(April 2003 Edition)
Caribbean Comment - For God not Men
At the Lord's Table - Love Unlimited
Thanksgiving Celebration for Bro. Windsor Swaby
Sir Isaac Newton: Our Brother in Christ?
Caribbean Comment
For God not Mean
Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God (I Cor. 10:31).
Do not as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Matthew 6:2.
How many of our activities are done strictly for “the glory of God”? Here is a little test, based on some words of Jesus himself. When was the last time you went into your bedroom, closed the door, and prayed in secret to your Father, who is unseen? How many times last week? Last Year? Be honest!
A few days ago I had to make a trip for personal reasons into the mountains of central Jamaica. I took the opportunity of making a surprise visit to the two ecclesias in that remote area.
I had never been to Mount Pleasant ecclesia before. The members there get few visitors. For one thing they are separated from other brethren and sisters by formidable mountain ranges and cratered roads. For another, they have to be self sufficient, with little or no outside support.
Sunday morning was a thrilling and eye-opening experience. The partly built shack that is their embryonic meeting hall was lovingly prepared, with Bibles and hymn books laid out on the crude benches ready for visitors. On a large board was the day’s programme. The Lord’s Supper was laid out on “fine linen, clean and white.” The president had obviously dutifully prepared every detail for the meeting in advance, assisted and reminded by a diligent and loving wife. There were twenty-one of us including children, perching on bending planks, the majority being keenly interested friends. Surprise, surprise, hardly anyone was late. In Jamaica, that’s an unbelievable achievement! Praise the Lord hymns were sung in a manner that Hoddesden would envy. Our spirits flew like eagles in the air. The prayers were eloquent and reverent. Young mothers soothed and nursed potentially noisy infants. The meeting hall is on a minor track with no passing traffic, so there were no “men” to impress and give glory. All this heaven-soaring worship was done to the glory of God alone.
I went on to Argyle Mountain, a desperately poor, terribly shabby village, with its Christadelphian Hall tucked away on a rocky lane in a tiny valley, shaded by giant breadfruit trees, hidden almost totally from human view. I had not been to the ecclesia for years, and this visit was unannounced. The meeting hall and its garden were tidy, “swept and garnished.” Most striking of all were two pots of beautiful flowers – real not artificial ‑ one on each side of the entrance like the leafy pillars Jachin and Boaz in Solomon’s temple. There is one sister in Argyle Mountain who is widely known for her love of flowers. She displays them, at her home and at the temple of the Lord, for the glory of God alone.
Caribbean Correspondent
At the Lord's Table
Love Unlimited
Love. It is a small four-letter word, but it has great meaning. It comes straight from the heart of God. In John 3 we read of Jesus preaching the gospel to Nicodemus. That man knew his Bible, but not the love of God. If Nicodemus was like most Jews of his day, he thought that the love of God was confined to him and his friends and that God would condemn everybody else. Jesus put him straight. God doesn’t want to “condemn the world,” Jesus told him. He wants to save it. He loves the world so much that He gave His only Son in a tremendous effort to save it. Not “it,” but real people.
Love, like giving, must have an object. You cannot love in the abstract. You must love someone. In God’s case that someone is an unworthy sinner like you and me. Jesus wanted Nicodemus to grasp the height and depth and breadth of God’s love, and start life all over again with that heavenly love in his soul. From the love he showed much later, we believe that Nicodemus was humble enough to learn Jesus’ lesson.
Jesus was a Jew. Most Jews received him not. They couldn’t conceive of a son of God being born in a stable, or living in a place like Galilee that was not royal or famous. Confident that they were always right, the love of God was lost on them. But, though tragic, as a result of their rejection we here sit in heavenly places in Christ.
