WHEN God has been pleased to give His redeemed ones a revelation of His mind for them. He has not repeated it, but providing by recording it in writing, He looks for His people to preserve it, and to conform to it. It was so with Israel and the law. It is the same with Christian revelation. Jehovah gave the law to Israel, and caused Moses to write it in a book, that it might be preserved to future generations, legislating, too, for its precepts to he kept in the remembrance of the Israelites by the ordinance which enjoined the reading of it in the ears of all Israel at the feast of tabernacles every seventh year. (Deut. 30: 0-43.)
The wisdom of putting it in writing was evidenced centuries afterward, when in the reign of Josiah the original book, it would seem, written by Moses, was found by Hilkiah the priest in the house of the Lord. (2 Chron. 34:14.) Thus the original transcript of the law was preserved intact to the days of that king, surviving the attempts of Ahaz to stamp out the worship of Jehovah, when the doors of the temple were shut, and the lamps were put, out. The Mosaic ritual was indeed for a time in abeyance, but the book of the law, by which the priests and people could learn about it, was all that time safely hidden away in the temple, to be brought out into the light, a century later, in the days of his great-great-grandson. God's word does not pass away till all is fulfilled. Josiah felt the solemnity of that, when the law was read in his hearing by Shaphan the scribe; and afterward, when the answer of Huldah the prophetess told him, that the threatened judgments would surely be executed.
But not only does God reveal His mind, and put it in writing; He also, in His great grace, acts at certain periods in man's history to recover for His people truth once known, but, it may be, long lost by human carelessness and indifference. In this, too, the wisdom of God, in putting His revelation in writing, becomes apparent; for to the written word He turns His people to learn His mind, recorded as it was of old in words taught the sacred writers by the Holy Ghost.
Now something of God's action in recovering truth we read of in the days of Ezra the scribe, when the returned remnant had recovered for them out of the law of their God the true way of keeping the feast of tabernacles. (Neh. 8:13-17.)
Of the unchangeableness of the word of God as regards judgment on the people, if they broke the law, Josiah and those with him were made sensible by the answer of the prophetess. The joy of heart, which the recovery of truth long forgotten can give to true-hearted souls, the people experienced, when, obeying the divine word, they sat under booths throughout that feast of tabernacles. " There was very great gladness," is the inspired statement. Judgments announced, and the certainty of the execution of them, witness of Jehovah's righteousness, and of the people's failure. Hope, too, as souls learn of blessings predicted; may be engendered in the heart, since, if one part of God's word is fulfilled, other parts will also receive their accomplishment. But truth recovered and acted on, can generate gladness in the hearts of those who conform to it. With this action of God in grace, in recovering truth after truth long forgotten, we in our day are also familiar.
As with Israel, who received the whole law from Moses, so with Christians: God revealed all the fresh truth He meant to unfold for our instruction during the lifetime of the apostles and prophets, who were in those days known channels of revelation. Nothing new in the way of revealed truth has been communicated since John, the last surviving apostle, laid down his pen. And all that was needful to be perpetuated was put in writing ere the canon of scripture was closed. That being the case, since no fresh truth has been revealed in later times, the testimony of the day in apostolic times is the testimony still. God has not supplemented it. He has not canceled it. He has not changed any part of it. So, to understand what is the full testimony of God for our day, we must go to the divine word to learn what it was when the canon of scripture was closed.
Now one thing against which we are most seriously warned is any theory of development. We are to contend, as those in the days of Jude were exhorted by him to do, for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 3.) This supposes a completed revelation, and is in harmony with the injunctions of Paul and of John.
Paul writing to Timothy, in the last canonical letter which came from his hand, tells him: " That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us." (2 Tim. 1:14.) The deposit of the faith he was to keep sedulously.
