The first place in Scripture in which we find the word " CHURCH," is in Matt. 16, " And Simon Peter said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood path not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (verses 16-19). Remark here, 1st. The doctrine about the Church is nowhere found in the former volume of Scripture; the doctrine is, here, first found in the second volume -in the more recently given Scriptures. Search the whole of what is vulgarly called the Old Testament, and you will not once find it. Those, therefore, who only had that book, could not have guessed what the Master was here speaking about. It was to them an altogether new subject.
2ndly. As here, first found, it is not spoken of as something then, already, existing, but as something still future and he says not, "is," or "has been built"; but, "I will build"- thus describing a future action. There was an action to come,—the which, or the, aim of which, was not only not known to the apostles, at that time, but was not understood even by Peter himself, after the death and resurrection of the Lord; as may be seen at the beginning of Acts 1. He and the rest of the apostles clave, so long as they could, to Jewish hopes.
3rdly. Peter's confession to Christ is, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." On this the Lord remarks, that this was a direct revelation to Peter from God. And He adds from Himself, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church,"—and goes on,—" And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it:" " And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:1919And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:19)). And what follows the announcement about this new thing, the Church? Not promises of earthly ease and blessing; but, 1stly. A plain announcement of His coming sufferings. 2ndly. The transfiguration. 3rdly. The preparation of His people to be as a heavenly people upon earth.
1stly. His sufferings. "From that time forth began Jesus to spew unto his disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and Chief Priests and Scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offense unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, hut those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then He shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom" (Matt. 16:21-2821From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. 22Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. 23But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. 24Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 26For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 27For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. 28Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. (Matthew 16:21‑28)).
2ndly. The transfiguration, " And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was -transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with
Him. " Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles: one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him. And when the disciples heard it, they felt on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the Scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist (Matt. 17:1-131And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, 2And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. 3And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. 4Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. 5While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. 6And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. 7And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. 8And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. 9And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead. 10And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? 11And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. 12But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. 13Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. (Matthew 17:1‑13)).
3rdly. The power of Him who was of heaven (shown in the Lord's healing of the lunatic, verses 14-18), and of those who have faith in Him, verses 21 and 22. His and their freedom of God from tribute, and yet subjection for peace's sake thereto; and lastly, the character and rules of the kingdom of heaven (chap. 18).
It is here we find (in what is vulgarly or commonly called, the Scriptures of the New Testament) the second occurrence of the mention of the Church. " And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church: but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican" (Matt. 18:1717And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. (Matthew 18:17)). It is a most remarkable commandment, and must have sounded strangely in Jewish ears. No longer was a man to have an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; and the magistrate present to judge, in God's name, between Jew and Jew; but in some new body that was spoken of, as if about to be built, a private wrong was done to an individual, he had a first and second step marked out for him to take so as to gain his brother; and, if these failed, he left the matter with the Church, and, if its appeal failed, the man became unto him as a heathen man and a publican.
Our minds are so habituated to the thoughts in which we were educated, that we quite forget that while the Church is no new name in our ears it was quite other- wise to those in our Lord's day. No new term of any recently developed science is more strange to us than this term of Church must have been to Jewish ears as thus announced.
In the commencement of the Acts, we find our Lord preparing his disciples for a new testimony which was to be given upon earth. Himself risen from the dead -He was not about to become king in Sion-but to leave the earth and go on high. His disciples, whose understandings he had opened, that they might understand the Scriptures (see Luke 24:4545Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, (Luke 24:45)), were to await the promise of the Father and power from on high. That power was given, as we read at the commencement of Acts 2; and one of its effects was a bold testimony gathering unto those to whom the Holy Ghost had come down, and by His power a people; these are called in v. 47 the Church.
