Creation was subjected to frustration
but not by its own choice. Romans 8:20
In
searching for a sentence that will serve as a window through which what we have
in view can be seen, the one that seems most potent is "The Curse of the
Earth Touch." To understand what is meant by those last three words is to
have an explanation of an immense amount of history; spiritual and temporal....
The nature and features of the curse, as the Bible everywhere reveals, are
frustration, thwarting, bafflement, discontent, abortion, confusion, travail,
breakdown, and an ever-defeated struggle against despair and death.... Why is
it that so many things which have greatly served the purpose of God have
eventually fallen apart; broken up; and have little more than a great past to
live upon? Why is it that the Lord Himself has not circumvented this and preserved
intact these instruments and vessels that He has used? Why is it that division
upon division follows almost endlessly the course of many things which have
been very jealous for an utter position as to Bible truth? These and many such
questions have but one answer. That answer is the earth touch.
Somewhere,
somehow, that blighting contact has been made. There has been a gesture toward
this earth. Man has put his hand on heavenly things and tried
to bring them on to this earth. It might be a 'New Testament Church' of a
composite nature: certain things taught, enacted, and done in conformity to the
record in the New Testament; a certain order, technique, and construction;
these things have been drawn together for a creed, a form of procedure, and
made the 'basis,' the form and standard, the 'constitution' of a body, an
institution, a society: man's mind and man's hand defining, controlling,
holding. The verdict of history is that God will just not commit Himself to any
such thing.... The Apostles did not take a 'Blue Print' of New Testament
churches wherever they went. The outcome of their work was a crisis, a climax
to an old creation and the fiat of the new. What followed of order and
knowledge was organic, not organized; spontaneous, not imposed; Life, not
legality; and – above all – heavenly, not earthly. It was only when man pulled
this down on to the earth that things went wrong.... Oh, this earth touch! How
deadly it is! When will the Lord's people understand the essential meaning of
their union with Christ in Heaven!
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