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Three
Spiritual Elements
There are three elements that operate in the spiritual
world. They are the divine, the human, and the Satanic.
The Bible recognizes these three elements, or
instrumentalities working to produce the spiritual results
that we see. Nothing is more clearly taught in the Bible
than the personality of God and of the angels who do his
will. Likewise, Satan is, all through the bible, a
personality, and the demons that do his will are also
spoken of in a way that makes it plain to us that they too
are personal beings. These good and evil personalities
exist as really as man exists and are just as personal.
Man is capable of having definite relationship with any of
these personalities, whether the good or the bad. He is
capable of working with them to a certain end, or of
working against them to a certain other end. He may work
with the divine to carry out the will of God, or he may
work with the evil personalities to carry out evil things.
Any one of these three elements may work independently, so
that a thing may be of god independent of man and the
devil, or it may be of the devil independent of God or
man, or it may be of man independent of God or the devil.
True religion is of God, but it also involves man.
Therefore the human element will always enter more or less
into our religion. The vital elements of religion are from
God, but when these vital elements, or powers, work in
man, they do not coerce his will. They do not overcome his
personality. They do not take possession of him so as to
rule him. He does not come under rule; he still acts
voluntarily. This human element in religion shows itself
in peculiar manifestations, customs, ideas, and forms.
When the Spirit of God comes into a man, he manifests
himself in different ways, but especially in a holy
Christian character and a holy Christian life. His
presence affects all the faculties of man, but the outward
expression of these effects are not particularly of the
Holy Ghost. They are rather of man. All who are saved have
in them the same divine element operating to produce the
same results. The external manifestations of this working
depends largely upon the temperament of the human. One
manifests his joy by shouting, another laughs, another
weeps, another sits quietly with shining eyes and glowing
countenance. But these manifestations are merely the human
expression of the inward joy. During the centuries,
man’s spiritual emotions have been manifested in a great
variety of ways. Special religious movements have been
noted for special manifestations among them. Some
movements have been noted for shoutings; others, for wild
demonstrations of many different kinds. People often
suppose these outward demonstrations to be the work of
God. If they were of God, he would manifest himself in a
more uniform manner. There would be none of those extreme
and unbecoming demonstrations that are sometimes seen
among religious people. Man may make these demonstrations
as a result of his own choice and enthusiasm, or under the
influence of the Spirit of God, though we must never blame
God for the manner or the extent of such manifestations.
If a Christian lets his emotions or his enthusiasm run
away with his judgment and acts unseemly, we must lay the
blame upon the human element. It is the man, not his God,
nor his religion necessarily, that is at fault. Satan also
operates on people to produce wild, emotional excitement,
and in some movements he is the principal cause of the
emotionalism. Especially is this true when the life of the
person is immoral. The jerking, contortions, "falling
under the power," etc., that characterize certain
brands of religion are usually of Satan and man, though
sometimes it may be only of man, he abandoning himself to
his emotions to such an extent that nervous reaction sets
in. It is safe to reject these things from our
consideration of the work of God. We must place them in
some other category.
The variation of religious customs and forms in the
world are the outcropping of the human element. God did
not give us a definite program of religious worship nor
did he introduce any of the prevailing religious customs,
except those specifically named in the New Testament.
Those since introduced are of man, and should always be
distinguished from the real and vital elements of
religion. I do not mean to condemn all that is of man as
being evil. A thing must be judged by its intrinsic value,
not by its origin. Man’s works may be either good or
evil, either wise or unwise.
The many religious ideas and doctrines in the world are
of various origin. Some are directly of God, some are
"doctrines of devils," and some are of men. The
varying and often contradictory doctrines taught in the
world that are supposed by their adherents to be the
revelation of divine truth come largely from man’s
imperfect conception of truth. Sometimes God is blamed for
this doctrinal confusion and discord, but we must remember
that God has given the same revelation of himself and his
truth to us all, and that it is only man’s
misinterpretation of this revelation that makes the
discord. It is true that some teach special doctrines
through perversity, others through unwillingness to teach
the truth because they are not willing to obey it. But for
this we must blame man, not God. God’s truth is one; he
is not the author of the babel of religious teachings in
the world. It is highly important, then, that we learn
what is the real truth among the clashing doctrines of
men.
