Two principles seem to be at work at the present moment which it may be well to notice. We are living in a time when all things are in question, and principles of every kind are abroad. If there are such as seem to destroy the very position of the saints as a testimony in the midst of Christendom—a conscious and intelligent testimony—it is not amiss that attention should be drawn to them. The two principles I refer to are—
First, the denial of the obligation of a Christian assembly to maintain purity in order to be owned as such, or rather, the denying that if it allow evil within itself, it becomes defiled; and
Secondly, the denial of the unity of the body as regards the church here on earth.
I have heard in such various quarters, both as to morals and doctrine, that no assembly of Christians can be defiled by any evil in it, and even that it has to go on and leave it to the Lord to lay His hand upon the evil and put it out, that I must suppose it to be a principle generally admitted. And what has been often alleged in individual argument on the second point noticed above is now maintained in a tract which has been sent me.
It has been openly contended that, if fornication be allowed in a body of Christians, it is no ground of separating from it. This has been met by others; indeed exposing it in daylight was the best way of meeting it. To say that the Christians were to separate from the world, to detach themselves from the great body of the professing church because of ecclesiastical evils, and then to affirm that positive immorality did not defile their community, but that, supposing it was allowed, saints should still own such a meeting all the same, was a proposition so monstrous, such a preference of ecclesiastical notions to the unalterable morality of God in the gospel, that one can only wonder how it was possible any Christians could have got into such a state of moral darkness. It was a solemn witness of the effect of false principles. With the individuals or their meeting we have of course nothing to do, save as the charity of Christ demands. We speak of principles; and let us see where these would lead. Those who are inside such a meeting of Christians are not allowed to break with them. They are bound to accept the companionship of sin, bound to accept disobedience to the apostle's rule, “Put out from among yourselves that wicked person.” They must live in constant communion with evil, and constantly in the most solemn act of Christianity affirm the fellowship of light and darkness.
But this is not all. In such kind of meetings a meeting in one place receives, as did the scriptural churches, those in communion in another, and, when formally done, by letters of commendation. Suppose the fornicator, or even those who have maintained his continuing in the meeting (another allowance thus of sin), to be commended, or to come in communion from the supposed meeting; and if they receive him deliberately at home, they must of course give him, so far as they are concerned, the same title abroad, and he is received elsewhere; and thus the deliberate wickedness of a majority of the meeting to which he belongs, or of the whole, if you please, obliges thus every Christian meeting, and, when the church of God was in order, every church of God in the world, to put its seal on communion with sin and evil, and say that sin could be freely admitted at the table of the Lord, and Christ and Belial get on perfectly well together; or break with the meeting or church, that is, disown its being such at all. But if they ought, those who have any conscience in the meeting itself ought.
The national Establishment is incomparably better than this. There, there is no pretension to discipline; each one is pious for himself. Here, sin, and communion with sin at the Lord's table, is sanctioned on principle. And if it is admitted that it ought not to be allowed, it is declared, that if it is deliberately allowed, every one must acquiesce in it, the meeting is not defiled, and the disobedient sinners have a right to force the whole church of God to accept it, if not in principle, in practice, and deny their principles. It is the church of God securing as such, and by its special privilege and title, the rights of sin against Christ. How it would be possible to conceive anything worse I cannot imagine; it really seems to me the most wicked principle that possibly can be thought of. And it is not merely the habits of a particular class of Christians which lead to this; the scriptural order of the church of God, as shown in the scriptures, involves this sanction of sin if the theory be true.
No person can deny that saints passed from one assembly to another, and, if belonging to one, were received in another. It was not an organization of churches, such as Presbyterianism or Episcopacy, which I name here only to be understood, but it was a full recognition of them as expressions of the unity of the body of Christ. We see the saints going from one, and received as such in another, and that in virtue of letters commendatory. It was because each assembly was owned as representing the body of Christ in its locality that others were bound to receive those who belonged to it as being members of that body. Each local assembly was responsible within itself to maintain the order and godliness suited to the assembly of God, and was to be trusted in it; it is not disputing the competency of the local assembly, but owning it, when I receive a person because he belongs to it. If I do not receive a person who belongs to it, I deny its being a competent witness of the unity of the body of Christ.
