THE CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
[p. 6] THE CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
The first and greatest desire of our Lord for His disciples on earth, was that they should be one after the same manner of unity as exists between Himself and the Father. The oneness of all saints in mind and judgment would have been the most impressive evidence to the world; hence He says, “that the world may believe that thou hast sent me”. Nothing could so much arrest, and tend to convince the mass of men in general, as the astounding, novel, unheard-of fact, that one mind and judgment was maintained by all believers in Christ; there could be no greater evidence that the one God ruled and guided each; that man with all his peculiar feelings and self-concentration had given way, and that one holy, comprehensive mind and judgment directed and governed each and all. The old saying, ‘every man for himself’, is entirely contravened by the great truth that the saints should be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment. It is plain that with God there cannot be two opinions about anything, and therefore if there be difference of opinion in men, there must be a departure from the divine mind on either side, or, as is oftener the case, on both sides. It is therefore a very grave thing to differ in opinion from a saint, for it must be either that I am advocating what is not of God, or that he is. There should not be such a thing as agreeing to differ, though there may be a tolerance of difference of judgment.
Once it is admitted that it is the natural mind in us which hinders the true and clear acceptance of God’s mind, there is at least an opportunity afforded for exercising oneself before the Lord as to the correctness of one’s views and opinions. We learn from John 17 that we are either of the world or of the Father. If we are of the Father our opinions must be in perfect harmony; no one could see differently from another;
[p. 7] some might see more than others, but all would see in the same direction. There may be different sizes of the same kind of tree, but that is quite another thing to there being different trees with different ways and rules of growth, etc. If we had no judgment of our own, and if our minds were like a tablet on which nothing was ever written, and on which nothing could be written but the word of God, we could not have any mind but the mind of the Lord; and this is the great end of the Scriptures; it is not merely that they give us light about certain things, but they form us into the mind of God about everything. You will never find that you learn the Lord’s mind from any number of subjects which you may have studied in the Scriptures; you must study the revelation of God as one whole, and as you take it in, your mind begins to regard things as He does. Isolated subjects or doctrines to any extent can only inform you respecting themselves, and though quite necessary they are of comparatively small moment to the great importance of being in the current of God’s judgment about everything; and this wondrous favour you can only obtain, by getting a full apprehension, if not comprehension, of all the revelation which He has been pleased to give us. A student of geography must learn the globe before he can determine the latitude of any particular country, so must the christian student learn the scope and intent of the Bible, before he can truly and fully define particular subjects or doctrines.
There are, I may say, four causes for the difference of opinion which, alas, is so wide-spread among us, and so humbling to us all. What can be a more humiliating picture than to see members of the one body, each of whom is a temple of the Holy Spirit, holding and advocating with all the earnestness of their abilities, opinions directly at variance with one another?
The first cause is ignorance. I think many are not sufficiently enlightened as to the word of God so as to be able to see or to accept what others see to be positively [p. 8] revealed. Thomas is an instance of ignorance when he said, “We know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?” Nicodemus was ignorant; the eunuch was ignorant, and Apollos was ignorant. There is one distinct mark about one who is simply ignorant, and that is, he likes to be informed, and is really receptive; in those cases, and I suppose in every case where there is a sense of ignorance, light is in mercy supplied through some means. Mere ignorance, where there is not will, is no hindrance to the Spirit of God; hence the apostle says, “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you”, Philippians 3: 15. Many are ignorant now of dispensational truth, and they argue that what was approved of by God at one time for His people is consistent for the present time; and surely nothing could cause a greater difference of opinion than darkness as to the varied dispensations from Adam downwards in contrast with a clear apprehension of them. One sincere believer will argue for war and earthly glory because David was a great soldier and a mighty king, whereas another, who sees the rejection of the King of kings, will know that all man’s glory has passed away and that the only true greatness now is through the Spirit of God. The difference of opinion between two who hold to each of these creeds, must be so wide, so opposed, that there could be no point of agreement anywhere. They differ so essentially that everything said or done bears the mark of the difference, and yet the mass of believers is in this ignorance of dispensational truth at this present moment. The rejection of Christ is not seen, and there are very few who really and simply see the present period to be characteristically the assembly period; they do not deny the assembly, but they do not see that it was formed and disclosed consequent on the rejection of Christ by man upon earth, so that the assembly must be characteristically heavenly and not earthly.
