The Medical Missionary, vol. 18

2/12

January 20, 1909

“Long Beach Sanitarium” The Medical Missionary, 18, 3, p. 45.

ATJ

ALONZO T. JONES

THE readers of the MEDICAL MISSIONARY will, we are sure, be glad to know that our old friend and former associate in the Battle Creek Sanitarium—Dr. Winegar-Simpson—is now established in a fine sanitarium of their own at Long Beach, California. The building was originally erected as a hospital, so that with but small expense it could be made into the fine and well-equipped sanitarium that it now is, containing beautiful parlors and offices, wide halls, handy treatment rooms, and fifty nicely furnished rooms for patients. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.1

Being in that beautiful place of perpetual summer, in the presence of flowers and palm trees always, with a grand, wide-sweeping view of the ocean, and only a short distance from the beach, it is certainly an ideal place for invalids at any time; but more especially in winter. And we do not know where those who must leave the wild and severe winters of the North or East could find benefit more surely or more pleasantly than at this beautiful sanitarium by the summer sea—summer sea in winter. In the midst of the snow and storms of the Eastern or Northern winter, it may be difficult to realize that this is true as to this “sanitarium by the summer sea in winter.” But it is true. I have been there, and I know. Only lately I had the pleasure of visiting the Long Beach Sanitarium, and renewing acquaintance with Brother and Sister Simpson and their good family of nurses and helpers. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.2

Long Beach is about twenty miles from Los Angeles. The journey is pleasantly made in about forty-five minutes over a finely equipped double-track electric road; and the cars stop within little more than a block of the Sanitarium. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.3

The place was secured and opened by the present management last summer. Their work has been a success from the beginning; and I am sure that all the readers of the MEDICAL MISSIONARY will heartily join in wishing that only success and blessing shall attend them always and forever. ALONZO T. JONES. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.4

“Church Federation—II. Federation ‘Unity’ Is Not Christian Unity” The Medical Missionary, 18, 3, p. 45.

ATJ

ALONZO T. JONES

IN the Federal Council of the Churches, there were plainly apparent throughout two distinct phases and fields of endeavor; we might fairly say two distinct worlds. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.1

On the one side,—and this the primary,—there was the hard, cold, governmental, legislative, legal, formal, assuming and dominating, spirit and machinery of Federation and Confederation of men and of the ways of men. But when this was all laid aside and forgotten, as several times it was, and they were met only as Christians, to speak of the work and power of the common Gospel and the common faith to reach and save and lift up mankind and bless the world, then there was seen the warm, comforting, and helpful Christian spirit of the Gospel. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.2

And between these two the contrast was so clear and so great that it seemed each time that those who composed the Council could not fail to see it; and, in this, to see that “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” is so far beyond and above the governmental, legal, formal, merely human and machine, “unity” of Federation and Confederation that there is left neither place for it nor need of it. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.3

And this true unity—“the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”—is easier found than is the other, even by those who are seeking the other. All that is required is that they all look only to Christ as the one grand Center of all, drink into his one Spirit, and freely forget everything else. Then they would all be one immediately and by that alone. And this, entirely without any, and without any need of any, mere human contrivance and governmental machinery of the false and fleeting “unity” of Federation and Confederation. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.4

This truth is strikingly illustrated in this Federation itself. For instance, in this Council there were seven kinds of Methodists and five kinds of Presbyterians. Since, then, the Methodists have already built seven machines, and the Presbyterians have built five machines, solely to accentuate their differences and the absence of unity, is it now probable that the building of this extra and larger machine by all of them together, will be the means of uniting those seven kinds of Methodists and those five kinds of Presbyterians any more than they were united before? MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.5

In this Federation there are thirty-two separate denominations. Those, then, who compose this Federation have already built thirty-two machines solely to accentuate their differences and their total lack of unity. Is it, therefore, in any wise likely that, in the building of this extra machine by all of them together, they will be any more united in spirit or in any real Christian unity than they were before they built this “new” machine? MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.6

In a word, is Christian unity the fruit of human machinery? even though the machine that is to effect this unity be a thirty-third one built by the very ones who have already built thirty-two in emphasis of their decided lack of unity? and all of the thirty-two still held, and to be held, intact in the presence of the thirty-third one? No. No. No; that is not and never can be in any sense the way to Christian unity. The only unity that can ever by any possibility be thus attained is a mere political, governmental, formal, outward, human and worldly unity; and thus a unity never for piety, for only for power. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.7

Christian unity, the only true unity that can ever be, is toto cœle different from that; and as far higher as heaven is higher than the earth, and as the divine Spirit is higher than human machinery. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.8

