Covenanter Witness Vol. 55 - Rparchives.org

one,"men"ernists"to deny the fact of His soul travail. To call in question the character of His kingship is to cast doubtupon Gethsemane with its strong crying and tears ;and upon Calvary itself where He poured out His soulunto death. For the suffering of death He is crownedwith glory and honor. Men and nations may, and do,rebel against Him, and declare that they will nothave this Man to reign over them. There may beindeed, a seeming prosperity in this revolt againstHis righteous rule. But it must all come to nought.For He is able to make even the wrath of man topraise Him, despite all opposing forces. His purposesare being accomplished, and His kingdom will betriumphant at the last.The national events of recent years would seemsomewhat indicative of the nations of the world having ibeen removed further from Him and His Gospelthan we had suspected. So He is not satisfied as yet."Peace on earth; goodwill toseems attimes to be, if not forgotten, at least an impracticablecomegoal. The nations seem to have forgotten God, andthat the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men.And as long as this state of things continues, Jesuswill not be satisfied. He cannot be content with knowing that it is His right to rule, and then have menand nations deny that right. He must be recognizedand every knee must bend before Him. He must berecognized as the King of kings. And He will overturn and overturn and overturn until the kingdomsof this world, themselves confessing it, shall have bethe kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.Then, and not until then, will our Lord be satisfied.And now, what does this soul travail of Jesusmean to us ? Can we think of it, can we look upon it,and remain unmoved? For His soul travail was to theend that we might have a new life. And now, sincethis new life has become ours, what duty urges itself on us? The great mission of Christians in theworld is the same as that of Jesus Himself, elf-sacrificing and whole-hearted service. "He laid down Hislife for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for thebrethren."There is nothing worth the doing thatdoes not involve sacrifice. We never rise to our truelevel as Christians. We never become worthy of Himuntil soul-travail with Him becomes the masterpassion of our souls. We have had our part in makingthe world what it has become, and thus increasingthe pain and burden of His soul-travail. Surely we arenot now going to do anything short of our best inmaking His satisfaction complete. Whatever ourshort-comings may have been in the past, now isthe time for us to vow that from henceforth we arefor Him, and Him only; and that we will spend andbe spent in His service as He was spent for us. Andremember that our toil and tears and sacrifices, whenspent in such service, are in His eyes like His veryown. We become in deed and in truth workers together with Him. Travailing in soul as He did, weshall with Him see the travail of our souls,satisfied.and beOn Close Communion"The Reformed Presbyterian standard of admission to the sacrament is that comCommunion.' "monly referred to as "CloseSCRIPTURE REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTAKINGOF THE LORD'S SUPPERBy Walter McCarroll, D.D.Our first article sought to show that our Standards reveal no Scripture authority for the kind ofclose communion required by our Church. We alsostated that the requirements for partaking of theLord's Supper are inherent within the terms of ourLord's command instituting the Memorial Supper.We shall now look at these requirements a littlemore closely. We shall begin where our Lord began.1. "This do in remembrance of ME." (Luke 22 :19). Who is this "ME" that we are to remember?This is something that we take for granted that everybody knows and proceed from there. But withJesus it was a question of supreme importance. Aftermore than two years of teaching and training Hisapostles He put to them this question, "Who do mensay that the Son of man is ?" When Peter answered"Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God,"Jesus said, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, forflesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, butmy Father who is in heaven." When Jesus said, "Iand the Father are the Jews took up stones tostone Him and said, "For a good work we stone theenot, but for blasphemy ; and because that thou being326a man, makest thyself God." This was the burningquestion that brought on Him the condemnation ofthe Sanhedrin.The controversy over the person of Jesus continued for three hundred years and came to a climaxat the Council of Nicaea, a small town in Asia Minor,in the year 325 A.D. The two leading protagonists inthis bitter and often violent controversy were Ariusand Athanasius. Arius took the position that "Christis the first and highest of all created beings. He doesnot exist from eternity, and is not of the same substance or essence with the Father. On the otherGod."hand Athanasius taught that Christ is veryPowerful forces were supporting Arius, and at timesAthanasius seemed to stand alone against the world.Finally the Emperor Constantine called a generalcouncil to meet in Nicaea in the year 325. There weremore than three hundred bishops present. The outcome was the adoption of what is known as the NiceneCreed. In this Creed the Church confesses thatChrist is very God of very God ; begotten not created: co-substantial with the Father, that is, of thesame substance or essence orbeing as the Father.This is still a burning question today. The "modin the large denominations that have atare in fact Unitartained to positions ofleadership,ians who reject the doctrine of the Trinity and denythe deity of Christ. Can the Church therefore do lessCOVENANTER WITNESS