John, writing to the babes in Christ, tells them that it is the last time, and in view of that having come warns them against the spirit of antichrist, which was already in the world. Corruption of truth, and attempts to draw away souls had already begun. The truth had been revealed. So whilst apostasy awaited its full development, Christian truth, " the faith " as Jude calls it, had been already made known. Nothing more was to be expected. Hence John exhorts them to let that which they had heard from the beginning abide in them. If that which they had heard from the beginning abode in them, they would continue in the Son and in the Father. (1 John 2:18,24.)
In the same strain the Lord Jesus spoke in His addresses to the angel in Thyatira, in Sardis, and in Philadelphia: " Unto you I say the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I put upon you none other burden, but that which ye have, hold fast till I come." (Rev. 2:24,25.) Sending to the angel of the church in Sardis, He says, " Remember, therefore, how thou hast received, and heard; and hold fast, and repent." (3:3.) And encouraging those in Philadelphia, He says, "Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." (3.11.) These several injunctions suppose that the Christian faith was known as a revelation completed, to which nothing more would be added; and that what the saints had to do was to hold it fast.
But here the grace of the Lord shines out. If truth once known has been forgotten, so that saints on earth at any given time have never personally had it, we learn from His language to these churches that He would not hold souls responsible for that which had been let slip by their progenitors. " That which ye have, hold fast till I come" assures of this on the one hand, whilst exhorting all on the other not to forget, nor to let slip any portion of truth which had reached them. Had the saints in each generation acted up to these injunctions, no portion of Christian teaching would ever have been forgotten. Clearly it was never the Lord's mind that any part of it should have been let slip. But if once let go, He would not hold individuals responsible for that which they had never known. All, however, which He knew they had, He would look for them to keep. Hence, in a day in which God has recovered so much of Christian teaching, it is dangerous for any one to slight, or to refuse to receive, that which He may be ministering afresh from His written word. Responsibility is plainly incurred if we have heard it.
But to return to the question, What is the present testimony? In its completeness we must reply, it is nothing short of full Christian teaching. Recovered truths, in the day in which they are recovered, have naturally a prominent place in men's minds. We can all understand this. And, as truths just recovered, God will surely occupy us with them. But since each recovered truth is only a part of the whole Christian faith, it should be held as such in its right connection, and in due proportion with all the other truths of the revelation. It is, it can be, but part of the one great whole. Now if we were to make it, or any portion of it, or any portion of the Christian faith the testimony of the day, we should be in spirit, however unconsciously, furthering heretical teaching. An heretical spirit, i.e., a choosing of one's creed, would be manifested, if we made one or more doctrines, whether true or false, the testimony of the day. True Christian teaching would embrace all that God has made known for our instruction, as far as we have got hold of it. Its aim would be nothing less than the full teaching set forth in the writings of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament.
Not that this would confine us to New Testament revelation. It would comprise Old Testament revelation as well; as Paul writing to Timothy reminds him that he has known from a child the sacred writings, which were able to make him wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus. And he tells him that every scripture is divinely inspired, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete (αρτιος), fully fitted unto every good work. (2 Tim. 3:15-17.) So Peter exhorts believers from among the Jews to give heed to the word of prophecy as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, till the day should dawn, and the day star arise in their hearts. (2 Peter 1:19.)
By the apostles, who were themselves vessels used of God for the revelation of full Christian truth, Old Testament teaching was not forgotten. It had its place as part of God's revelation, and was to be studied, and kept in remembrance as instruction suited for Christians. Peter and Paul owned that, and maintained it. So also must we. Hence on the one hand no one can be in the full current of the testimony of the day who has not received the truth recovered in our time; and on the other, the truth so recovered must always be received,, if we would be in subjection to God's mind, as but part of that testimony which each Christian is responsible to hold fast.
