The Medical Missionary, vol. 16
April 3, 1907
“Christian Loyalty.—II” The Medical Missionary, 16, 14, p. 106.
ALONZO T. JONES
IN the preceding article it was made plain that whether it be to God, to Christ, or to the Holy Spirit, the Christian’s relationship is only to a person. Christian loyalty, therefore, can never be of any other character than loyalty to that divine Person. MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.1
Among Christians there can never be any such thing as parties or divisions. This is true not only in the nature of the case, but also in the word of Inspiration. In the earliest times of Christianity when such a thing appeared it was so met by the Spirit of Inspiration as to annihilate forever all possibility of it among all who would be Christians indeed. MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.2
At Corinth there appeared a tendency to personal preferences, to parties, and partisanship. One said, “I am of Paul;” another, “I am of Apollos;” another, “I of Cephas.” But notice how the thing was met: “Was Paul crucified for you?” That one all-penetrating question reveals forever the truth that Christian loyalty can never be to any person but the One who was crucified for us. And any person who should ever ask or expect the loyalty of Christians to any person other than the crucified One, would in that very thing show disloyalty to Him; would in that very thing, so far as in him lay, destroy all Christian loyalty. MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.3
And when this is true concerning all persons, how much more must it be true of things. MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.4
No Christian can ever be loyal to a “cause,” for the sufficient reason that no “cause” was ever crucified for anybody, no “cause” ever created anybody, no “cause” ever made intercession for anybody “with groanings which can not be uttered.” MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.5
No Christian can be loyal even to “the church;” and for the same all-sufficient reason that no church was ever crucified for anybody, never created anybody, and never made intercession for anybody “with groanings which can not be uttered.” MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.6
Yet there has been much made of “loyalty to the Church,” and “loyalty to the Cause.” Indeed, there has been more than one system that would “compass sea and land to make one proselyte” to a “cause” or to “the church,” or to a certain order or system; and in the doing of it violate every principle of loyalty to Christ, to God and to the Holy Spirit. MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.7
It is impossible to be otherwise. For, as already shown, loyalty to any person other than God, in Christ, under the Holy Spirit, or to anything, is in itself plain disloyalty to the divine Person who was crucified for us, who created us, and who makes intercession for us. And when such is the situation and course in the very beginning that all this is forgotten or ignored, it naturally enough follows that in manifesting loyalty to another person or to some “cause” or order or system, “anything to win,” anything that will make the “cause” prevail, can be counted perfectly legitimate. MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.8
The Jews, in loyalty to their “cause” and to make their cause to prevail, could blaspheme the Holy Spirit, repudiate God, and crucify the Lord Jesus. From the beginning to the end of the great apostasy, in loyalty to “the Church” those who professed to be the very chief and exemplary Christians could violate every principle of Christianity, could do everything that dishonors Christ, and could persecute to the death those who were Christians indeed. In the Reformation there was renewed in the world loyalty to God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit—loyalty to the Divine Person. But ere long this was forgotten for only a “cause,” and Protestantism, and this even as an “ism,” was espoused. Then in loyalty to the “cause,” Protestantism, so far as it had opportunity; went over the same ground as Catholicism before it; and each party, each sect in turn, went over the same ground as the one before it—always loyal to some thing, to some “ism” instead of to the divine Person. And the whole of history has abundantly shown, as has been well expressed that men “will fight to the death and persecute without pity” in “loyalty” or a “cause,” who could not be persuaded to entertain a single serious thought of loyalty to the crucified and, sanctifying Person. MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.9
On the other hand, through all the period of that dismal history there has been a bright train of blessed individuals who have been loyal, only to the divine Person, loving him, walking with him, living in him. These have been the Christians, and only Christians, always. They have been persecuted, afflicted, tormented, cast out, and this because they would not fight and persecute and sin in behalf of some “cause,” or some party, or some “ism;” but to these always loyalty to the divine Person who created us, who was crucified by us, who intercedes for us, and who sanctifies and saves us, was the only true loyalty of any soul. MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.10
And such, and such only, is Christian loyalty everywhere and forever. MEDM April 3, 1907, page 106.11