The Lord added to the Church daily the escaped. Observe here, the Holy Ghost had come down from Heaven from God, even the Father and from the Lord Jesus, as Son of Man ascended up on high, and He has taken up His dwelling-place in and with the company that clave to the name of Jesus. The truth given in John 15:2626But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: (John 15:26), and 16:7-14, had been acted upon, and that which the Lord saw and spoke of to be true of His disciples, as contrasted with the Jewish people, as such in John 17, was now outwardly and manifestly seen to be true-yea, had become a testimony to all the Jews. Pertaining to the Father-given to the Son-receiving His word-not of the world as He was not of the world. The Lord's love stretched, indeed, beyond Jerusalem. He bade (Acts 1:88But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8),) the testimony to go out to all Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. Faith might falter in men. Though chosen of God the Jews might not yet have stoned Stephen as they had crucified Messiah-but the company now called the Church was a company apart, and not only had its own character, ways, hopes, and power, but was the residence of the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven in witness of the perfect acceptance on high of the man Christ Jesus. We read that fear came upon all the Church (v. 11) when God showed in the awful yet just judgment of Ananias and Sapphira, that the Holy Ghost Himself was in the Church. " But Peter said, Ananias, why path Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own; and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart; thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." (Acts 5:3,43But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? 4Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. (Acts 5:3‑4).)
It is not too much to say, that the Church was at the time here spoken of, evidently a habitation of God through the Spirit. The doctrine of Paul, as given to us in the Epistle to the Ephesians, was not known. It pleased God first to present, while still pleading with Jews and Jerusalem, the truth of the Church as a habitation of God through the Spirit. When they had rejected the testimony, variously turned as it was to them ward-when Samaria had heard the word and received it-when a persecution, raised on the death of Stephen, had spread the word (where faith and faithfulness had not, in heavenly energy, carried it). Stephen stoned-and Paul chief sinner and persecutor converted,-the way was open, according to divine thoughts, for the Son of God to be preached, as we find Paul doing it immediately upon his conversion, and in process of time for the doctrine of the Church in the Heavenly side of it to be unfolded,-the doctrine of the Church, not merely as a habitation down here upon earth of the Spirit, (who will also fill it when 'tis a habitation for God on high) but of the Church as the body of Christ. This was not, known at Pentecost.
Adam the first, in the garden of Eden, was not only the center of a system, but he was also the head of a race; for all men came from him, and he was also the source of that race; for Eve herself, who was the mother of all, was taken out of his side. The blessed second Adam is the center of a heavenly and divine system, and is Head and Source to the Church. It seems (to me at least) that there are two figures in Ephesians, one (as in the close of chap. 1 and in chap. 4) in which he is the Head of a body,-the Head as contrasted with the complement of the members, all of whom stand in him (see also Rom. 5) and the second, as in Eph. 5 in which He is the second Adam, in whom the Church is, as Eve was in Adam.
I need not say, that there was no collision between the doctrine of the Church as a habitation for God by the Spirit, and the doctrine of the Church as the body and bride of Christ. Both are found in Ephesians, and both are found in the new Jerusalem,-realization of our hopes yet to come. Yet while the one is in no way inconsistent or incompatible with the other;—the one was revealed before the other,-the -the one first revealed is often known where the second is not known; and more than this, not only might the revelation of the second most blessed truth have been needful, as the full expression of what God had to communicate by the word, but as the means of giving power under the then circumstances for
testimony. It will, I believe, be found that the separation of these two truths is connected largely with the errors of the day.
We have noticed first, the mention of the Church by the Lord, when its very name, as introduced by the Lord, must have been as an enigma or riddle to those around Him. Secondly, the formation of the Church at Jerusalem by the descent of the Holy Ghost, when (as all acquainted with the subject are aware) the hopes in the minds of preachers and hearers did not go beyond the then place of testimony. Christ, as able to bless Israel (the gospel beginning at Jerusalem) is the subject of Acts 2-7. And thirdly, that view of the Church in which it is presented in Ephesians, as the body of Christ. Has the gap which took place between the formation of the Church at Jerusalem (in which it became as on earth a habitation for God through the Spirit) and the revelation, through Paul, of the doctrine of the Church as the body of Christ been sufficiently noticed? We think not.