Courtesy
Sadly, in today’s language, “love” often combines love and lust
together. Lust is simply love that is selfish and demanding. True love is
spiritual. Lust is self-love. True love is sharing. “Be ye all of one
mind,” wrote Peter, “having compassion one of another, love as
brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing
for railing: but contrariwise blessing.” Note well, brethren, those
words compassion, pity, courtesy, blessing. They are all part of
true love. I would like to focus for a moment on courtesy. Paul
said that love is not rude. Jesus was invariably courteous. “Friend,
wherefore art thou come?” was the greeting given to his betrayer,
Judas. He did not snub anybody. Neither should we.
Love reaches out
Love enables us to feel the hurt and pain that somebody else is feeling.
Love longs to reach out to others, as Jesus did. Remember, he broke down
and wept over those people who deliberately spurned him and treated him
badly: how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! A little
picture of love. When we love, we don’t see ourselves any more. We don’t
retaliate. We don’t brood on wrongs. Love forgives. If we cannot forgive,
we are not “taught of God.”
It was at the Lord’s supper that Jesus said, a new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another. That is significant. Communion is a gate not a fence. It is at the Lord’s table, above all, that we must let brotherly love continue (Heb. 13:1).
Milton Clarke, Port Maria
Thanksgiving Celebration for Bro. Windsor Swaby
On Saturday March 8, a service of thanksgiving was held in Rock Hall for the life of our brother Windsor Swaby, a member of the Kingston ecclesia who lived and witnessed in isolation in that mountain village. It was organized by the Rock Hall - Red Hills Citizens’ Association, of which he was President, and the Mico College Past Students’ Association. Several of us from Kingston and Port Maria were privileged to attend and take part. The service lasted more than four hours.
This service was held at the Faith Deliverance Church of God in Rock Hall where Windsor’s widow is not only a member, but the Choir Director. The large church was filled to capacity, and there were more people on the outside than inside. The procession to the gravesite took more than twenty minutes to pass by us. This was a true testimony to the life and work of our Bro. Swaby.
There was a mixed cross-section of mourners, which ranged from dignitaries of government, media personnel, pastors of several churches, nurses in uniform, teachers on the staff of Mico Practising School where he had worked, and representatives of the many civic and farmers’ organisations to which he was connected.
The eulogies and tributes all spoke in glowing terms of the Christian-hearted, kind, helpful, caring, devout, devoted, and disciplined person that Windsor was. He played the role of adviser, counsellor and supporter to many, even to those in highly placed positions in the village of Rock Hall and adjacent areas. He was determined to help to stamp out the corruption and violence that has taken over these communities, and to try and restore peace and harmony so that life could be what it used to be. Many spoke of Bro. Windsor as an utterly fearless man who depended wholly on his God and refused to cringe before the wicked. The wrong doers saw him as a threat to their way of life and therefore killed him.
The sermon and talks were very moving, and a special prayer was given for the bereaved family, and most of all for the young men of the area, that they would be strong. They were urged not to resort to retaliation, but try to help their communities be the places of love and harmony that Bro. Swaby wanted them to be, so that his death would not be in vain.
Bro. Alan Eyre spoke on behalf of the Christadelphian Brotherhood, and scholarships were offered to Bro. Swaby’s two daughters from us, so as to assist them to finish their schooling. It was said publicly by his daughter that Bro. Swaby was not baptised into his wife’s church, although he gave some support to it. She clearly stated that her father considered himself a Christadelphian, although he was a lone representative in their midst. One quite remarkable feature of the long service was the constant emphasis on the Bible hope of resurrection. Not once was there a mention of heaven-going or any other error. One pastor emphasised most vigorously that unless we believe the Bible doctrine of resurrection and judgement at the second coming of the Lord, we have no hope of eternal life in the Kingdom of God. By the graveside it was the same emphasis: an epitaph runs like this
My friends, read this and shed no tears; I must lay here till Christ
appears
And at his coming hope to have a joyful rising from the grave.
So another great Jamaican brother’s life has been brutally snapped away, but the Lord knows all things best. Let us who are left behind continue to prepare ourselves so that we can be ready to face death when it comes, in whatever shape or form or time.
Dorothy Isaacs
LISTEN!