Now to Paul, be it remembered, was it given by the unfolding of the mystery to complete the word of God. (Col. 1:25.) If any one then could have insisted on some part of Christian teaching as comprising the testimony of his day, it might surely have been Paul, to whom the mystery of the Christ was first made known. (Eph. 3:3,4.) But he is the one of all the apostles, the general outline of whose ministry has been given us in God's word. And this surely is not without practical instruction for us. A double ministry, he tells us, had been committed to him. He was a minister of the gospel, and a minister of the church. (Col. 1:23,25.) How he had exercised his ministry at Ephesus, where his labors had been crowned with much success, his farewell address to the elders of that assembly, when they met him by invitation at Miletus, sufficiently instructs us. He testified, both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. He testified, too, the glad tidings of the grace of God. In addition he both preached the kingdom, and declared all the counsel of God. (Acts 20:21-27.) A range of truth this was, embraced by his ministry there, which certainly for centuries afterward was in its fullness forgotten.
But we live in a day in which, through the goodness of our God, much of it has been recovered. Recovery of truth has characterized the working of the Spirit of God in the church at intervals during the last three hundred years. At the Reformation the great truth of justification by faith was recovered. At a later date the teaching about the new birth was especially insisted on afresh. In our day how much has been recovered!
Now in seeking to trace this out we shall find it ranges itself for the most part under three great heads, namely, truth about God, truth about the Lord Jesus Christ, and truth connected with teaching about the Holy Ghost.
Beginning with truth about God. Many are familiar now with the scripture teaching about the righteousness of God, and the grace of God. But cannot some remember the time, when the true teaching about the righteousness of God was unknown; and the full teaching about the grace of God was unheard in the churches or chapels they frequented?
Now there are four statements about the righteousness of God, helpful when remembered. God's righteousness apart from law, which simply means that He is righteous, is Revealed in the gospel (Rom. 1:17), is now manifested, having been witnessed of by the law and the prophets (3: 21), is to be submitted to by those hearing of it (10:3), who, believing God's testimony about His Son, become it in Christ. (2 Cor. 5:21.) The need for God's righteousness apart from law, to be revealed in the gospel becomes apparent, since God's wrath from heaven is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. (Rom. 1:16-18.) God then, whilst He is righteous in judging, can be also righteous in justifying sinners. And His righteousness through faith in Christ is now manifested unto all them that believe, He having set forth Christ as a mercy seat through faith in His blood, for the showing forth of His righteousness in respect of the passing by the sins that had taken place before, through the forbearance of God; for the showing forth of His righteousness in the present time, that He might be just, and the justifier of him that is of the faith of Jesus.
Of this aspect of God's righteousness the law and the prophets witnessed: the law, by sacrifices appointed for certain sins, which, when duly offered up, ensured to the offerer the forgiveness of his sin; the prophets, by predicting blessings in righteousness for a people who had utterly failed before God. This righteousness Israel would not submit to, seeking in their folly and blindness to establish their own righteousness through keeping the law.
Are they the only ones who in principle have thus acted? But those who do submit themselves unto it, that God should justify them freely by faith in Christ apart from all works of law, become in Christ illustrations of God's. righteousness forever and ever. Now this teaching, as the apostle states, establishes the law, maintaining unsullied God's righteousness and holiness, whilst providing for the outflow of divine mercy, love, and grace, to those who deserved only the outpouring on them of divine wrath.
Next with reference to the grace of God. How much has been brought out from God's word, which for centuries had been little known! The Father's heart, and the reception of the guilty one by God, are subjects which have often been brought before us. How many have been refreshed and comforted by the ministry of divine grace through God's servants who have departed from our midst! Forgiveness of sins as a present blessing of which the heart is assured-justification likewise, telling of the perfect standing of the believer before the throne of God-with these doctrines we are familiar as with household words. Atonement by blood effected, involving as it does propitiation made, our sins carried away, and divine judgment borne on our behalf by the Lord Jesus Christ; the everlasting efficacy of His death, who has found eternal redemption; the abiding value of His blood in the eyes of God; the entrance with boldness into the holiest through the veil, His flesh, procured for us by the shedding of His blood; and our being seated now in Him in the heavenlies; in a word, the gospel of the grace of God as set forth chiefly in the Acts, the Romans, the Hebrews, and the Ephesians-all this we have been taught, to 'which once each of us was a stranger, and which little more than a generation ago was generally unknown.
