Updated
21 May 2005
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What Do We Believe?
The Christadelphians are a world-wide community
established over 150 years ago. They are bound together
by a common faith in the Gospel as preached by the Lord
Jesus Christ and his apostles in the first century.
Who are the
Christadelphians?
There must be many people
who feel that there is something outstandingly
significant about the person and the teaching of Jesus
Christ. Yet when they survey "Christianity",
both in its history and its modern forms, they find a
wide variety of churches and communities, all with their
differing foundations, teachings and practices. Feeling
bewildered by the existence of so many groups claiming
the name "Christian", they may well give up the
quest for "the truth" as hopeless. This short
page is written to draw the attention of the interested
enquirer to the existence of a community of believers in
Christ, calling themselves "Christadelphians",
organised in groups found throughout the world. Wherever
they exist they have a fellowship founded upon an agreed
basis of beliefs. Fundamental to their faith is the
principle that what Christ and his apostles taught in the
first century was truth, and it is still the truth today.
The Holy Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, are
their sole authority.
The community has no paid
ministry, no robes or elaborate ceremonies, nor has it
any "head of church" or legislative council.
Their ecclesias (the New Testament word for `church')
organise their own affairs, though the pattern is similar
everywhere. Like the "elders" of New Testament
times, members are appointed to manage the affairs of the
ecclesia and to preside at its meetings. At the meeting
for the "breaking of bread" on "the first
day of the week" there are hymns, prayers, readings
from the Scriptures and an exhortation. The bread and the
wine circulate among all the "brothers and sisters"present.
Voluntary collections are taken to meet all the expenses.
If some of the early followers of the apostles in the
first century could attend such meetings, it is believed
that they would immediately recognise what was going on,
for it is patterned on New Testament worship. Like Jesus'
early disciples, they also proclaim his message of life
to all willing to hear; they instruct their children and
young people in Sunday Schools and Youth Groups, and
promote the life of faith and prayer, and obedience to
Christ's commands, among their members.
In the early days, members
found that to preserve their identity they had to give
themselves a name. "Christadelphians" was
chosen because it means "brothers (and of course
sisters) in Christ". It has been used to distinguish
the community for more than 120 years. Since 1864 The
Christadelphian Magazine has appeared monthly, issued
from Birmingham, U.K. It provides informative articles
and contains items of news from ecclesias worldwide.
Pamphlets and books are also produced for the use of
members and their friends. Other organisations throughout
the world promote the preaching of the Gospel in areas
where the ecclesia is small or non-existent, and there
are special committees responsible for preaching the
Gospel in other countries. Still another organisation
circulated typed exhortations and Bible studies to those
members who live some distance form an ecclesia. The care
of the infirm and elderly has been seen as a pressing
need: there are several Homes in various countries.
Voluntary contributions are made to help individual
members in need.
But why should the
Christadelphians deserve any more attention than other
groups of "believers", many claiming to be
based on the Bible? The brief answer is this: their
understanding of the teachings of the Bible is quite
different from that of other denominations. The
difference arose from the conviction of one, J. Thomas,
that the teachings he was encountering in "Christendom"
150 years ago did not truly represent the faith of Christ
and his apostles. Persuaded that the truth must be sought
only in the Bible, he embarked upon a conscientious study
of the Scriptures. He made no claim to any vision or
personal revelation. He eventually came to an
understanding of "the gospel of the Kingdom of God
and name of Jesus Christ" (Acts 8:12) which was
different in a number of important points from that of
the churches and other religious sects. His labours
attracted the support of others who were convinced of the
validity of his conclusions. This understanding of Bible
truths has been rigorously tested by free enquiry for 150
years. The distinctive views of the Christadelphians
today are the result of this process.