The testimony at Jerusalem and the work there, was mainly by Peter: to him, among men naturally, that work attaches, and the Petrean phase of the Church was what God gave him as his honor. The Pauline phase did not clash with the Petrean, though distinguishable from it. The former was more connected with man upon earth than the latter; the latter more connected with the grace of a risen and ascended and glorified Head of a body, part of which was down here, than was the former; more heavenly, too, but neither of them exhausted the topic of blessing; for if Peter and the eleven, as witnesses of the resurrection, set up the Church here below, and if Paul showed how a heavenly, earth-rejected Messiah had a body down here, every member of which was necessary to, and vitally one with, the Head, there still remained the individual believer dwelt in by the life of God, to be treated of;-for how the individual believer should be placed together with others, as a habitation for God on earth at Jerusalem, when all were in one place; and how this truth had a higher import connected with believers in the risen Jesus in every place,-themselves also the members of a body, the heavenly head of which is Christ in heaven. Neither of these truths unfold the doctrine of the individual believer as possessor of Divine life. This was reserved specially for John as a work, and presents truth of the most precious and enduring nature-truth in which the soul individually has to do with God in the highest; and truth which abides, whether—there be a body of believers upon earth or not, or, after the Petrean mold, whether there be, after the Pauline, a second member whom one can recognize as a fellow-member in the heavenly body. At Patmos, John realized the full savor of the Johannic phase of the Church-a soul, it might be, in solitude as to men, but possessed of divine life, and visited as such by the Lord in Patmos-and the doctrine of divine life in the soul, with all its bearings, is John's peculiar subject in his epistle.
It does not require much wisdom to see that without our Lord's sojourn and mission on the earth, neither could God have shown out all the riches of His grace before or to man-for none but the Lord Himself was that all-nor could man have been fully and completely convicted: but now, man in rebellion visited by God Himself in grace, and, as Son of man, presenting all the divine grace according to the mind and wants of man in ruin, has been personally rejected, insulted, and, so far as the human race could do it, murdered and sent out of the world. And not only the wickedness of Israel and of the gentiles (that is, of the world) has fully shown itself, but also the entire weakness of His people, for they all forsook Him and fled. This outrageousness of wickedness and extreme of weakness was man's answer to the testimony of Grace given by Jesus upon earth.
Risen from the dead, we find Him, in Acts 1, speaking of the kingdom of God (ver. 3); but as to the testimony He was about to raise, marking it thus: " And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me" (ver. 4); and marking its range, again, thus: " But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (ver. 8). Then we read: " And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight" (ver. 9). But the hope of His return shines forth in the moment of His departure, for, " And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven" (ver. 10, 11).
Nothing is said about this new testimony being the body of Christ; nor is there, in chap. 2, where we have the account of the descent of the Holy Ghost and its effects, a word thereupon. Indeed, a company, a people of God upon earth, was rather what is described as the result: " Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold. their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved" (2:41-47).
I know it has been said: This was not the Church; been said so directly and indirectly; positively and by implication. And said so, so frequently, that a word of answer may not be amiss.
1. Then I answer: The Holy Ghost writes, Acts 2:4747Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. (Acts 2:47), of this very company, "the Lord added to the Church daily," etc., and again, " fear came upon all the Church" (v. 11). Though this would suffice, I remark:-
2. That the very Paul whose doctrine, par excellence, the objectors profess to follow, and an error as to whose doctrine has led them into the denial they make, is against them- as a comparison of Acts 8:33As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. (Acts 8:3), 1 Cor. 15:99For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. (1 Corinthians 15:9), Phil. 3:66Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. (Philippians 3:6), and Gal. 1:1313For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: (Galatians 1:13), proves. The gravamen of his, Paul's sin, according to his own account, is thus given: " For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God" (1 Cor. 15:99For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. (1 Corinthians 15:9)); "Concerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless" (Phil. 3:6). 1 set this first that Paul's own thought may stop objections which might be raised as to Acts 8:33As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. (Acts 8:3): "As for Saul, he made havoc of the Church, entering into every house, and haling men and, women committed them to prison." These are the words, as are those above, of the Holy Ghost. No one who owns Him would set them aside; but, lest it should be thought, "the Church," in Acts 8:33As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. (Acts 8:3), was merely "the Church which was at Jerusalem," we find Paul's havoe of this very Church was the gravamen of his sin. It was, as to him, whose views of the Church-special revelation to himself-are given in the Epistle to the Ephesians: it was to him " the Church of God."
