Are we a restoration movement or a restored position? The Restoration Movement was birthed out of struggle. Men like James O’Kelly, Barton Stone, Thomas Campbell and Alexander Campbell, for the sake of their own faith and the future of the Lord’s church, struggled with disconcerting issues that had crept into the church. O’Kelly struggled with the issue of church hierarchy, Stone struggled with the issue of creeds, T. Campbell struggled with the issue of disunity in denominational systems. Their personal struggles produced in them movement, which in turn produced movement in others. Each of them desired church unity and to emulate New Testament Christianity, so they moved toward the same.
“Restoration” and “Movement” are both verbal nouns. They imply continued action . . . a movement from hinderances toward the simplicity of New Testament practice. If unity in all of Christendom is restored and if New Testament simplicity is restored, then we should call ourselves the “Restored Position.” If the struggle needs to persist, if unity and New Testament simplicity elude us, we need get moving in the direction of restoration or cease to describe ourselves with verbal nouns.
Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. (Phil 3:12).