Do not be afraid – I will save you.
I have called you by name - you are mine.
When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you;
Your troubles will not overwhelm you.
When you pass through fire, you will not be burned;
The hard trials that come will not hurt you.
For I am the LORD your God, the holy God of Israel, who saves you.The prophet Isaiah
Sir Isaac Newton: Our Brother in Christ?
Sir Isaac Newton was a “Christadelphian” pioneer. Not in a literal sense of course, as he died 138 years before our particular name was invented. But certainly in his Bible knowledge and his exposition of what we call “the Truth,” he was a true pioneer. This is clear from earlier articles in the Christadelphian Tidings, November, 2001, and June, 2002, (my name appended to this latter article was an error as it was submitted by Bro. Vic Aucott of Nottingham, UK), and in much greater detail in a series of articles by Bro. Stephen Snobelen in Contending for the Faith Quarterly, 1993-1994. Further studies since those publications have amply confirmed this view. Moreover, a few scholars and historians who are acquainted with the Christadelphians are acknowledging that we are modern representatives of a “cult” which in Newton’s England was considered not only “abominable heresy” but a capital crime. In a personal communication, the late Harvard Professor George Huntston Williams agreed that we have a strong case to be considered the “Brethren in Christ” of today.
His credentials as a scientist
First, however, what about Sir Isaac’s credentials as a scientist? This
question is of great importance in assessing his religious convictions, as
we shall see. Biographers nowadays, following a trend in global culture,
spend much time debunking human greatness. Despite this, it is now widely
accepted that Sir Isaac Newton was certainly the greatest scientist and
perhaps the greatest intellectual in the history of mankind. Six facts
about Newton will confirm this conclusion beyond all cavil.
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The core concept of general relativity – that light is bent by gravity – was first explicitly stated by Newton (Opticks, 339), and only mathematically refined by Einstein two centuries later.
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Newton was the first to propose the two basic explanatory notions of quantum mechanics, namely that light and matter interact, and that heat represents the vibration of atoms in any body (Opticks, 266,340).
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Even more far-sighted – it appeared almost occult to his contemporaries – was his extraordinary speculation that the energy possessed by sub-atomic particles acting one upon another produces “a great part of the phenomena of Nature.” Having demonstrated that bodies act upon one another by the forces of gravity and electromagnetism, he suggested that “there may be more attractive powers than these” (Opticks, 290). It took three hundred years to identify these powers as the strong and weak nuclear forces.
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Newton’s formulae on lunar mechanics were “employed by NASA scientists guiding spaceships to the moon” (M. White, Isaac Newton, 341). I know this to be true, as my colleagues were using them when I was a junior scientist working on the U.S. space program in the 1960’s.
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In one unpublished manuscript, Newton put forward the “staggering hypothesis” that “the same universal forces affect the galaxies and sub-atomic particles alike” (Cambridge MS 3970, 336). This fundamental principle of science was almost forgotten for two hundred and fifty years.
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No scientist before, or since, has got closer to the “holy grail” of science, the GUT or Grand Unifying Theory. For Newton, the whole of everything, from quasars to quarks, from biology to Bible prophecy, exists and moves according to the principles of a wonderful, all-embracing design (Opticks, Query 31, 375). Which idea leads us directly to consider Newton’s religious faith.
Newton could not sever his official links with the state Church of England and retain his Cambridge professorship, although it was noted that he attended college chapel “very seldom.” He survived to the age of 84 only through keeping his faith discreetly secret. On one occasion he almost committed a religious manuscript to a printer, but on the advice of his colleagues, withdrew it at the last moment.