[p. 9] Now the reason why this ignorance is not enlightened and corrected is, that with the mass it is not simply ignorance as it was with Nicodemus, Thomas, or Mary Magdalene; it has grown into prejudice, which is another cause for the difference of opinion. Prejudice springs from being educated in a religious system. The conscience has been under the conviction that it is subject to the only true religion, and hence, the nearer the religion comes to the truth in external form and ceremony, the more difficult it is to free the conscience of that bias which I call prejudice. It is an immense thing to liberate the conscience from any religious imposition or ordinance founded on the authority of God’s word. This was the prejudice of the Jews, and it ruled them to such an extent that they thought they did God service in killing the christians. “They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge”. It is not merely the details of a religion which it is difficult to eradicate, but whatever has laid hold of the conscience as a special claim, is clung to with tenacity. And thus it is with believers; what circumcision was to the Jews, so to many christians at this moment is the law, as the rule of life, as well as the two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s supper, in various modes of administration. Prejudice judges everything, even the word of God, in the light of the religious dogma which governs the conscience, and there is no breaking down prejudice but by really setting aside man in death. Hence the apostle Paul, a man of the greatest prejudice - one who could say “after the .. . straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee” - was called out to be the witness in divine power of complete superiority over all prejudices.
The third cause is expediency. This often occurs where there is neither ignorance nor prejudice, and simply arises from looking at things in relation to man instead of in relation to God. James from expediency pressed and induced Paul to show his zeal for the law, Acts 21: 20. Usefulness is generally grounded on expediency, which [p. 10] urges the claim of need, apart from the mind and pleasure of the Lord. This was Martha’s mistake, her work was a useful and a necessary one seeing as man sees; but she consulted her own mind and not the Lord’s. It is amazing the divergence of opinion which must exist between a Martha and a Mary; the more expedient the thing seems to be, the more difficult it is to renounce it for the word of God. Nothing seemed more natural than that David, sitting in his own house of cedars, should want to build a house for the Lord; and though it was good that it was in his heart, yet the word of the Lord countermanded it. It would be as difficult to effect an agreement between the man of expediency and the man of faith who is simply led by the word, as to make a man looking eastward see what the man looking westward sees. The man of expediency can always reason well, and has plenty of evidence to establish his argument. The man of faith sees what God says, and waits in patience to fulfil His mind, but there can be no oneness of judgment between them.
The last cause whereby the mind is warped and hindered from judging according to God is covetousness. Covetousness is desiring something for one’s own gratification. There is the idol in the heart, and all truth is qualified or reduced in order to spare this idol or taste. We find in Ezekiel 14: 4, “Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols”. If I come simply to the word of God I shall always find that the thing which most hinders me is the one which the word most rebukes; but if I am determined at all cost to save my idol, whatever it be, I must limit the action of the word, and this limitation will inevitably run through every subject in the word which I take up. Have we not discovered how differently and boldly we insist on a passage, when a covetous course has been surrendered,
[p. 11] which was garbled and glossed over formerly? The covetous man not only differs from the fearless asserter of the full truth, but he shuns the teacher, as the Galatians and all that were in Asia shunned Paul. There is always a twofold action of the word of God; one is deepening in your soul the truth you have truly and simply received, the other is correcting, and exposing either the working of the flesh in you, or its tendency; and when the heart is simple it likes both; and thus it is led into the mind of the Lord, and all who are so must have the same mind and the same judgment.
May the Lord exercise our hearts and consciences, that we may not be harbouring anything which is a hindrance to oneness of mind and judgment, for His name’s sake.