Roman soldiers threw dice and cast lots while our Saviour was dying on the cross. But you as his disciples, had you been present, could not have taken part in that game of chance. And why should you do so now before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you?”

It was a practical and pointed way of setting forth a great principle. The church, which has journeyed on for nearly nineteen hundred years, has never left the crucified Christ behind. I make no reference here to a material sanctuary with the cross and passion, — symbols wrought into its ecclesiastical architecture, — but to that “holy temple in the Lord” in which we are” builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.” It is in this house that we stand during the entire discussion. As we mark on every hand its divine architecture, we observe that the cross is inwrought with each article of its furniture. In the ordinance through which we enter the temple, we are ‘’baptized into his death.’’’’ In the communion which we keep perpetually within its courts, we “do show the Lord’ s death till he corned In the pulpit where the gospel is proclaimed,” we preach Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God.” In the songs which we sing we offer “the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips.” Thus the crucified One is visible in every service and sacrament of his temple. That solemn stranger in yonder pew did not “cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard” in his temple; for in each act of worship he had ordained that his word should be heard, saying: “I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore.”

Once standing within this holy temple of the church a great apostle wept because “the enemies of the cross of Christ “had come in thither (Phil. 3: 18, 19). Who were they? Heretics, who had denied the atonement and effaced Christ crucified from their creed? Apostates, who by their fall from grace had “crucified the Son of God afresh ’ ‘? No! They were worldlings who had defiled the temple by their unseemly self-indulgences. And has the Lord no occasion to weep as he visits his church to-day? And do his five ‘J^ HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH

bleeding wounds never plead in silent protest against what is done therein? I speak not of the one congregation into which he came in vision on that memorable Sabbath morning. The encroachments of secularism had advanced quite far enough therein to give occasion for sincere regret at their remembrance. But they were slight in comparison with what we have witnessed elsewhere.

” Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, hi?n shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are’’ (i Cor. 3: 16, 17). We do not judge that the defilement here mentioned is that of personal impurity, in which one sins against his own body by the indulgence of fleshly lusts and passions. Though the words are often applied in this way there seems to be no good ground for so construing them. It is the corporate body which is spoken of, not the individual body; and to defile the temple of God is to profane that temple by bringing into its precincts idolatrous rights and ceremonies, secular and carnal indulgences, unsanctified amusements and frivilous entertainments to minister to “the lusts of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life.” Here we shall refer only to what we know as being carried on within the circle of Protestant and evangelical churches, confessing- as we do so, that it is a shame even to speak of the things done by them in public. Nevertheless we must look at the unseemly catalogue: Performers brought from the opera or from the theatre on Sunday to regale the ears of the church with some flighty song of artistic musical display; a star vioHnist dressed in the style of his profession, preparing the way for the sermon by a brilliant and fantastic solo; a curtain drawn across the pulpit platform on a week-night, footlights and scenery brought from the play-house, and a drama enacted by the young people of the church, ending with a dance by the gayly dressed children; a comic reader filling the pulpit on Monday evening, delivering a caricature sermon amid the convulsive laughter and hand-clapping of the Christians present. These are but a few acts in the comedy which the god of this world is performing weekly in church assemblies. Taken with the dramatic readings, literary entertainments, amateur theatricals, fairs, frolics, festivals, and lotteries, the story is enough to make the angels of the churches blush, and to give fresh occasion for an apostle’s tears while he utters the solemn verdict: “For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things.”

It is well known that certain insects conceal their presence by assuming the color of the tree or leaf on which they prey. Church amusements are simply parasites hiding under a religious exterior, while they eat out the life of Christianity. Sacred concerts, church fairs, ecclesiastical entertainments — how well the words sound in the ears of the unwary. But when the Lord appeared walking among the golden candlesticks with countenance like the sun shining in his strength, their real inwardness was instantly revealed. In the midst of the church entertainments, going on for the avowed purpose of winning the world into friendship with Christians; on the walls of the same church, inscribed in letters of gold, were texts of Scripture which the “dim religious light “had so obscured that few seem to have read them:” If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him,’” and ‘’Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity to God?” When the Lord came in, these inscriptions began to gleam out with such a dazzling brightness as the window panes sometimes exhibit under the rays of the setting sun. Then a great horror of being implicated in so-called sacred amusements seized upon one who read these burnmg texts, so that once on entering a church where such frivolities were going on, he hastened from the house as the aged Apostle John in Ephesus is said to have fled from the bath on discovering that the heretic Cerinthus was present.

If any shall name such scruples phariseeism or religious prudery, then come g.nd let us reason together. Go into a Roman Catholic church and witness the services which are carried on there, and the question will at once arise, How is it possible that the simple spiritual worship of the primitive church could have degenerated into such a mass of grotesque ceremonials and idolatrous abominations as are here exhibited? The answer is easily found on looking into history. For a while the church was content to occupy the place of holy separation from the world appointed her by the Lord — witnessing for Christ, working for Christ, waiting for Christ. This austere attitude gave offense to the heathen who had often desired to be friendly with the Christians, and were ready to tolerate their religion if only they would accord some slight token of respect to their own deities — a gesture of reverence or a grain of incense. But all this was rigidly withheld by the disciples of Christ. Not the smallest concession would they make to pagan customs; not a shred would they incorporate into their worship from the heathen ceremonials; and so long as they maintained this spirit, they went forth conquering and to conquer.