But speaking of divine grace necessarily brings the Lord Jesus prominently before us. For it is by His death that we share in it. What teaching have we had about Him! Not only is His death full of instruction for us. Of His present place on high, and His very attitude whilst there, we have also learned the bearing. Nor is it only what He has done, but also what He is doing, which is set forth for our instruction in the word. Atonement already and forever effected, we know, too, of His present service exercised on behalf of those given to Him by the Father. He is the Shepherd of the sheep, the Bishop of our souls, the washer of our feet, our High Priest, and our Advocate on high. In these first three characters we learn what He does to us; in the last two, what He does for us in heaven.
The exercise of His priesthood, Aaronic in character, though Melchisedechian in order, not only consists in the presentation of His blood to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people; but an essential part of it is His present intercession on high on behalf of God's saints, that, coming to the throne of grace, they may receive what He has already asked for-mercy and grace for seasonable help. For the present exercise of His priesthood is needful for His people to get through the wilderness.
Was all this, as set forth in the Hebrews, commonly known half a century ago? Is it yet commonly taught in the different ecclesiastical systems into which the one assembly of God is split up?
Then His advocacy, of which John writes (1 John 2), called out on behalf of saints who-fail, in order to their restoration to communion; was there not a time, and that comparatively a very recent one, when this truth was unheard of, and may we not add, scarcely if at all known? Now how many thousands can rejoice in the knowledge of that, in the efficacy, and in the active service of which all true Christian saints have shared, as they needed it, since the Lord went on high; rejoicing, too, as they learn that He is an Advocate with the Father; thus reminding the failing ones that the link of relationship between God and them is not snapped, though that of communion has been broken for the time by their sin.
Then have we not also heard of the saints' relation to Christ, and of their union with Him; relation to Christ as in Him, with its corresponding truth that He is in us, and union with Him as members of His body? What the Lord told His disciples, " At that day," that is, after His resurrection and the coming of the Holy Ghost, " ye shall know, that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you " (John 14:20), has now come to pass. What flows from our being in Him, and He in us, is set forth especially in Rom. 5:12-8:11; Ephesians, Colossians, and in 1 John. The present condition, and the fortunes of the Head of the race are the condition and fortunes of all ranged under His Headship.
We know the sorrow of that as in Adam. Christians should know the blessedness of such a principle made good to them as in Christ. He has died to sin: we have died with Him. He is: we are risen with Him. In Him we are circumcised. With Him we have been buried by baptism unto death. In Him we have-obtained an inheritance. With Him we shall reign, sitting with Him upon His throne. But if in Him, He is in us, Hence His walk, His ways, as delineated in the Gospels, become fruitful in instruction for us, as the apostles Paul (Eph. 5:2; Phil. 2), Peter (1 Peter 2;3;4), and John (1 John 2:3) insist upon.
Furthermore we are united to Him, being members of His body (1 Cor. 12; Eph. 4;5 Col. 1, baptized by the Spirit into one body, members of Christ, members one of another, part of Christ, as He first revealed to Paul, then called Saul, when on his way to Damascus, in those memorable words, " Why persecutest thou me?" The body of Christ is therefore viewed as complete on earth, whilst the Head is in heaven, for already some who are part of His body, as viewed in its most comprehensive aspect, had departed to be with Christ. (Acts 26:10.)
Now the body is viewed in Scripture in three aspects, namely, local (1 Cor. 12:27), comprising all true Christians in any one place; general, as including all of them on earth at any one time (Eph. 4:16; Col. 2:19); and universal, as embracing all real Christians from Pentecost to the rapture. (Eph. 1:23.) This body is also the assembly or the church for which Christ died, and which He will present some day to Himself glorious, without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing. (Eph. 5:27.) -What the saints, viewed as Christ's body, are to Him, Acts 9 shows. What the saints, viewed as His assembly, are to Him, Eph. 5 teaches us, and His own words in Matt. 13:45,46 intimate. What they are, as given to Him by His Father, John 10;17. set forth.