It is the human element that differentiates between
religious movements. The leader usually impresses his own
thoughts, views, customs, and temperamental peculiarities
upon the movement that he heads. We have only to look into
the past a little to see this. All men who have the
religion of Christ have the same vital power of godliness
working in them. They all have the same salvation, but
they have different ways of manifesting it. The old
Puritans were austere and high in their morality. They
were formal and rigid. Their religion had in it much of
the nature of iron. Then came Fox with his quietism. His
morality was just as high, but it took a very different
course. Instead of being formal, like Puritanism, it went
to the opposite extreme of having almost no form. It was
meditative, quiet, and non-resistant. Methodism was
radically different from both of these, it being emotional
and noisy and demonstrative. Its devotees sometimes went
to extremes that were unseemly. The Scotch Covenanters
were worthy people, but they differed widely from many
others. It was one Spirit that operated in all these
movements, and he operated in them alike so far as people
would permit. These great differences in manners, customs,
views, and manifestations must be attributed to the human
element that entered so largely into them.
The same thing may be observed among modern Christians.
There are still "shouting Methodists" and quiet
Quakers, and formal, orderly Presbyterians. No matter how
much of God one of these may have in him, the effect of
the influence or sentiment at work in the particular
movement has a strong influence upon his actions. His
tendency is always to act according to the forms of the
movement with which he is familiar.
This human element is a variable quantity. It may or
may not obstruct the working of the divine, but in many
instances the divine is greatly limited or even entirely
crowded out by it, so that the religion becomes only a
human thing, while the soul is empty of God. There is such
a thing as a religion that is of man and has none of the
divine element in it. Those professing it have never been
born again. God has never entered into their lives. They
simply joined church, and that was all there was to it.
Their religion is wholly of and from themselves, and will
die with them.
When we meet people and recognize them as being
Christians, yet see that they are different from us, that
difference may be attributed to the human element. It
cannot be a spiritual difference if both have the Spirit
of Christ. God draws all Christians together. He gives
them all one Spirit. He gives them the tie of love that
binds them to one another. The things that divide them are
those human forms and views and customs which they have
accepted. Where there is animosity and contention and
bitterness, the satanic element enters and God is shut
out. God wants his people to be all one. He is not so
concerned that they should be all alike in these human
elements, for that is hardly possible and not to be
expected; but he does want the divine element to have so
large a place in our lives and so to dominate the human
element that his people will be of one heart and soul in
him, and that there will be no division among them. We may
teach unity all we will, but if there is in us elements
that are of a nature to separate us from other Christians,
even if these should be only human elements, they will be
a barrier to the realization of a practical unity. Unity
must have for its basis only spiritual elements. To make
the human element in any wise the standard is to make real
unity impossible, except among those who are alike in the
human element. We should recognize the fact that a general
uniting of Christians must be built on the foundation of
the divine element, and that this must be clearly
separated in mind and heart from the human element and
held as a separate thing. So long as any particular form
or custom or any special manifestation is a part of the
standard around which Christians are called to rally,
there will be those who will find themselves unable to
accept that part of it, no matter how much they may desire
unity.
There is also a human fellowship. Those who are in the
same human element or influence have the fellowship of the
movement with each other and do not have it with any one
outside the movement, even though they have spiritual
fellowship with him. People changing from one movement to
another carry this human influence with them, and are
marked by it so that they are sometimes suspected and held
aloof.
Satan is always ready to take advantage of this human
element to make it work out his purpose. He works to make
us think that humanly devised forms or customs are things
of vital importance. In fact, some of these are much
harder to break away from than we suppose them to be. They
take a deeper hold upon us many times than divine truth.
People feel as though they would be giving up their
religion if they should surrender these forms. A
particular mode of dress becomes sacred; a particular form
of service becomes exalted above all other forms. It is
only when we recognize these as being merely human things
and as having no vital connection with Biblical truth that
we are in a position to look at things from a broad enough
standpoint to stretch out our hands equally to other
Christians. If we become wedded to our forms and customs,
Satan is likely to use the fascination that they possess
for us to keep us from having the confidence that we ought
to have in other Christians. Let us look away from these
things back to the fundamentals of Christian doctrine and
life. These, and these alone, can be the basis for the
acceptance of Christian profession. These alone can be the
common grounds upon which all Christians can meet. Let us
look away from ourselves and from these toys which we have
whittled out for ourselves. If we have labeled these
things Christianity, let us tear off these labels, and see
that henceforth we call nothing Christian but that which
is fundamentally divine working out through the human, or
has its origin in God himself. Do the best we will, there
will be more or less of the human element in our religion.
But let us deal with it as the human element and not as
the divine. Let us give it its due weight, but no greater
weight than it is worthy of receiving.
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