All Articles For Harbach Robert C

The strange name Christadelphians means The Brethren of Christ. It was coined from the Greek language in 1864 by the founder of the sect, a John Thomas. He could not stand the name Christian because it represented to him everything degenerated and anti-Christian. Therefore he meant to displace it with an invention of his own which he supposed represented the revival of original apostolic religion. Thomas was born in England in 1805, the son of an Independent minister.

(Editor’s Note. Following is the substance of an address delivered by the Rev. R. C. Harbach for the League of Men’s Societies at its fall meeting in 1966. Deeming this address instructive, the League asked that it be published in our magazine, and we gladly concur with this request. H.C.H.) 

God’s plan of the ages is not the mere unfolding of the eras of time until the last when eternity is ushered in. The periods of the world are directed in the providence of God through their beginning, continuance and end according to the will of God for all things. Each period is marked by a particular progressive development of the divine purpose to the end that the promise gradually revealed be seen in ever clearer light until it is realized in its most comprehensive fulfillment. The dispensations begin then with not man, but the promise.

“In whom we have redemption through His blood.” (Eph. 1:7) We are here informed that the source and genius of redemption is not in ourselves. We do not redeem ourselves. We have redemption, but only in Him, Christ. Redemption means deliverance, a deliverance by the payment of a price which purchases the redeemed and sets them free. 

After the Flood, what was the first civilization with which the church had contact? At that time, the church was found in the Ararat mountains of Armenia. From there the church moved to Chaldea, where both Hamites and Shemites dwelt. Here the original centers of civilization were founded, especially in the cities of Babel and Nineveh. (Gen. 10:10-11) Here the children of Shem sprung up: the children of Elam (Persians), of Assur (Assyrians), of Aram (Syrians).

The Apostle John wrote in his gospel, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (1:17) John referred to the law as the day of shadows, and grace and truth as the realities. The law provided Israel with a copy of things to come. Grace and truth brought the genuine articles. The law furnished the sketch, while grace and truth completed the finished picture. The “Scofield Reference Bible” at this point is then in error. When we have here is not a contrast between law and grace, but a comparison of the two...

The name comes from the Russian dukhabortsy, meaning “spirit-wrestlers,” which signifies in the divinity of man the struggle of his soul with the god within, thus disclosing an inherent albeit unphilosophical pantheism. An illiterate peasant cult, it ‘stems from the Raskolniki, schismatics, from the established Russian Orthodox Church. It denies the objective, written Word of God and the sacraments. It also rejects government, which it regards as a Pharaoh persecuting the Hebrews in Egypt.

“I will build My Church” (Mt. 16:18). These words of Christ are appealed to by dispensationalists in their attempt to prove that there was no church in the Old Testament. They insist that such saints as Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Daniel, Malachi and John the Baptist were not in the church. The words, “I will build My, Church” are said to be in the future tense, implying that the Church did not then exist, nor prior to that time, but was yet to be established at Pentecost.

I. AS TO DOCTRINE The most important branch of the Eastern church is unquestionably the Russian Orthodox Church. It came into being in the tenth century when Christendom was introduced to the Russian barbarians by way of an icon and the rite of immersion. Denominational headquarters became centered in Constantinople until 1461, when the Metropolitan of Moscow was advanced to Patriarch, making Moscow the Rome of Russia. 

The editor has asked the undersigned (a former Washingtonian) to answer two interesting statements offered by Mr. Lionel Woodworth, a subscriber, of Spokane, Washington. First, he writes: