Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Now I do not think that the church will ever have the moving power that it once had until it returns to the mutual love that once animated it. Jesus Christ said, we read in John 13, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another."

For Christian fellowship is not to be based on the amount of creedal knowledge that various people have in their heads, but on the outgoing life of Christ, which they have in their hearts.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's Word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

The application of God's Word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled "The Love of the Brethren."

Believers often sing this well-known hymn: "Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above." Indeed, the fellowship that exists between true believers must reflect the love and communion that exists between God the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ.

Does genuine love for your brothers and sisters in Christ flow from your heart and shine forth in your life? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter 12 and verse 10. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled "The Love of the Brethren."

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto you our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We need you in this hour, for we have nothing of our own that we can give to needy hearts. Our well is dry unless you make the hidden springs to flow. And thus we ask you to bless us in this hour and warm our hearts with your word by your spirit. All these things we ask in the name of your dear Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We continue in our study in Romans coming today to the 12th chapter in the 9th and 10th verse. "Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor." Now the salvation that God has given us in Christ has many aspects. Very frequently, salvation is preached in such a way that the impression is given that it is little more than an escape from the torments of hell. Salvation is so much more than this that to limit it thus creates a distortion.

It should go without saying that salvation does have a definite relationship to our past and our future. The sins of the past which separated us from God have been removed because of the substitutionary death of our Savior. We have been turned totally around so that we are no longer headed for eternal separation from God, but toward eternal association with him in heaven, to be occupied with him in the government and administration of the universe.

But salvation has a great present application that is to cover every phase of our life upon this earth. Now while it's true that our temporal life is but for a few years, four or five score at the most, that temporal life is very important to us now because it is being lived drop by drop, moment by moment, as God allows us to live it. Our salvation is adapted to this present life as well as to saving us from hell and taking us to heaven.

In Romans 14:8, we read, "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself." And because we're born with a nature that must love, God has made provision for us to be brought into a group. The assembly of believers, the true church of Jesus Christ. There we will have the opportunity of exercising our nature of love as God intended us to do.

Some time ago, a group of psychologists issued a study in which it was stated that the problem of juvenile delinquency was not so much a problem of an individual feeling unloved as it is a problem of an individual being unable to exercise his love towards others. Now this is certainly true in the light of the Word of God. Our text in the King James Version reads, "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another."

The later revision reads, "Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor." One of the most important functions of the church of Jesus Christ is the existence of the local congregation, where believers in Christ gathered together in him can know one another intimately and can fulfill the deep need that is in each of us to move outwardly in love for others.

I was an only son, and while there were older sisters in my family, I had no brother. I did not know what I had missed until I myself became the father of two sons and saw their relationship together. As they grew older and passed from the era of childish disagreements, I saw a strong bond grow between them quite different than the bond that existed between them and their sisters.

And I learned what the Word of God meant when it says that all believers in Christ are to live in brotherly love one toward another. The true church of Jesus Christ is to be a community in which the members joined together find the occasion for developing each his own personality by becoming expansive towards the other members of the community. The bond that binds us is a bond that can be described as nothing less than the true love that exists between good brothers.

We do not stop to consider the fact that there have been cases where brothers have hated each other. We recognize that the history of the human race has brother murder on its first page. Cain killed Abel. This is sufficient to show us what man is by nature and to point the way to grace so that we may be transformed by the life and light of God. There have been many families with Cain and Abel, and the hatreds and feuds that arise from such close relationships are the most terrible of all.

They seem unnatural because they reveal so clearly the evil nature of the truly natural. But we're concerned with the supernatural. For the love which is described and required here is a love that comes from God. Let us look at the main words of this biblical sentence. The first thing that strikes us is that it takes four English words to translate two Greek words. It takes "kindly affectioned" to translate *philostorgos* and "brotherly love" to translate *philadelphia*.

The first of these terms is found only here and one must be especially careful when studying a term that is found in no other verse in the Bible. The Greek word *storge* is used by Xenophon, Plutarch, and other classical writers to describe the mutual love of parents and children, also of husbands and wives. There is an idea of tenderness involved in the expression. The revision that appeared at the beginning of this century translates the whole phrase "in love of the brethren, tenderly affectioned one to another."

Oh, how far our modern churches of all denominations are from this description. Indeed, the most widely circulated books of etiquette go so far as to say that the politeness of church attendance demands what really amounts to frigid aloofness. According to these books, if the visitor to a church sees a friend, he may nod discreetly across the room or I suppose pause for a brief moment of restrained greeting on the sidewalk after the service.