Then, upon the enthronement of Constantine, the sentiment gradually changed, and the notion grew up that in order to convert the heathen it was necessary to conciliate them by conforming somewhat to their customs. The great Augustine also fell under this delusion, and gave his countenance to the engrafting into Christian worship of usages borrowed from the heathen. He said: “When peace was made (between the emperors of Rome and the church) the crowd of Gentiles who were anxious to embrace Christianity were deterred by this, that whereas they had been accustomed to pass the holidays in drunkenness and feasting before their idols, they could not easily consent to forego these most pernicious yet ancient pleasures. // seejned good then to our leaders to favor this part of their weakness, and for those festivals which they had relinquished, to substitute others in honor of the holy martyrs, which they might celebrate with similar luxury, though not with the same impiety.^” Here is the door opened through which the whole troop of abominations entered — saint worship, idol worship, virgin worship — till in an incredibly short time the church, which had gone forth to Christianize the heathen, was found to have become herself completely paganized.

The nineteenth century is presenting almost the exact facsimile of the fourth century in this particular. The notion having grown up that we must entertain men in order to win them to Christ, every invention for world-pleasing which human ingenuity can devise has been brought forward till the churches in multitudes of instances have been turned into play-houses, with theatre-

1 Aug. “Epist.”, p. 29.

boards announcing the courses for the gay season, boldly set up at the doors; and there is hardly a carnal amusement that can be named, from billiards to dancing, which does not now find a nesting-place in Christian sanctuaries. Is it then phariseeism or pessimism to sound the note of alarm and to predict that at the present fearful rate of progress, the close of this decade may see the Protestant church as completely assimilated to nineteenth century secularism as the Roman Catholic church was assimilated to fourth century paganism?

And this is not all: the temple has been defiled. “For what agreement hath the temple of God with idols; for ye are the temple of God: as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.” Anything thrust into God’s place is an idol. When, in 2 Thess. 2: 3, 4, the culmination of the predicted apostasy is described, it is said of “the man of sin,” that “He as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” Here, I believe, we have a picture of the pope, thrusting himself into the seat of the Holy Spirit, assuming the title of “Vicar of Christ,” which belongs only to that “other Paraclete “whom Jesus promised to send down to fill his place during his absence. This sin of unseating the Holy Ghost in his own temple is so blasphemous that its author has no forgiveness, but is doomed to be destroyed “by the brightness of Christ’s coming.” And is there no danger that Protestantism may fall under the same guilt? What if the Holy Spirit is ejected from the choir, and his office as inspirer of sacred song committed to a quartette of unconverted musical artists? What if he be unseated from the pulpit and the intellectual discourse substituted for that preaching of the gospel” with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven” which God has appointed? What if he be set aside from the administration of the church, so that, for example, the settling of a pastor shall be made to turn on the votes of unconverted men called” the society,” when the Lord has spoken about” the flock of God over which the Holy Ghost hath made yon overseers “f Is there no peril that by this constant unseating of the Spirit he may be finally driven from his sanctuary, repeating as he redres the solemn lament of the Saviour:” Behold your house is left unto you desolate ’ ‘? Wonderful indeed is the patience of the Comforter! As the Lord Christ, when “there was no room for him in the inn,” condescended to lie in a manger, so the Lord, the Spirit, when crowded out of pulpit, and choir, and pew, and seat of authority, may retire into some obscure retreat of his church, — heart of humble saint or home of hidden disciple, — waiting patiently to be invited back to his rightful throne.

That he may, and sometimes does, finally withdraw from his temple, there can be no question. Do we not know of churches once fervently evangelical which are now lying under the doom of desertion by the Spirit? The writer thinks, with all charity, that he has seen such; churches upon which the Lord’s sentence has gone forth, “Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead.” The body may still remain indeed, the creeds and Confessions may continue intact, and the forms of worship may even be multiplied and vastly “enriched” as the years go on, but these outward forms are only memorials of a departed glory, like the death-mask which preserves the mold of features which have long since crumbled into dust.

If any reader thinks that what we are saying is simply “exposition,” we have to add that it is this and more; it is experience, and every word is confirmed in the mouth of heart-witnesses and conscience-witnesses and church-witnesses. When an evangelist goes to a congregation to hold special services, and finds after a day or two that the whole membership is in a state of suspended animation, let him take a candle, as the Hebrews did on the eve of Passover, and let him diligently search the house for leaven. Let him go into the choir gallery and learn whether a quartette of unsanctified musicians is seated there; let him then go into the vestry and inquire

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whether the winter’s programme of church amusements is still proceeding. He may go farther, but the writer bears solemn witness that even these two obstructions have been found sufficient to bar the way to all success in revival effort. It is written and cannot, without infinite peril, be forgotten, that the church is “an holy temple in the Lord’’ /that it is” bidlded together for an habitation of God in the Spirit” / that” the Lord is that Spirit,“” governing and administering therein with sovereign authority, and that only “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” Except he has sanctified instruments in every part of the house, he cannot move through the assemblies in victorious freedom of service.

Yet, so inveterate is the tendency to turn away from the Spirit and to listen to other voices, that “He that hath the seven Spirits of God,” warns his church from heaven in a seven-fold admonition repeated at the end of each succeeding chapter in her seven-fold apocalyptic history: “He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”