1810 - Alexander Campbell's 1st Sermon
Got a minute for a Woodland memory?
Alexander Campbell sought "the unification of all Christians” in a single New Testament body.
Following a shipwreck in Scotland - which delayed his arrival by two years - Alexander Campbell began preaching on America soil in 1810. The young son of Thomas Campbell had Presbyterian roots and had only been sprinkled as an infant in Ireland. Alexander concluded that he could not continue his own ministry without being immersed himself. His father agreed and both were baptized upon the simple confession that “Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
In 1816, at the age of 28, Alexander Campbell would deliver 106 sermons, but it would be his “Sermon on the Law” that would generate a movement; where he argued that “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth come from Jesus Christ.”
He separated Christianity from the Hebrew legal system, claiming that the coming of Christ rendered the law of Moses obsolete. “Christians are not under the law in any sense,” he preached, because “the law or ten commandments is not a rule of life to Christians any further than it is enjoined by Christ.”
Campbell argued that Malachi, the last of the ancient prophets, informed Israel that they should strictly observe Moses' law, until a person should come in the spirit and power of Elijah (Elias). Jesus taught us that John the Baptist was that person, and that the law and prophets terminated at his entrance upon his ministry; for since that time the kingdom of God is preached and all men press into it.
Arguing from Galatians, Campbell said righteousness and eternal life are inseparably connected. Where the former is not, the latter cannot be enjoyed - and that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
Throughout the 1800s, Christian Church and Disciples of Christ congregations expanded throughout Kentucky.
Let’s keep the memory and Woodland’s ministry alive.
- http://www.stillvoices.org/SharedFiles/Download.aspx?pageid=19&mid=28&fileid=310
- https://rsc.byu.edu/alexander-campbell-joseph-smith/alexander-campbells-foundational-beliefs