Christian unity is unity not from the divine Spirit, nor thus by the divine Spirit; but is “the unity of the Spirit” Himself. Christian unity is not a unity derived by people from the divine Spirit, nor primarily caused among people by the divine Spirit. It is “the unity of the divine Spirit Himself; it is known only in the Spirit; and is obtained by believers in the receiving, and being possessed of, the Holy Spirit Himself. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 45.9

Christian unity is far more than union among Christians. It is far more than even the union of all Christians. Christian unity is nothing less, and nothing else, than the divine unity itself, possessing Christians. As excellency expressed in this Council itself by the most evangelical speaker in any or all of the evangelical speeches made in the Council, Christian unity “is not a unity of brotherhood” even; it is far more than that; for Jesus prayed “that they all may be one”—not as James and John are or may be one—not as Andrew and Peter are or may be one, BUT—“as thou Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they may be one IN US.” “That they may be one, even as WE are one.” “I in them, and thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in One.” MEDM January 20, 1909, page 55.1

Christian unity then is nothing less and nothing else than the divine unity itself, as that unity is in the very Godhead. The unity of the Godhead is the unity of Spirit in the Spirit; for the Godhead is only Spirit. And all who “have been made to drink into this one Spirit,” of the “one Lord,” through the “one faith” of the one Christ, and of the “one God and Father of all,” and are possessed of this “one Spirit,” and “live” and “walk” “in the Spirit,“—all these are one in Him and with Him in the very “unity of the Spirit,” which is the divine unity itself. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 55.2

This is further shown in the words of the Scripture defining Christian Fellowship: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.... This the is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth; but if we walk in the Light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another.” 1 John 1:3-7. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 55.3

By this Scripture it is plain that Christian fellowship is not primarily fellowship with one another; but fellowship with the Father and with the Son; and then fellowship with one another as the consequence of this fellowship with the Father and the Son. It is only when Christians “walk in the light as He is in the light,” that “we have fellowship one with another.” That Light is God. Walking in the Light is walking in God. Thus we have fellowship with him; and having fellowship with him we have it with one another. And this Life and Light is “declared,” so that, having the Life and walking in the Light, we may have fellowship with him; and this in order that we may have fellowship with those whose “fellowship is,” truly and primarily, “with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” MEDM January 20, 1909, page 55.4

That and that alone is Christian unity. And all so-called unity of federation, confederation, organization, and association, accomplished even by Christians, is of only human contrivance, is only a hollow shame, is a sheer counterfeit, and never Christian unity at all. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 55.5

All who are of this unity are one. They are one already by the very virtue of the divine unity itself; and they need no federations, confederations, organizations nor associations in order that they may be one. They are all one already; and all such contrivances as these are only the open confession that they have not the real unity of the Spirit and in the Spirit—the divine unity; and they must go about to supply the lack by construing a mere human, political and worldly “unity.” MEDM January 20, 1909, page 55.6

All who are of this true, this divine, unity are one. They do not have to feel around to see whether it is so. It is so already, and they know it; they know it by the Spirit of Him in whom alone the unity is found. And among all these “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus”; “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all;” and “the one God the Father of all is over and through all and in you all;” with “the Son also himself subject” unto God even the Father, “that God may be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15:28. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 55.7

That is Christian unity and nothing else is. And this is only the revelation of “the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in One all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth; even in him.” Ephesians 1:9, 10. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 56.1

The “unity” which the Federal Council of Churches has in mind and aims at—Federation Unity—is of infinitely too low an order, and when attained is utterly of the wrong kind. And yet it must in truth be said that this “unity” is only of the same old order and kind as that of all the denominations. It is precisely the order and kind of “unity” that characterizes denominationalism of every sort everywhere. Indeed, this great Federation of the denominations, with its utterly inadequate and mistaken views of Christian unity, is only the logical culmination of essential denominationalism, with its inadequate and mistaken views as to what Christian unity really is. This whole scheme of the Federation of Churches to accomplish federation unity is only the same, and the reproduction and perpetuation of the same, old papal notion and papal kind of “unity.” And all that can ever come of it is the living likeness of that same old thing over again. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 56.2

But thank the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against it wherever found; whether in a single denomination, or in the great federation of many denominations in the likeness of the papacy, or in the papacy itself. The time has come when Christian unity as it is in truth—“the unity of the Spirit”—will be known and manifested. For now is the time when “the mystery of God should be finished” (Revelation 10:7; and this mystery is “God manifest” in the flesh, “Christ in you the hope of glory,” through the divine Spirit; and thus the divine Spirit making manifest the divine unity in Christians and so manifesting true Christian unity. And the only culmination of this true Christian unity is that “glorious Church” which the divine Lord will “present to Himself” without “spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish” at his “glorious appearing.” Ephesians 5:27. MEDM January 20, 1909, page 56.3