The nearness, then, of the saints to Christ as members of His body, their preciousness to Him as the church, His bride, the word has taught us. Yet though written of therein upwards of eighteen centuries ago, must we not all own, that this is part of the truth recovered by divine favor in the last days? In an article like this, one can but touch on the different heads of teaching brought out afresh from the word. And the reader may the better seize these different heads by their being presented in outline, than if his attention were diverted by presenting each head more in detail.
We have just touched on the truths of our relation to Christ, and of our union with Him. This brings in directly truth concerning the Spirit. Because it is as having received the Spirit that we are in Christ and Christ in us (Rom. 8:9,10), and that we are united to Him. So we are necessarily led on to the teaching in connection with the Holy Ghost, which has been likewise recovered of late.
Now this may be viewed under three great heads, namely, His personal presence on earth; His dwelling in the assembly; and also in the individual believer.
The Spirit has come to the earth in person, consequent on the Lord going on high. " He was not," we are told, " because that Jesus was not yet glorified." (John 7:39.) " When he is come," or " having come," said the Lord Jesus (John 16:8), speaking of the Holy Ghost as the other Comforter, whom the Father would send in His name to abide with the disciples forever (John 14:16), and whom Christ would send to bear testimony to Himself in the world, by which He has been rejected. (John 15:26;16:8.)
Where the Spirit is viewed as coming to be with the disciples as the other Comforter, or Advocate (παράκλητος), He is said to come sent by the Father. When He is viewed as the divine Person on earth, to bear testimony of Christ to the world, He is said to come as sent by Christ from the Father. The Father would comfort His children deprived of the presence of the Lord. Christ, the eternal Son, would send the Holy Ghost to testify of Him by His presence, to the world which has rejected the Son of God.
Personally on earth, not only working here but dwelling here, He bears testimony, as Peter declared, to the crucified and now exalted One. (Acts 5:32.) Of the reality of His presence, and what it is to be where He dwells, the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira are a sad and solemn proof. (Acts 5) Here, because Christ has been rejected, His presence convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment (John 16:8-11); and He is the restraining power that hinders by His presence, as long as He shall be dwelling on earth, that full development of evil, the apostasy of Christendom, and of the mass of the Jews. (2 Thess. 2:6.) For what withholdeth is both a power, το κατέχον, and a person, ὁ κατέχων.
Next by His presence in and with the saints, the body of Christ is formed (1 Cor. 12:13), and He makes them the dwelling-place, the house, and the temple of God. (Eph. 2:22; 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Cor. 6:16.) As the Person of the Godhead on earth He directs as to the fields of labor (Acts 8:29; 10; 16: 6, 7), and as to the instruments by whom the work is to be carried on (Acts 13:2,4); the Lord Jesus Christ giving the people for the work (Eph. 4:11), God assigning to each one his place in the assembly, and the Spirit qualifying each one for the service appointed for him. (1 Cor. 12:28,7.) He is then Sovereign in His acting, dividing to each as He will. He is always present in the assembly, viewed in its wider aspect of profession, and He directs and energizes the saints, whether for service, or in worship (Phil. 3:3); for He not only dwells in Christendom, but in the individual saint as well.
God then dells now on earth, not as Jehovah in the midst of Israel, not in the Person of the Lord Jesus, as was true whilst He was on earth, but in the Person of the Holy Ghost in the midst of those who bear Christ's name. By-and-by earth will, for a short time, be without any Person of the Godhead dwelling on it. Rev. 6-19 describes that time. But now God is here in His house, dwelling in it, but it is God the Holy Ghost. There is on earth the house, the temple of God; the assembly of God on earth being that house, that dwelling-place; and the truth of Christian unity is practically exemplified by saints partaking together at the Lord's table of the, one loaf. (1 Cor. 10:17.)
