Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

good."mind,"good."world."earth,"Christ and Human SocietyJ. Renwick Patterson, D.D.Text : John 3 :17, "For God sent not His Son intothe world to condemn the world, but that the worldsaved."through Him might beWe live in a world of human society. The reference of the text is to that kind of world. In thistext Jesus is saying that he came into human society,not to condemn it, but that through Him the societyof men might be saved.Man was created a social being. In the very beginning God said, "It is not good that man should bealone; I will make him an help meet for him." Andso the woman was made and the home was established, the first of the Divine institutions, the unit ofsociety and of the national community. Thus, fromthe very beginning, according to the Word of God,man was made to live in society in community notin solitude, not in isolation. Now the type of societyin which he lives is tremendously important andplays a large part in most lives in respect to how farthey may rise morally and spiritually and what theymay achieve. The ideal society is that which providesthe atmosphere and the influences most conduciveto man's rising to the highest level of his God-givenqualities of life, one which challenges him to be hisbest and to seek to develop to the fullest extent hisGod-given capacities. Such a society will be one inwhich all the inalienable rights bestowed on him byhis Creator may have their full, free and proper expression.The Foundations NecessaryNow such a society, if it is ever to be realized,must be built upon the moral and spiritual foundations of life. We live within the compass of a moraluniverseone that wras created and is sustained by awise, holy, just and loving God. By His very natureare the morals of life determined. The moral lawsummarized in the Ten Commandments and brieflycomprehended in the first and great commandment,"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,and with all thy soul, and with all thyand inthe second which is like unto it, "Thou shalt love thyneighbor as thyself," is not a set of arbitrary rulesenacted at the pleasure of an infinite Creator. Rather, they are laws of God's own nature totally independent of any edict human or divine. Since God isunalterable, the laws which express His nature areunalterable. They are absolute, eternal andindifeasible.The Westminster Assembly has given us one ofthe most comprehensive definitions of God that hasever been formulated. It defined Him as a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.This God is our Creator. By the Word of His Powerheaven and earth were made. When God looked uponthat which He had made He saw that it was good.Five times in the first chapter of Genesis we comeupon these words, "and God saw that it wasVerses 10, 12, 18, 21 and 25 close with these words.And then in the 31st verse of this same chapter weread, "And God saw every thing that He had made,and, behold, it was very Everything being292good in the beginning must therefore have been madefor a good purpose. Nothing was made to be usedfor wicked, unholy or immoral purposes. He made thephysical order to operate according to His physicallaws and the moral order to operate according toHis moral laws. This world is made for moral actionnot for wicked or immoral action.Our approach to the universe as a whole or inpart, if it is to be an intelligent approach, must takeGod into account. The same is true in our approach tothe problems of the individual and to the problems ofsociety. After all it is God and not man who has thelast word. It is His law His will that counts. It isnot in our fallible human speculations, reasonings,deductions, determinations or experimentations, butin God that the ultimate of all truth is found.The Duty of KnowingSince this is true, and every Bible believingChristian believes that it is true, it follows that wehave a duty, a divine imperitave, resting upon us tofind out what is God's plan and purpose in society.What is His program for the individual? What isHis plan by which man in community shall live?There is only one infallible source of informationavailable to us from which the answer to these questions can be obtained. That is from the holy and inspired Word of God, the Bible.If ever the ideal society is to come into being,one that will be conducive to man's rising to the highest level of his God-given qualities of life, morally,spiritually, socially, economically, physically and politically, the Word of God must be the guide. We needto know that the Lord God alone is omnipotent, andthat He is our dwelling place in all generations. It isonly as we are under the protection of His everlastarms that we are secure. It is because the worldinghas drifted from these shadows that we find, in thewords of the Psalmist, that "all the foundations ofthe earth are out of course."Yes we have, in ourself-sufficiency, left God out of our thinking in somany of our national and international affairs. Whowill discover for us again the foundations of theearth ? Who will declare His plan for the societyofmen?Christian Leadership NeededMay I answer that questionby stating emphatically that only men of God can point the way. It ismy conviction that the ideal society is impossiblewithout regenerated men, and when I turn to theWord of God I find throughout it that regenerationfor the individual and reformation for the nation isever its appeal. But without regeneration there canbe no real reformation. Jesus gave to His disciplesthe everlasting gospel and sent them out with it tosave men and to rebuild the world. He said to them"Ye are the salt of the "Ye are the light ofthe Only those in the Light of the world canbe the light of the world. Our churches and our Sabbath Schools have a real place in God's plan. It is herethat boys and girls and men and women are preparedand trained to become builders in the world. TheChurch has a tremendous task. It must produce, byCOVENANTER WITNESS