Well, this was not the way it was done in the early church. As the centuries have passed, the church has become more and more formal, departing from God's original intention for it as a place of great fellowship among people who have become more than friends because the Lord has redeemed them. If our churches have become cold, it is because individual members have neglected the command that is set forth in our text.

In our search for numbers, we have brought in the mixed multitude including hearts that have not been transformed and which are incapable of true love in Christ. The result has been that which is described in the Book of Revelation. Through the messenger of the church of Ephesus, the living Lord speaks to the church. We read it in Revelation 2:4, "But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first."

No church should be so large that its members cannot know each other in a personal way. Gigantic congregations cannot be justified by the Word of God. Originally, the church was in a local house and friends and neighbors came together there for common fellowship and mutual helpfulness and love. They were gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the number of Christians increased, there were more and more similar gatherings but always centered in a private home.

If in later centuries men began to speak of parishes, they were still referring back to the early practice. For the word "parish" comes from two Greek words, *para oikos*, which mean literally "alongside a house." Now I do not think that the church will ever have the moving power that it once had until it returns to the mutual love that once animated it. Jesus Christ said, we read in John 13, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another."

When I was a boy, we sang a hymn that is not used as much in the last half of our century as it was in the beginning. "Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above." Now here is a true expression of the state that Christ desired for those who should follow him. It's not merely a quatrain of pious phraseology, but a rich deep truth.

The tie that binds the hearts of true believers is indeed a blessed thing. Those who are truly alive in Christ know what it means to meet other believers who have the same redemptive life. For Christian fellowship is not to be based on the amount of creedal knowledge that various people have in their heads, but on the outgoing life of Christ which they have in their hearts. Christian fellowship is not a matter of light, but of life.

It is the meeting of hearts that have been made new in Jesus Christ. Such a fellowship is indeed like that above. The fellowship that exists in heaven is that between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is a oneness that could never have originated in fallen man. It is the oneness of the Godhead. It is a unity that is divine. We must be very careful in our day when we use the word "unity" so that we use it in a biblical way.

Because that great beautiful word has been emptied of its truthful content and made to apply to a so-called unity which comes from man seeking to rejoin himself to God instead of accepting the redemption that comes through the blood of Jesus Christ. For anyone to think it possible for a human being to get himself in tune with the infinite or to have any possible acceptance with God apart from the expiation of sin by God in Christ is to create a bogus counterfeit of Christian truth.

But if we begin where God would have us begin, if we will acknowledge the horrible heritage which we have received from Adam and recognize the necessity of salvation through the work of Christ, then we can be brought back into the oneness with God which was lost in the original rebellion when Adam declared his independence of God. Such oneness among believers is the answer which God the Father gives to the Lord Jesus Christ because of his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The night before Jesus died, he looked forward to the vast number of men and women who would be redeemed by his death and he prayed the Father in these terms, we read in John 17: "I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one."

"I do not pray for these only," and this is still Jesus praying, "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who are to believe in me through their word." And that means those of us who live in this 20th century. "And what does he pray? That they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."

"The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me." Now the second verse of that old hymn speaks of this relationship between believers. We sing, "We share our mutual woes, our mutual burdens bear, and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear."

Now this is indeed a fair description of what the Lord meant the association of believers to be. The early church was gathered together through the living presence of Christ in each individual. These believers shared their mutual woes and obeyed the great verse which says, "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." If we read the Acts of the Apostles, we can see that the early church lived in this way.

They had all things in common and no man dared call anything his own. The historical account reads in Acts 4: "Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all."

"There was not a needy person among them. For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet and distribution was made to each as any had need." Now let it not be said for even one instant that this was communism. For the context clearly shows that each man had the right of possession of private property.

What they gave they gave willingly, as a brother might sell a house to pay the hospital bill of his mother or a brother. It was all a matter of the love of the heart and of no other constraint whatsoever. There was no dictatorship of the proletariat for there was no dictatorship at all. There was love, full, free-flowing, and it pervaded all and brought the fruits of love in its flood.

This last summer, we were out in the island of Formosa in connection with our trip to the Far East. There we saw a leper colony and we were told of two Christians who were lepers living in a little hut getting their handful of rice each day. The colony was full, no more patients could be taken. The lepers that wanted to get in had to wait till somebody died. And the missionary told us how that this Christian couple said, "Bring this leper in and let him sleep in our house."

