Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 94:373 (Jan 1937)
Article: Christian Brotherhood: Its Scope and Limitations
Author: Charles Henry Heaton

BSac 94:373 (Jan 37) p. 65

Christian Brotherhood: Its Scope and Limitations

Charles Henry Heaton

The abortive branches of a rose bush make ugly thorns. The noblest virtues in human character, when perverted, become the most degrading of vices. Sin in many of its manifestations is the prostitution of that which is good. Every false philosophy is the corrupted form of some splendid system of truth. The Word of God has to fight for its life in every age. Hence, it is necessary for Christians to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Our Lord and Master set in vibration the most affectionate chords in the human breast when he taught his disciples to say, “Our Father.” The Christian doctrine of the fatherhood of God with its inseparable corollary, the brotherhood of his children, lies at the heart of our holy faith. That efforts should be made to pervert this doctrine and to rob these terms of their exact Christian connotations would be expected. That discerning Christians should resent these efforts should not be thought strange.

It is our purpose to seek to determine from the Scriptures and by sound reasoning the true Christian conception of brotherhood. The method will be to state in concise propositions the cardinal teachings of the Bible and then to discuss each one briefly.

1. In relation to God as sole Creator, all men in common with all things animate and inanimate belong to a single class-the creature class.

This proposition would seem to be axiomatic. It needs

BSac 94:373 (Jan 37) p. 66

no proof. However, there is a Scriptural statement setting forth this truth which needs to be interpreted because it is so generally and so flagrantly misinterpreted. That statement is found in Acts 17:26: “And (God) hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.”

Into this statement many read the doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. This is a favorite doctrine with the Universalists, the Unitarians and the Modernists. If there were no such doctrine to defend, it is doubtful that anybody would ever impose such interpretation upon this passage of Scripture. The passage really will not bear any such interpretation.

The context makes it very clear that the idea of unity of blood in this text is predicated on the creatorhood, and not the fatherhood, of God. The very sentence in which the passage occurs begins with these words: “God that made the world and all things therein.” What is taught is this: God in the beginning created the world and everything that is in it. From the original stock of men in the ...