But He not only dwells in Christendom, He dwells in every real Christian as well. Hence our bodies are said to be temples, not of God, but of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6:19), God's gift to them that obey Him. (Acts 5:32.) Poured out by the Lord Jesus on the day of Pentecost, who has thus baptized with the Holy Ghost, as John the Baptist foretold (Matt. 3:11; Acts 1:5;11. 16), the Spirit is now given by God to every one who believes the gospel of our salvation. (Eph. 1:13.) By the Spirit we cry Abba Father (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), knowing now our relationship to God as His children, and our position before Him (though not yet manifested) of sons. By the Spirit thus given us, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts to sustain us in trials here (Rom. 5:5); and He is in us, and with us as the other Comforter, or Advocate, to intercede for us, when we know not what to ask, as we feel the sorrowful condition of creation weighed down by sin. (Rom. 8:26,27.)
As God's gift to us, He is the seal, the earnest, and the unction. (2 Cor. 1:21,22.) As the seal He is God's mark on us that He owns us as His, to await the day of redemption. (Eph. 1:13; 4:30.) As the earnest, by His presence in us, we are assured of the coming inheritance (Eph. 1:14), and of the full deliverance of our bodies from the fruits and presence of sin. (Rom. 8:11,23.) As the unction, we, having received Him, know all things, and are not to be dependent on human teachers, though always to be subject to apostolic teaching. (1 John 2:20-27.)
Further as dwelling on earth in the church of God, He waits here with the bride for the coming of the Lord for His saints; hence He responds with the bride to the Lord's declaration that He is the bright and Morning Star by the one word " Come," addressed to Christ. Thus He immediately directs us to await the fulfillment of the church's special hope-the being caught up to meet the Lord in the air (Rev. 22:17; 1 Thess. 4:15-17), to be taken out of this scene, on which divine judgment is to be poured before the Lord's second advent, that we may come with Him when He comes to reign. What of all this was known in the last century? What of it was known at the commencement of the present century? How much of it is still unknown in many parts of Christendom!
In close connection with the church's special hope is what is called dispensational teaching, the distinguishing between those who had an earthly calling and those who have a heavenly calling-between kingdom truth and church truth. If we ignore dispensational teaching we cannot understand and interpret aright the sacred scriptures. Prophecy we shall not understand. The Psalms will in places be a riddle to us, for the language therein supplied by God through the Spirit for His saints to adopt, we must own is, at times, unsuited for us as Christians.
And we shall not without this teaching discern the great difference between Judaism and Christianity, the confounding together of which has been productive of so much evil in the church of God. Ritualism and legalism have their stronghold in this confusion. Now, together with the Holy Spirit's teaching, by which dispensational truth has been discerned afresh, the study of the word of God has been revived, and the distinctive teaching of the different parts of the divine word, and the outline, too, of books of scripture have been recovered for God's saints. Instead, for instance, of harmonizing the Gospels, we have learned the importance both of viewing each Gospel in its distinctive character, and of tracing out the thread of each history of the life of the Lord on earth.
What a mass of teaching has been recovered through the goodness of our God! Its effect has been seen in the restoration to its original simplicity of that eucharistic service, instituted by the Lord Jesus on the night before His cross; in the gathering together of Christians on the broad, simple, and only scriptural ground of members of Christ, and children of God; in the distinction seized and maintained between ministry and office in the church of God; in an activity in teaching and preaching, with God's manifest blessing on both, unknown for centuries. And in the recovery of, and the proving the fullness of the divine word, and its suitability to guide God's saints, God's assembly, as is needed, have we not learned, in some measure, the freedom and power that can be enjoyed when the Spirit of God is unhindered in His actings in any company really gathered unto the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; and of what it is to have God in our midst?
Now how was all this brought about? The answer, we believe, is a most simple one. A few saints, guided of God, learned to give the Holy Ghost His place in their midst; and as they were obedient to what they saw in the word, He, ungrieved by them, was able to open up truth after truth, not by revealing anything afresh, but by showing them in that word what had been so long forgotten of the doctrine of the apostles, and which is part of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. C. E. S.
You never get sanctification apart from the glory in which Christ is. God has set one single Man apart, so that I may know what sanctification is in this world; He has given me a model Man according to the Father's heart.
(J. N. D.)