What is the message of the
Bible, and why is it different from popular "Christian"
ideas? It arises from the important principle that the
Bible must be understood as a whole. It is easy to uphold
certain teachings by accepting some parts of the
Scriptures and neglecting others. For instance it is
popular today to dismiss much of the Old Testament. Yet
these documents - the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets -
were accepted by Jesus and his apostles as "the word
of the Lord". The Bible is a unity: the revelation
of God for mankind begins in the pages of the Old
Testament and is continued and expanded in the New. The
"whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27) is to be
derived from the whole book. Christadelphians accept that
all of the Bible is the wholly inspired Word of God (2
Timothy 3:16). They therefore read it carefully and
regularly. A reading plan, called the Bible Companion,
enables them to read the Old Testament once in a year,
and the New Testament twice. There is another point of
great importance: if man is truly to understand the
Bible, he must be prepared for the fact that it is
absolutely frank about all issues, and primarily about
ourselves. It id the most realistic book in the world,
confronting the stark issues of life without wishful
thinking. Human problems, both of the race and of
individuals, are frankly assessed. The origin of the
problems is explained and so is the solution to them. The
Bible is that only source in the world to do this in
harmony with the facts of history and of human life.
The Bible portrays God as
the Creator of the heavens and the earth. He is "the
King eternal, incorruptible, invisible...to whom be
honour and power everlasting" (1 Timothy 1:17). Yet
by His Holy Spirit, the expression of His power, He
controls the affairs of the world according to His
ultimate purpose with mankind. Holiness and truth are His
attributes; there can be no deceit or falsehood with Him,
nor can He regard with indifference persistent human
rebellion. Yet He describes Himself as a God "full
of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous
in mercy...forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and
that will by no means clear the guilty" (Exodus 34:6,7,
R.V.). This is a portrait of an Eternal Creator, a
supremely moral Being, who is also the Father of those
who seek Him according to His Word. An it is only in this
Word - in the Bible - that man can learn of Him.
There is a common
impression that the Bible is not really interested in the
earth and what happens there. Its major concern is said
to be "heaven", the abode of the righteous.
This is a great mistake. The revelation of God's purpose
shows Him to be positively concerned with the earth and
the human race upon it. As He said himself: "Thus
saith the Lord that created the heavens...that formed the
earth and made it...he created it not in vain: he formed
it to be inhabited" (Isaiah 45:18). God is concerned
with the earth as a whole, and the nations inhabiting it.
The careers of great empires are under God's control and
their fate is predicted. The severe troubles of the
modern world are all forseen, and so is their solution:
the establishment by God of a new order in the earth as
the only means by which the waywardness of mankind can be
controlled. The Bible, far from being "other-wordly",
is realistic and practical in its concern for the fate of
the whole human race. Its vision of the future is
worldwide in its scope, for "the earth shall be
filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as
the water cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14). Though
this prophecy was uttered 600 years before Christ, it
represents the world-view of the whole Bible. It is
entirely relevant to our modern troubled condition and is
unique in the history of our planet.
The careful reader of the
Bible will be in no doubt that the nation of Israel has
occupied a special place in the purpose of God. But many
people today find this difficult to reconcile with the
nature of the modern State of Israel. How did the "special
relationship" arise? The Bible account shows us that
the human race, in the early centuries of its existence,
massively abandoned the true worship of God, so that
"the earth was corrupt...and filled with violence"
(Genesis 6:11), thus bringing the divine judgement of the
Flood. It was not long, however, before mankind began to
show again the same tendencies to evil. God therefore
determined to build up a special community, by whom His
Word would be preserved. So he chose Abraham, a man of
faith, and made outstanding promises to him and his
descendants, involving the future possession of the land
of Canaan (later Palestine or Israel) and blessings for
all the nations (Genesis 12:1-3; 13:14,15). Abraham's
descendants were brought out of Egypt by God's power and
were eventually settled in 12 tribes in the Promised
Land, Israel. There they lived under the Law, a system of
regulations given them by God through Moses, with the
intention of training them to be a people devoted to His
service. In the following centuries the Jews repeatedly
neglected the worship of God and turned to worship the
idols of their pagan neighbours, and as a result were
driven out of their land by the invasion of foreign
powers. They lived for centuries scattered and
persecuted, as God had warned them would happen (read
Deuteronomy 28). Nevertheless, despite their waywardness,
the Jews preserved the Word of God both in the land of
Israel and during their exile in other countries.