Biblical doctrines
In millions of words, mostly unpublished to this day, Sir Isaac
systematically taught the unity of God, the divine Sonship and sinlessness
of Jesus Christ, the nature and mortality of man, the Abrahamic and Davidic
covenants of promise, salvation by grace, faith and believers’ baptism, the
atonement, the second coming of Christ, resurrection, the day of judgement,
the hope of Israel, the return of the Jews to their ancient Land, the
biblical devil, the Kingdom of God on earth, the Millennium with immortal
rulers and mortal subjects, and many other Scriptural doctrines which we as
Christadelphians espouse and proclaim. His surviving religious
writings – he deliberately burned most of them to escape persecution – run
into many thousands of pages. There are a thousand folios of them in the
Bodleian Library in Oxford alone, and that is a minor collection! His
interpretations of prophecy and chronology, written in the 17th
century, proved to be more accurate than those of John Thomas written in the
19th century. For example, he predicted that there would be a
major return to Palestine in 1899, the date when the Jewish Colonial Trust
was established to facilitate just such a return, and that 1948 would see
“the redemption of Israel.” No wonder the Israelis consider Sir Isaac
Newton a virtual national hero and one of the first of the honoured
“Righteous Gentiles”! No wonder many of his religious manuscripts are
kept in Jerusalem as a national treasure!
Ultimately, after many years of intense Bible study, Newton rejected the dogma of the trinity, substitutionary atonement, sabbatarianism, eternal torments, transubstantiation, predestination, and salvation by works. He repudiated both the authority of the Pope and the theology of Luther and Calvin. Most significantly of all, perhaps, he secretly befriended Polish and German Brethren in Christ fleeing from persecution in their homelands, and purchased or was given copies of their publications. In general terms, our preaching booklets, and even our various complicated statements of faith, would have seemed very familiar to him, if only he had had a chance to read them. He was a Christadelphian in all but name. But does this mean that Sir Isaac Newton “had the Truth,” to use our Christadelphian cliché? Let us probe a little deeper, into Newton’s soul, and also into our own.
“Knowledge puffs up, love builds up”
The apostle Peter tells us that knowledge is only step number three
in the eight-step heavenly staircase to salvation. The top of the staircase
is “love” (II Peter 1:5-7). We do not attain to the Truth simply
through knowledge of it, but by being “conformable” to the Lord’s
sacrificial death (Phil. 3:10-11). Without love, knowledge is useless: we
are “nothing” (I Cor. 13:2). In fact, while knowledge “vanishes
away,” love “abides” (vv. 8,13). By knowledge alone, we cannot
be saved. Only by developing and manifesting the godly character of the
Lord Jesus will we have any hope of being honoured with a place in his
Kingdom. If we are to inherit that Kingdom, we must respond to God’s
love by showing, in every aspect of our lives, love to our fellow men and
women, “especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (Gal.
6:10). And most significantly, that love must be “unfeigned,” that
is to say, a genuine inner emotion, not just put on for show (I Peter 1:22;
II Cor. 6:6). Engaging in malice, dissension, division, slander, scandal,
gossip, misrepresentation, and lying will utterly disqualify us from
acceptance at the judgement seat of Christ, before which (no, before
whom!) every one of us shall appear (II Cor. 5:10). What has all this
got to do with Sir Isaac Newton? A great deal.
Newton’s character and personality
A
“bishop,” or ecclesial leader, we are told, “must be blameless…of
good behavior…moreover he must have a good report of them which are
without,” that is those outside the household of faith. The following
are the “reports” of those who knew Sir Isaac Newton best, including
some who would have liked to be his disciples. It would be tedious to
provide references here for each of the quotes, but they can easily be
supplied if requested. They include the comments of Whiston, who shared
many of Newton’s religious tenets; Humphrey Newton, a relative; academic
colleagues such as the astronomer Flamsteed; and others who worked closely
with him. There is almost complete unanimity in the assessment of Sir
Isaac’s character and personality.
“He was ostentatious and vain.” “He was fearful of guilt by association.” “He had the most fearful, cautious, and suspicious temper that I ever knew.” “Hasty, unkind, arrogant, sanctimonious, acrimonious and ill-tempered, he expected near-perfection from others.” “He wanted to have all things in his own power;” “A master manipulator.” “He was too much influenced by flatterers.” “Perpetual Dictator.” “He had no capacity for forgiveness.” “He was excessively competitive, oversensitive, and introverted.” “He was never a man to give credit unless absolutely necessary, and, once crossed, he never forgave.” “The truly spiteful, uncompromising, and razor-sharp viciousness of his character.” “In performance he was most accurate, strict, and exact;” “A slave driver.” “He craved recognition.” “He relished power and status, and schemed for them throughout his life.” “Time did not heal his bitterness and resentment.” “He would go to any lengths in order to destroy anyone who crossed his path.” “Newton was never one to defer to anybody over anything.” “He was unable to deal with criticism in any form, from anyone.” “He was convinced that he knew the truth about everything, and had a divine mission to convince the world of the fact.”
Was he my brother in Christ?
Yes, Sir Isaac Newton was a “Christadelphian.” He knew the Truth. I
am sure that he would have been thrilling to listen to at any Bible School.
I envy his passion for Bible study and his humility before the infinite
majesty of God Almighty. But I have wrestled long and hard over this: was
he my brother in Christ? What would you say?
To the new generation of leaders in the Caribbean, and in the brotherhood worldwide, who are taking over from elders like me who have lived and loved among you for a lifetime, I say: believe what Sir Isaac Newton believed, make his hope your own, but please, please, I beseech you: do not be like him.
Alan Eyre
Many great men of God who were champions of the truth made very serious mistakes and let God down.
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Who “spake unadvisedly with his lips”?
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Who “did right, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite”?
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Who “did right, yet in his disease sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians”?
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Who was told by a Philistine king, “thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done”?
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Who “rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him”?
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Who made his sons judges who “perverted judgment”?
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Who was on a missionary journey with two others, but suddenly left them and “went not with them to the work”?
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Which brother “loved to have the pre-eminence” in his ecclesia?
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Who was told by an apostle, “take heed to thyself, and unto the doctrine”?
I was standing at a busy bus terminal beside a young sister, when a thief slit her handbag with a knife, caught the contents, and ran off across the road. As soon as the traffic was clear, the sister crossed the road, faced the robber and said, “You slit my bag and stole my children’s lunch money.” “O no I didn’t,” said the man. “O yes you did. Please let me have it back. It’s all I’ve got to give the children.” Sheepishly, he slowly put his hand in his pocket and gave her everything. When she had counted it, she had more than she had before.
I count myself blessed to have had as a lifelong friend a wonderful Jamaican woman. Her name was Alice Blaine. In the 1930’s as a young teenager, she worked for a brother Randall, a Kingston merchant, who introduced her to the Christadelphians. She was very beautiful and became an actress at the Ward Theater. When she was in her mid-thirties she married. At the time she did not know that Mr. Blaine had neuro-syphilis. She was infected, and Alfred, their only child, was born with a severe congenital form of the disease. After barely a year of marriage, Mr. Blaine was certified insane and committed to the Bellevue asylum. Alice was baptised a few years later, which is when I first met her. A very meaningful moment for me was in 1995 when I accompanied her to the asylum on the day of her husband’s death. There and then I learned that she had taken a cooked dinner to her husband, a round trip by bus of twenty miles, every single day of every year for fifty years, even though during his later years he couldn’t even recognise her. “As a wife, it was my duty” she said simply. I know the Lord will reward such incredibly selfless dedication and faithfulness with a pain-free life that will know no ending.
Sister Myrtle Aiken of Kingston, now nearly 97, loved to tell of two memorable moments in her life. At a bus stop on her way to work, she was held up by a gunman who demanded all her money. She only had 14 cents, just enough for the fares to and from work. With a gun on her chest, she pointed out to the gunman that if he took all 14 cents, she would be in trouble and lose her job. She offered to give him 7 cents and walk home, if he would allow her to take the bus so as to get to work on time. The robber agreed, took the 7 cents and disappeared round a corner. Some time later, he reappeared and returned the 7 cents he had taken, saying, I can’t take it, lady!