And someone said, "But what is he going to eat?" They said, "Well, we'll just make rice enough for two, be rice enough for three." And believe me, they didn't have much to begin with. But that's the way the church began 2,000 years ago and that's the way it frequently is out on the mission field. We've lost very much because we're so rich and prosperous, but our hearts must always be ready to help those who are in need.

Now among believers who are bound together in such a oneness, the sympathizing tear frequently flows. We cannot see those we love come to any sorrow or grief without having the compassion of Christ toward them. Listen to the following contrast. Before the war, I had the occasion of visiting in far western China. In one of the great cities of the west, I walked the narrow streets with a missionary.

As we turned a corner, a terrible stench, more terrible than the usual stenches of an oriental city, offended our nostrils. I wondered at the source and the missionary pointed to a beggar who was seated beside a dead body lying next to a wall. A straw hat covered the face of a corpse, but the bare feet were exposed. On the cheap cloth that formed the dress of the dead man, there were a few coppers lying where passers had thrown them.

I was told that in a day or two as the stench became even greater, there would be enough coppers to buy the rude coffin that would be needed for the disposal of the body. It should be remembered that at that time there were no municipal services or health organizations that would take care of such a need. It was Madame Chiang Kai-shek who pointed out that the Chinese worship their ancestors but had never built an old folks' home.

In like manner, paganism makes little or no provision for the desperate needs of its individuals. It was into such a world that Christianity came as a breath of fresh air, as a flowing river of love. Men and women were drawn to each other because they had been drawn to Jesus Christ. They were moved by this new love which the world had never seen or known before.

They were immediately drawn to each other, shared each other's woes, bore each other's burdens, and comforted one another in times of sickness and trouble and sorrow. It should be realized that every movement for mutual support that exists in the world today has come as a byproduct of Christianity. The formation of mutual burial societies, mutual insurance companies, fraternal orders, fraternities, hospitals, and all other forms of mutual help and assistance have come out of the wavering structure of the church.

There were no such things in the world before Jesus Christ. But as the church left its first love, there were those who had seen what had happened among those who strengthened one another and they grasped at the shadow of what they had seen. Indeed, we must never forget that the word "communism" is derived from the same Latin root as "communion." God gave to his church the true holy communion.

Men took the phrase and applied it to a religious ordinance of partaking of the bread and the cup which was to remind us of the death of Christ. Holy communion should have been the term that was applied to helping the needy and lifting the fallen. When the church became rich and frigid, the true holy communion disappeared. The form took its place and into the vacuum has come unholy communism.

There are those who fear for the rise of communism in our day. There is only one dam that can hold back its rising flood. It is the restoration of true love in the hearts of multitudes of believers. We must come to the place where we look not every man on his own things, but also on the things of others. We must see what we have been saved from and apply that same redeeming love of Christ to those round about us throughout all the world.

We must be ready to outdo one another in showing honor. We must recognize that when we touch other men for Christ, we're touching Christ himself. The cup of cold water is to be given in his name. We visit those in prison or the sick or the hungry and Jesus says, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me."

It is his love, beginning in heaven and going back to heaven and yet circling down to earth through us. There is nothing else like it in the universe, the love of Christ that God loves out through us to the needy round about us. And our God and Father, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit will take this simple message and use it in multitudes of our hearts that we may become more like Christ and be ready to help all who are in need wherever they may be. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): As brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, we must give honor and preference to one another and demonstrate kindness and tender affection for each other in authentic Christian love. We hope you have benefited from today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. Our message was entitled "The Love of the Brethren." To listen to additional teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at alliancenet.org.

An audio copy of today's teaching is also available by calling us toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled "The Love of the Brethren," or simply request message number R12-22. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled *Becoming a Christian*. If someone asked you, "How can I become a Christian?" would you be able to give a clear, biblically accurate response?

Too often the answer to this question is not clearly stated from our pulpits and the average believer is not always able to give a correct explanation. This free booklet clearly outlines the biblical path to becoming a Christian and experiencing the wonderful gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Ask for your free copy of *Becoming a Christian* when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. The Alliance also produces the radio broadcasts *The Bible Study Hour* with the late James Montgomery Boice, and *Every Last Word* featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken.

For a full list of radio stations carrying our programs, please visit us online at alliancenet.org. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of our listeners. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888.

Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. You may also write us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at alliancenet.org. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken.

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