But the promises God made
to Abraham did not only concern the nation of Israel. He
was to be "a father of many nations" (Genesis
17:5), though significantly it would be one special
Jewish descendant who was to ensure the fulfilment of the
promise of blessing for all peoples. This descendant,
spoken about so long before, was the Lord Jesus Christ.
Later promises made to David, one of Israel's kings,
filled out further details of what Jesus would
accomplish, and of how "God shall give unto him the
throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the
house of Jacob for ever" (Luke 1:32,33). God's
purpose with Israel, then, was to make them a training
centre for the faithful in the pagan centuries before
Christ. Of them Jesus was born, to proclaim the good news
that his faithful servants become children of Abraham by
faith and so inherit the promises. So the Apostle Paul
wrote to the Galatians: "If ye be Christ's, then are
ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise"
(Galatians 3:27-29).
From the dawn of history
men have sought consolation in pleasing views about
themselves and their ultimate fate, because in this way
their natural desires have been satisfied. The Bible,
however, encourages no wishful thinking about human
nature. It is utterly realistic about ourselves, our
powers and our weaknesses. We were created, so it tells
us, "in the image of God"; that is, we have
been given wonderful powers of mind. We can reason; we
have a power of conscience, warning us when wrong is
being done; and we have a power of will, enabling us to
make decisions affecting our conduct and so our lives.
Yet we have strong natural desires which demand
satisfaction: the pressure to indulge ourselves in many
ways, to acquire material possessions, and to defend our
pride. Human history is a record of the way in which men
and women have allowed their desires to dominate them.
Strife and suffering have been the inevitable result.
Why does human nature
behave like this? Because, says the Bible, the first
human beings having been presented with a free choice,
preferred to please themselves and to reject the clear
command of God. It was an act of rebellion which the
Bible calls sin. Its consequence was mortality, the
condition in which all human life ends naturally in death.
We die because we are mortal. If left to ourselves, we
"perish" (to use the Bible phrase) - that is,
we cease to exist. The dead lie unconscious in the grave;
they suffer no pain, but "sleep in the dust of the
earth" (Daniel 12:2). The widespread idea that man
possesses an "immortal soul" and goes on living
after death (usually "in heaven") is definitely
not a Bible teaching. The Church of England Commission
which produced in 1945 its report Towards the Conversion
of England, stated clearly that the idea of the immortal
soul "owes its origin to Greek, not to Bible,
sources" (page 23). The theory was early absorbed
into the teaching of the Church from paganism, and is an
important example of a number of changes in original
Christian beliefs made over the centuries. But there is
hope. The grave need not be the end for us, as we shall
see.
There is one very
important result of a right understanding of human nature:
it enables us to make sense of the life and the death of
Jesus Christ by making clear their significance in the
purpose of God for us. The Gospel of Luke describes how
Jesus was born of the young Israelite woman, Mary of
Nazareth, by the power of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus was
born Son of man through his mother. Thus he inherited our
physical nature in the fullest sense and as a result was
"tempted in all points like as we are" (Hebrews
4:15). But he was also the Son of God, because God was
literally his Father. Experiencing within himself the
desire for self-satisfaction, he overcame every
temptation. Thus he was able to submit to his Father at
the crisis of Gethsemane declaring: "Not my will,
but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). So Jesus was
"without sin" and became in his death on the
cross the ultimate sacrifice for sin, "the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
His body was taken down from the cross and buried. But a
just God could not leave a wholly righteous man for ever
in the grave. Therefore He did not allow his body to
"see corruption" (Acts 2:31 ) and raised him
again the third day. Jesus, being granted immortal
nature, "death hath no more dominion over him"
(Romans 6:9). So he ascended to heaven to sit at his
Father's right hand.
