Olivet Nazarene University Digital Commons @ Olivet Herald of Holiness/Holiness Today Church of the Nazarene 1-13-1965 Herald of Holiness Volume 53 Number 47 (1965) W. T. Purkiser (Editor) Nazarene Publishing House Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/cotn_hoh Part of the Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Christianity Commons, History of Christianity Commons, Missions and World Christianity Commons, and the Practical Theology Commons Recommended Citation Purkiser, W. T. (Editor), "Herald of Holiness Volume 53 Number 47 (1965)" (1965). Herald of Holiness/Holiness Today. 666. https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/cotn_hoh/666 This Journal Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Church of the Nazarene at Digital Commons @ Olivet. It has been accepted for inclusion in Herald of Holiness/Holiness Today by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Olivet. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Official Organ of the Church of the Nazarene THE WORD APOSTLE has acquired trinated by the rabbis. He was sin­ an exclusive meaning. It has been cere in his opposition to Christ and used to connote the twelve disciples the Church. Before Agrippa he testi­ chosen and sent forth to preach the fied, “I verily thought . I ought gospel, by Christ. But in its broad to do many things contrary to the and general meaning it denotes one name of Jesus of Nazareth." Having sent on a special mission. In com­ moved from the position of a radical mon usage the words apostle and reactionary by miraculous conver­ missionary are synonymous. sion and total transformation, Paul’s Paul was not one of the Twelve; testimony was of maximum value as nevertheless he unhesitatingly de­ evidence. He bore his witness for clared himself to be an apostle by Christ in spite of “bonds and afflic­ the will of God. He also applied the tions.” There could be no doubt that word to Andronicus and Junia, “who his apostleship was valid. were in Christ before me.” There­ Paul's final proof of his apostle­ fore the Early Church thought of all ship in outward sign was not a disciples as apostles in the true sense. parchment. He confidently said to The word seal as used by Paul his Corinthian converts, “The seal of (I Corinthians 9:2) carried the mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.” thought of authenticity, irrevocable General Superintendent Emeritus commitment, and evidence of a D. I. Vanderpool is a modern illus­ divine endorsement. Paul had un­ tration of one who has this ultimate mistakable inward proof of his apos- seal of apostleship. Soon after his tleship. Jesus said to him on the conversion, in later teen years, he Damascus road, “I have appeared entered every open door to preach unto thee for this purpose, to make the Word of life. Love for souls kept thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee” (Acts 26:16). General The accent of certainty concerning Superintendent his commission appears in all of Williamson Paul’s Epistles. The validity of the Apostle’s claim is beyond question. He said, “Have I him going in the face of discourage­ not seen Jesus?” Possibly he had ment. His zeal to win the lost has seen Him in the flesh; certainly in a not abated. The fruit of his labors supernatural revelation on the way remains and will be gathered into to Damascus. Any legal counsel life eternal. would covet a witness with Paul’s God grant that I and every Chris­ qualifications. As a confirmed He­ tian shall be able to cite redeemed brew he knew the law and the children of God as the seal of our prophets. He was carefully indoc­ apostleship. The Ten Commandments By J. KENNETH GRIDER Associate Professor of Theology, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri AWAY BACK THERE in the fifteenth century is basic: that we are to put God first in our inter­ before the Christian era a mandate was given to ests—“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” man. The Ten Commandments, we call it, the When circumstances went against the Israelites, Ten Words from the Lord (Exodus lit):8-17) . they often lost interest in the Lord and turned Eight of these demands are couched in nega­ to idols. And this sin of idolatry was their worst, tives, so that we sometimes need to turn them for it was a personal affront to God himself and around in order to see their positive meanings. not only rebellion against what He required. Some of them, as the sixth and seventh, on murder The second cutting edge of this objective law and adultery, require the added interpretation "is by no means a repetition of the first. It for­ which Jesus gave them. And most of them need bids a practice which becomes possible only when contemporaneous application so that the tenth, the One God is believed in and worshipped” for example, on coveting, will speak to us moderns (G. Campbell Morgan) . Taking it for granted that in the midst of our twentieth-century thing-mincled- the first word is being obeyed, it forbids making ness. and bowing down before representations of our re­ But there they stand: a brief, trenchant, eternal ligious faith. code lor humanity—given bv the Creator, who has the right to regulate the creature. This does not mean that there is to be no relig­ They have been despised by many, as in the ious symbolism, as some have thought, lor soon time of the prophets by the Jewish populace whose after this commandment had been given, God hearts were stout against the Lord. They have asked the people to make Him a sanc tuary (Exodus been flaunted by some, as by the Na/is, who fol­ 25:8), and told them to place in it likenesses ol lowed Nietzsche's power and greed ethic. They heavenly creatures (vv. 18-19). It seems that we have been disregarded by some, as by Roman Cath­ are not to make any likeness which we would olics who bow down before images while the second bow before, using it for worship. Westminster commandment seems quite express in forbidding Abbey, under the Roman Catholics, contained such. And they have been opposed by many, as by statues with lamps burning beside them before sinners in general who know' all ten and believe in which worshippers knelt. Today it still possesses their validity, but who go on breaking them and much statuary, but the people do not worship be- thereby breaking themselves. for the various figures. But for some thirty-three centuries, although The third commandment, about not taking God s despised, flaunted, disregarded, and opposed, thev name in vain, certainly forbids what we think of have spiritualized and intensified man's worship as swearing. But it cuts more deeply than that. of the one Cod and have fostered proper relations Elton Truebloocl says : “We may therefore say truly between man and his Icllowman. The Jews that that the one ancient commandment which is most have been real Jews have always regarded them as completely pertinent to our contemporary predica­ basic to the moral life. King Alfred made them ment is the third. Of all the commandments it fundamental to the political laws of early England. hits us hardest. It hits us hardest because it re­ They have also been of distinct influence upon veals our life at its weakest point and shows us American law. They are the groundwork upon that we cannot be saved except bv a return to which our own Nazarene general and special rules veracitx and urgency . To take God's name have their foundation, and thus we include them in vain means to ‘take up for unreality.’ It is to with the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed in express a faith but without enthusiasm.” the responsive reading section of our hymnals. In The fourth commandment has probably received the latest Nazarene hymnal, the commandments more attack than has any of the others. Jesus op­ are given first in the "Responsive Readings" sec­ posed Pharisaic Sabbatarianism, but some have tion. thought He had no use for the commandment rc- THE VERTICAL COMMANDMENTS trarding the Sabbath. Yet He surely observed it as The first four commandments pertain to man's God had intended it to be kept, even if on this worship of God. At the outset we are told what ilav He healed someone and permitted His disciples JANUARY 13. 1965 • (959) 3 to pluck wheat lor food. words sulliciently delicate, yet suiliciemly strong, Soon alter Jesus' sojourn, however, as a sort of would require the tongue rather of an angel than weekly Easter, in order to commemorate the Resur­ of a . man.” But Jesus was able so to speak rection and perhaps Pentecost, Christians began to of it, as was Paid—and Dante and Milton. From worship 011 the lirst day of the week. And we earliest times this sin, with its cognates, has ruined iind Paid writing, "One man estecmeth one dav individual lives, wrecked families, defeated whole above another: another esteemeth every day alike. nations. In the Mosaic law it was punishable by Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" the death of both offenders. Of it Job says, “For (Romans 14:5) . So Paul seems not to have minded this is an heinous crime” (31:11). which day was kept. As it happened, for some three The eighth commandment, "Thou shah not hundred years the seventh as well as the first dav steal,” begins a series of three comparatively less was kept by Christians, after which time special important ones, since the law did not require observance of the seventh was dropped.