3. In writing to the Churches of Galatia, of which he very much stood in doubt lest they, by Judaizing, had left the gospel of Christ for another which was not another, etc., he says: "For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God and wasted it" (Gal. 1:1313For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: (Galatians 1:13)). The same idea is confirmed in ver. 22, 23: "And was unknown by face unto the Churches of Judaea which were in Christ: but they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed." This may suffice to prove that Paul hesitated not to call the witness formed and raised up at Pentecost "the Church of God," though the doctrine of its being the body of Christ was not known until his own preaching and writing.
4. Two more verses may be cited. They are of peculiar interest as connected with the uniting of Jerusalem and Antioch together. " Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the Church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch.... And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the Church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." See also 12:1, 5, compared with 13:1; 14:27; and remark that if the Church has "which is at Jerusalem " added in Acts 8:11And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. (Acts 8:1), the same is spoken of as the Church in 12:1: " To vex certain of the Church"; ibid. 5, " Prayer was made of the Church unto God." And again, we find the place Antioch marked in 13:1: "There were in the Church that was in Antioch"; 14:27, and being returned to Antioch they "gathered the Church together," etc. Of Paul and Barnabas also it is said: " And being brought on their way by the Church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren. And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the Church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that-God had done with them" (14:3, 4).
" Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole Church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren."
Three more passages from Acts and we have done. " And when he [Paul] had landed at Caesarea, and gone up, and saluted the Church, he went down to Antioch" (18:22). "And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the Church" (20:17). " Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood" (ibid. 28).
The new action on God's part as predicted by Christ in chap. 1, clearly lays the wide world under Ea new responsibility, viz, that He, the earthly Messiah, being gone on high, the Holy Ghost should come down to those there that were His; and raise a testimony which if it began at Jerusalem was also for " the uttermost part of the earth" (ver. 8). And here is seen, quite independently of any light afterward given to Paul, the basis of the responsibility of Christendom.
I cannot doubt but that this community of responsibility is not commonly seen. Indeed it is distinctly denied by the church of Rome, by Protestantism, and by Nonconformity severally. Rome cuts itself off from, and carefully makes it known, that it is separate from all testimony which is not subject to it, and owns no identity in any sense-no community with Protestantism. And yet both have the scriptures of truth, both have the light of revelation, both stand in that light, and where the Spirit is, and both are giving true or false witness for Christ and will be judged accordingly, and neither of them can get away from the evil which has been wrought in Christ's name, in a failed economy, and not yet been judged of God. Protestantism professes to separate itself from Rome, from the wide channel of God's testimony, but will not thereby escape God's judgment on this account. What should she have done? Certainly not have denied the common responsibility of Christendom as though she had nothing to do with it, as though a protest against Rome washed the hands of all responsibility before God. Each individual who saw it, should have owned the common failure, taken up the confession of it as his own burden, and without pretending to be, as to responsibility, free before God from it, have separated himself, body, soul, and spirit, from all the evil. To separate oneself from evil individually, to lay aside the evil and to take of the good, is a very different thing from raising a body to protest against an evil, or to satisfy oneself because one is of such a protesting body. I do not say that the reformers began by Protestantism; they did not, but their work has lapsed into it. So with Nonconformity; whatever godly power may have first led individuals to deplore the evil of Protestantism as such, and to endeavor to seek out God's paths to walk in, Nonconformity as it now is, boasts of its separation, not only from Romanism, but from Protestant nationalism: and that which is common to Nonconformity, Protestantism, and Romanism, is not felt and owned, and mourned over. There is no sense of the common failure of all professions. Whereas, to be Christians in very truth, those only get excepted by God from judgment who anticipate his act and take up the sin and bear it on their hearts before Him (Ezek. 9; 1 Cor. 5:2;11. 31, 32).
