In the April, 1986 issue of the Dutch periodical, Getrouw, Editor J.C. Maris notes that the World Council of Churches has from its beginning been compared with a ship going to sea in a heavy storm. Its secretary, Emilio Castro, last year pointed out the danger that its passengers, in their preoccupation with the voyage, might forget that their destination was unity. In the measure that their circle became larger, so that eventually all religions-in fact, all mankind came to be included, the destination became steadily more vague. Accordingly, Castro could ask whether in this common search for righteousness, peace and the integrity of creation, we are not already more united than we realized, in a unity deeper than our doctrinal formulations can express.
It thus becomes obvious that the ecumenical course is diverging ever further away from the unity in Christ which, according to God’s Word, does not include everyone, but is restricted to true believers who in John 17 are clearly distinguished from the world. The result is that serious Christians lose interest in this voyage, whose course they do not at all approve. But if your church is on this voyage, are you not in it whether you like it or not? And we can’t simply say, “We’ll see where the ship lands.”
Furthermore , this ecumenical ship is on a course shared by many other craft; it has no course of its own. Although it flies a Christian flag, it is not guided by the compass of God’s Word. Its course is determined by human reckoning and expectations of a better world that promises freedom and well-being to all. Thus Marxist ideals gain control also in the churches, as the ecumenical churches chart a course toward an earthly paradise incorrectly named “the Kingdom of God.” The writer recalled the account of Paul’s voyage in Acts 27, which despite its promising beginning in disregard of the Apostle’s warning, ended in shipwreck. The ecumenical ship sails in the wake of the world in expectation of the unity of all mankind under one world government. A unification of all religions is supposed to cement this unity of mankind and to eliminate all wars and conflicts. The inhabitants of the world will be registered as world citizens; that registration will be required if one is to engage in commerce or industry. Preparations for such an arrangement are far advanced and it could come soon. It is evident that this unity can tolerate no exceptions. Anyone who may have conscientious objections will have to be excluded.
The Holy Scripture nowhere teaches that the church of Christ will develop into such an influential, visible world-church. It rather predicts an opposite process of apostasy. False prophets will deceive many and lawlessness will increase (Mt. 24:11, 12). Hated by all nations, the true church will become a prey to oppression and persecution. The only place left for it will be in the “Wilderness” (Rev. 12:13–17). This is not the image of a prosperous church that shares the favor of the world and its leaders.
The Bible does indeed predict the rise of a united world-church in the service of a false religion. It will be led by the false prophet, the “beast that arises out of the earth” and that will make the inhabitants of the earth worship the antichrist (Rev. 13:11–18), whose coming is “in accordance with the work of Satan,” but “whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth” (2 Thess. 2:8). It is to be feared that the coming world-church, proclaimed by the Ecumenical Movement, will produce this religion of the end-time.
The editor highlights the effort of the International Council of Christian Churches to alert all Bible–believing churches and Christians to action and prayer in order to remain faithful to the end and “to contend for the faith that God has once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). The unbiblical Ecumenicals’ course must be unconditionally rejected, for God’s Word permits no fellowship between righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness, Christ and Belial, faith and unbelief, God’s temple and that of idols. It orders not false unity, but separation, perhaps painful, but accompanied by God’s promise, “I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters” (2 Cor. 6:14–18). The article invites Bible-believing churches, not to support a world-church in the spirit of the times, but to submit to the authority of God’s Word, to watch and pray in a common struggle against apostasy and unbelief, to testify to salvation through Christ’s blood, to· remember suffering fellow–believers (1 Pet. 5:9), and to “wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
(Translated from the Dutch) P.D.J.