Author : Keith Sharp
The Constitution of the United States of America was written by representatives of the thirteen states gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1787, adopted by that body September 17th of that year, and became effective as the fundamental body of law and statement of the form of government for the United States March 4th, 1789. This remarkable document is still in effect today, making America the oldest constitutional republic and the nation that has maintained the same form of government the longest of any on earth. Thus, the wisdom of those who drew up this document is proven by history to be truly remarkable.
Yet the Constitution is an uninspired document written by human wisdom. It could not withstand the passage of time unchanged and has been amended twenty-seven times. Some of its original provisions are now appalling. Slaves were three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation in Congress. Chattel slavery itself was unchallenged. No man or group of men possess the wisdom to devise a plan that is all sufficient for its purposes for all time.
But God does have such wisdom and He has devised such plans repeatedly. God’s thoughts and ways are as far above man’s as “the heavens are higher than the earth” (Isaiah 55:8-9). The Lord God, in what seems to us to be His most foolish provision, is far wiser than any man or group of men (1 Corinthians 1:25).
The purpose of this lesson is to demonstrate and apply the all-sufficiency of the divine plans.
Meaning of “All Sufficiency”
Paul wrote of the apostles, “our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5). In this verse “sufficiency” is from the Greek term “hikanotes,” meaning “ability or competency to do a thing” (Thayer. 300). The apostle later assured the saints in Corinth, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Here “all sufficiency” translates the Greek word “autarkeia,” meaning “a perfect condition of life, in which no aid or support is needed” (Thayer. 84). Both passages teach that human sufficiency depends on God. God alone is all sufficient in Himself. “All sufficiency” in relationship to the plans of God means that the divine plans are completely able to accomplish all they are designed to do without alteration.
All Sufficient Creation
The creation itself is all sufficient to supply all mankind’s physical needs. At the end of six days of creative work, “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). There was no need for evolutionary change over eons of time to bring man into being and to adapt him and the earth to one another. The Lord God accomplished it in six, twenty-four hour days. This perfect adaptation, in which our every material need is supplied in the world in which we live is witness to the existence of a loving God (Acts 14:11-17). The Lord God is able to supply all our needs, so that we can even be generous in helping the poor (2 Corinthians 9:6-11).
All Sufficient Savior
The Lord Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, sent from the Father in heaven to redeem us, is completely sufficient to save us from our sins and to take us home to heaven to live with God throughout eternity. Our completeness is in the complete Christ (Colossians 2:6-10). He is “able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him” (Hebrews 7:25). We must be on guard against any who would preach another Savior (2 Corinthians 11:4).
All Sufficient Revelation
When Christ Jesus ascended back to the Father after His resurrection from the dead, He sent the Holy Spirit to His chosen apostles to lead them into all truth (John 16:13-15). The Holy Spirit revealed to them all the truth of the gospel (1 Corinthians 2:9-10; 2 Peter 1:2-4). They wrote this truth down for all mankind throughout time in the New Testament (Ephesians 3:1-7). The Bible that we can hold in our hands and read is the all sufficient revelation of the mind of God to the mind of man and makes known everything we need to know to please God, to have fellowship with all His people, and to go to heaven (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Any who would bring another supposed revelation are accursed (Galatians 1:8-9). Neither Mohammed, Joseph Smith, nor any other self proclaimed prophet has any divine truth to add to the Bible. Those who write human creeds and employ them as standards of fellowship are equally accursed (2 John 9-11; Revelation 22:18-19). The Southern Baptist Church proclaims of the Bible, “It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction” (Manual. 39), while employing their uninspired manual as their standard of fellowship. The denominations with their man made creeds are equally guilty with the Muslims and Mormons of adding to the all sufficient, divinely inspired word of God.
All Sufficient Relationship
Jesus Christ built His church (Matthew 16:18), and that church established by the Lord Jesus Christ “is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23). The Lord built only one church (Ephesians 4:4). All spiritual blessings are found in Christ (Ephesians 1:3), in His body, the church. All, both Jew and Gentile may be reconciled to God in this one body (Ephesians 2:13-16). The Lord wants unity in His church (Ephesians 4:1-6), and He warns us against dividing into sects (1 Corinthians 1:10-13). The church of Christ is an all sufficient relationship, and denominations begun by men are sinful perversions of this one body.
All Sufficient Organization
The only organization the Lord Jesus Christ has authorized for His church is the local congregation (1 Corinthians 1:2). Each local church is to be completely autonomous, having the oversight of all its own work (1 Peter 5:1-2). This simple organization has within it all that is needed to accomplish everything the Lord wants His church to do. Three things are needed to accomplish the work assigned by the Lord: oversight, administration, and funds. The Lord provided all three in the local church (Philippians 1:1; 1 Peter 5:1-2; Acts 6:1-6; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2). Autonomous local churches, not bound together by “overseeing churches” or societies, such as the Missionary Society or World Bible School, took the gospel to the whole world in the first century (Mark 16:15; Philippians 4:15-16; Colossians 1:5-6,23), built up their own members in the faith without church supported colleges (Ephesians 4:12-16), and did all the benevolent work God assigned the church (Acts 6:1-6) without institutional orphanages or any other benevolent organizations attached. Those who bind local churches together in the overseeing church arrangement or attach human organizations, such as orphanages, colleges, and WBS, reveal their complete lack of faith in the all sufficiency of the divine organization for the church, the autonomous, local congregation.
Conclusion
If I proclaimed the all sufficiency of the Constitution of the United States as a standard for civil government while at the same time I advocated amending the Constitution, I would be grossly inconsistent. I would justifiably be the object of ridicule.
How can one claim to believe in the sufficiency of the creation of God while espousing the general theory of evolution? How can any sane person proclaim Christ to be an all sufficient savior yet look to another for salvation? Can an intelligent, honest person commend the Bible as the all sufficient revelation from God and standard of fellowship yet accept the Qur’an or the Book of Mormon as a revelation or a denominational creed as a standard of fellowship? How can thoughtful, spiritually minded people accept that the church of Christ, His body, is an all sufficient spiritual relationship yet join a denomination? How can my brethren have the gall to proclaim the autonomous, local church as the all sufficient organization to do the work God has assigned to His people in the spiritual realm while they take away the autonomy of local churches by joining them in overseeing church arrangements and attach myriads of organizations built by human wisdom and design to local churches as quasi church organizations?
Do you really believe in divine all sufficiency?