For us to get away from the place which has failed (Rom. 11:13-2513For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: 14If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. 15For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? 16For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. 17And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; 18Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. 19Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. 20Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: 21For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. 22Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. 23And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. 24For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? 25For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. (Romans 11:13‑25)) is impossible: to attempt, or rather pretend to do it, is to pretend to leave the place of testimony God has set and found us in, which is rebellion and self-will. To know where we are, and to be humbled for the common failure, and yet to endeavor to separate ourselves from every evil, and from all those that are evil, and take up every good, is of God and will bring blessing.
I say again, if I had not the epistles of Paul, if I knew nothing about the Church as the body of Christ, I have, in the contrast between what the Church at Jerusalem as a people of God was and what she now is, and, I may add, between what she is and what the hope of her Lord's return makes meet-a responsibility laid upon me in common with all that bear the Lord's name upon earth before men, and I mourn for the failure before God and make confession of the sin.
That the doctrine of Paul, of the Church as the body of Christ, gave him power and energy, and has a special word to those among the people of the Lord whose hearts are awake to receive it, is clear. It may give guidance, too, in the midst of the people that bear the Lord's name -in the house here below-to think that I am a member in particular of that body of which Christ is the head, and may not do anything inconsistent therewith.
Rome, Greece, the reformed Churches of Europe—have they this hallowing light, this hallowed ambition, that if there are a people on earth to whom testimony has been committed, who can, who may, who will, as a channel of testimony be cut off (Rom. 11), yet that in this channel are found those that are the members of Christ's body; that all must deplore the failure, each one separate himself from all evil, and from those that walk in evil, and only walk as a member of Christ's body?
Rome, the queen of the world-the Protestant Churches married to the state-own not this. They own not the common failure as resting upon all and each member; they own not the Church as dwelt in by the Spirit, and as thus the body of Christ; they own not separation from all evil; separation, in a great house, from all evil and all evil persons, unto God. Nonconformity was free to do it-did it to some extent; but, as one (himself an able Nonconformist) has remarked, " every trust-deed of a chapel, all church-property," owns headship in Cesar, and so denies the Church's pilgrim, widow character of dependance upon God; an absent Lord; and the Holy Ghost present.
As responsibility connects itself with the Church as a people down here, so power connects itself with the Church as the body of Christ who is in heaven. Power not only for the crisis of Paul's day in establishing Churches and upholding what was falling, but power also for our day; power for detection of what we practically are not, in contrast with what we are spiritually and in Him; and power, I doubt not, somehow or the other, of so getting forth the precious from the vile in the midst of evil around us that He, if not we, may be content. Paul found it so to himself in the end of his career.
For one cannot read the New Testament with intelligence, without seeing how Paul's end was different from Paul's beginning. How different, for example, his position in the end of Acts from his position from chap. 17-21: as different as the-testimony of an individual before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, is different from the setting up and being blessed among Churches. And in the Second Epistle of Timothy, for instance, he has got pretty much into John's doctrine: that if all has failed outside, he and Timothy can comfort one another.
It is not within the range of my present object to go into the detail of the doctrine of the Church, as the body of Christ, as so fully given us in Ephesians. Though I may remark that in that epistle there are two aspects of the Church, as it were-a heavenly and an earthly. A heavenly, in which the light of purpose and counsel from before the foundation of the world is seen, playing and shining in the person of the Lord Jesus in heaven, Head of His body the Church, and the chief Cornerstone of the edifice of God's habitation. The earthly aspect, if I may so call it, shows us the quarries whence the members were digged down here-Jews and Gentiles, alike under the power once of the world, the flesh, and the devil, but redeemed unto God.
Into the doctrine about the soul in its individuality of blessing, I enter not into detail; but I would call attention to the fact, that in many portions of the word the individual is looked at as such, and the appeal and doctrine made to it in that view. In some portions, the force of the text is entirely falsified, and in others its bearing is lost if the individuality of the address is not seen.