The very important point
thus emerges that the death of Jesus was not just a
sublime example of noble self-sacrifice (though it was
all of that). It was the vital atonement for sin, which
makes it possible for us sinners to have hope. It is a
tragedy that in popular Christianity this understanding
has been perverted by the doctrine of the Trinity, which
arose 300 years after the ascension of Jesus as a result
of disputes within the Church. The creeds expressing the
Trinity were decisions of Catholic Church Councils in the
4th and 5th centuries. Their teaching is not found in the
Bible. The idea of a pre-existent "God the Son"
in heaven changes the vital experience of Jesus as the
independent, responsible Son of man who was also Son of
God, and so takes away the true significance of his life
and his death as the atonement for sin, achieved once for
all. Similarly the Holy Spirit is not presented in the
Bible as the third "Person" of a Trinity. It is
the power by which God achieves His ends, both physical
and spiritual. It is always under the control of the
Father, and later of the Son, and is never represented as
acting independently of them, or as an object of worship.
It can thus be seen that a right understanding of human
nature, and so of the nature of Jesus, lies at the very
centre of the purpose of God in him for the redemption of
men and women from sin and death. It is the very core of
the Gospel. Only in the Bible do we find these vital
truths about Jesus Christ.
Realising the truth about
human nature is a great help towards understanding "the
devil" and "satan" in the Bible. These
terms have a long tradition in human superstitions about
an Evil Spirit, active against God and tempting mankind
to evil. The popular understanding of them did not
originate in the Bible but in the pagan centuries long
before the Christian era. Where the Bible writers, under
the inspiration of God, have occasionally used these
terms - they are in fact comparatively rare in the Bible
- they represent only the evil tendencies of human nature.
It is significant that throughout the Bible sinners are
never encouraged to blame something or someone else for
their failings, but only themselves. The persistent enemy
of God is the human mind and its demands for satisfaction.
The true Bible teaching about human nature delivers us
from the fear of some supernatural devil and shows
clearly where the real enemy of God is to be found.
The Bible, as we have
seen, exposes all the weaknesses of human nature and its
perishing in the grave. But that need not be the end, for
the Gospel is a message of hope. It is "the power of
God unto salvation" (Romans 1:16), deliverance from
sin and its consequence, death. That is why the Biblical
Gospel is "good news". Its message is an appeal
to the individual man and woman for "repentance",
and then a promise of life. God does not desire that any
should perish, says the Apostle Peter, "but that all
should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). What is
meant by repentance is partly explained by the Apostle
Paul's statement: "that they should come to the
knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). Having
realised "the truth" about himself, and God's
redemption in Christ, the believer is called upon by God
to "have another mind". Repentance is not a
sudden emotional upsurge, which may pass as quickly as it
has arisen, but a sober assessment by the believer of his
true position, his acknowledgement of this in confession
of sin to God, a prayer for forgiveness and a resolve to
re-direct his life in harmony with the commandments of
Christ.
When this state of mind
was reached, the believers in Christ in apostolic times
were "baptized", by total immersion in water.
So they were "buried with Christ in baptism" (Colossians
2:12); they died in symbol with him upon the cross, and
as he rose from the dead to immortal life, so they rose
from the waters of baptism to "newness of life".
This remains the requirement for sincere believers today.
No authority has arisen since the days of the apostles
with power to alter it. God, in His grace and mercy, is
prepared to accept those who adopt this attitude and to
forgive their sins, bringing them into fellowship with
Himself. So, from being alienated from God by sin,
sincere believers become sons and daughters of God by
their obedience and faith. They are made heirs of eternal
life according to God's promise. For even if death should
overtake them, they die in certain hope of resurrection
from the grave in the day when Christ comes again. The
reward of the faithful is in the gift of an undying
nature: as Jesus said, "like unto the angels, to die
no more" (Luke 20:35-36). If they should be living
in the day of the Lord's return, and of the resurrection
of the dead, the faithful servants will be granted a
change of nature, from mortality to immortality. So will
be fulfilled the best-known verse in the New Testament:
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
Once the truth about human
nature has been grasped, it will readily be understood
why human governments throughout the centuries have
failed to establish lasting peace on earth. The minds of
men are powerless to cope with the severe problems which
have arisen, but from the beginning the Bible has
foreseen their solution. The intervention of God in human
affairs at a critical moment in history is the firm
prophecy of the Bible. The return of Jesus Christ to the
earth, just as literally as he left it, was the unanimous
hope of the early believers. The Church abandoned it in
the early centuries, because Christ did not come as soon
as they had hoped, but even more because it did not
square with the popular idea of the righteous enjoying
their reward in heaven at death. The New Testament
repeatedly asserts the Second Coming; the apostles take
it for granted in their writings.
The purpose of the return
of Christ will be to re-establish the authority of God in
the earth. First, there will be the judgement, another
clear Biblical teaching which is now widely rejected.
Jesus, writes Paul to Timothy, "shall judge the
living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom"
(2 Timothy 4:1). After the resurrection those individuals
who have understood the Gospel of God's grace will "appear
before the judgement seat of Christ" to receive the
reward of their deeds, "whether good or bad" (2
Corinthians 5:10). Then will come the turn of the
nations, who will be summoned to "fear God, and give
glory to him; for the hour of his judgement is come"
(Revelation 14:7). The Bible leaves us in no doubt that
the governments of many nations will refuse the summons
and will have to learn submission. Thus will begin the re-education
of the peoples of the earth under the new kingdom of God
with Christ as King. When God's will is understood and
obeyed, then peace and justice among men will come to the
earth at last.
Believing the Gospel as
the Bible presents it, brings about a marked change in
outlook. The true follower of Christ has a new dimension
in his life: the will of God is sovereign and Christ is
his King. The Kingdom which Christ will establish at his
Second Coming is the one to which he belongs. Following
the apostolic command: "Submit yourselves to every
ordinance of man for the Lord's sake" (1 Peter 2:13),
he will obey all the commandments of authority, unless
they conflict with the law of God. Then he follows the
apostle Peter's saying: "We ought to obey God rather
than men" (Acts 5:29). When his nation goes to war,
the sincere believer who accepts New Testament teaching
cannot fight for a human government, nor set out to
destroy his fellow man. Christadelphians have a long
record of refusing to join armed forces, and many
governments have recognised the sincerity of their
convictions.
But the greatest impact is
in the believer's personal life. He has had his eyes
opened to the self-indulgence, the greed and the pride
which are so evident in human society. He has the example
of Christ, who put away these natural desires in order to
do the will of God. Recognising the great grace he has
received in the forgiveness of sins and in reconciliation
with God, the servant of Christ seeks to extend the same
love, mercy and kindness to others, to speak the truth
and to act honestly in all his dealings. Though the ideal
is not always attained, owing to human weakness, its
recognition produces a calm and peaceful attitude of
great comfort in this turbulent age. Christadelphians
know from the Scriptures that the present age of man's
dominion is coming to an end. While there is still time,
they invite all to examine - or re-examine the true
teachings of the Bible. Once he has understood "the
truth", the sincere enquirer will appreciate the new
view he has gained, both of his own life and of the world
in general. He will be better equipped to face that life
as it is, with its mingled joy and sorrow, fortified by
faith in the power of God and in the truth of His Word,
sustained by the assurance that God is a merciful Father
and that Jesus is his intercessor; in this life of
service and faith, he will enjoy the encouraging
fellowship of others who believe the same things. God is
still calling out a people for His Kingdom. Your future
depends on your response!
FRED PEARCE
Reproduced
by courtesy of the Christadelphian Magazine and Publishing Association
by whom all rights are reserved.
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