Now it is exactly in, this place the Spirit of God puts the local assembly at Corinth; not denying the unity of all saints on earth in one body, but owning the local assembly as so far representing it. “Ye are the body of Christ, and members one of another.” Now if I own the assembly at Corinth or anywhere else to hold that place, surely I must receive a person belonging to it as a member of the body of Christ—other membership I do not own. I quite agree that scripture owns no other; but for that very reason, when the apostle says, “Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular,” and “we are all one body, for we are all partakers of that one loaf,” I am bound to own the assembly as representing the body, and those who partake of the one loaf as members of the body. If I do not, I fall into the principle of a mere voluntary association, which makes rules for itself, and does what it pleases. Am I then to recognize, as representing the unity of the body, and acting by the Spirit with the Lord's authority, an assembly which sanctions sin, and says it is not defiled by it?
On the other hand, suppose such an assembly, say at Corinth, had put out from themselves the wicked person, and another assembly received him, the latter thereby denies that the other has acted in the character of an assembly of God, representing there the body of Christ. It denies the action of the Holy Ghost in the assembly, or that what has been bound on earth has been bound in heaven. It is a mere sophism to suppose that, because an organization formed of assemblies is disowned, the responsibility of each assembly to the Lord is disowned, and its competent action by the Holy Ghost in the matters of the church of God. If a person were put out at Corinth and received at Ephesus, the action of the Holy Ghost in the body at Corinth was denied, or Ephesus refused the action and denied the authority of the Holy Ghost and of Christ; that is, the assemblies were owned because each did in its locality act under the Lord and by the Holy Ghost. No doubt they might fail; Corinth would have failed but for the intervention of the Spirit by the apostle. But such is the scriptural principle, and that which we have to, look for in an assembly; and the assembly is owned because it acts by the Holy Ghost under the authority of the Lord.
This point being cleared (and 1 Corinthians seems to me not to leave a trace of doubt on it), would turn to another—the consequent responsibility of the Christians who compose it. They are to act for Christ by the Holy Ghost. “Put out from among yourselves that wicked person.” Paul forces it on the assembly; so in the case of wrong it is finally told to the assembly, and the “without” and “within” refer to it; that is, I get the body responsible as well as competent. The Lord, who knew all the coming history of His church, has extended this in His grace to two or three gathered to His name, and connects this with discipline and being heard. Where two or three are gathered to His name, there is He in the midst of them. Thus, while fully admitting that all the saints in a locality constitute properly the one assembly in a place, if they will not unite, the responsibility and the presence of the Lord are found with those who do, and their acts, if really done as met in His name, have His authority; that is, another such assembly must own the assembly and their acts, or disown their connection with the Lord.
I do not mean that, if they fail in any particular case, they may not be remonstrated with, entreated and so on; but in a regular way, one assembly owns the action of the other, according to the promise of the Lord's presence, because if it be a true assembly it owns the Lord's own action in it, its own Lord's action and the assembly as His. It is not a voluntary church, but a scriptural, divine assembly; if they are not so gathered, and do not own the unity of the body, the power and presence of the Holy Ghost, and the presence of Jesus as so gathered together to His name only, I do not own the assembly, though I may the saints who compose it. In the other case I am bound to do so.
But, further, we find that the assembly at Corinth did not put out the wicked person, and the apostle set about to correct this, and, indeed, would not go there while they were in this state, unless it were to exercise rigorous severity. His words, in speaking of it in the Second Epistle, show the thought that they were involved in the evil by allowing it— “Ye have proved yourselves clear in this matter.” His complaint was that there was sin, leaven—not merely a sinner, but sin among them; and, ignorant as yet of discipline, they had not grieved so as that God should have removed the evil-doer from their midst; and he tells them to purge out the old leaven (not merely to put the person out, which was his practical direction) that they might be anew lump as they were unleavened. They, acquiescing in the sin, were involved in it; they were viewed in. Christ and their true standing as unleavened; but they were to put out the old leaven that they might be a new lump, that their actual condition and standing might agree: otherwise they, the assembly, were not a new lump. Hence, in the Second Epistle, when the first had produced its effect, the apostle says “that they had proved themselves clear in this matter;” but, if acquiescing in it, they were not clear. The assembly was not a new lump, and the members of it were not clear, if they accepted the principle of allowing sin in their midst. To use the title of our standing as a sanction for acquiescing in sin in fact in the assembly, saying it cannot be defiled, is a most evil and pestilential doctrine: and that persons in it, not guilty of the sin in act, are clear though they acquiesce in it, is a thoroughly wicked principle, and directly contrary to scripture.
But more, an assembly which admits such a principle has forfeited its title to be owned in the way I have spoken of above. We have seen it is a common point agreed upon, that the particular assembly gathered to the Lord's name represents the body of Christ, and Christ is to be looked for in their midst. But I cannot own an assembly which admits or acquiesces in sin, which takes this ground that sin does not defile it, to represent the body of Christ or to be gathered to Christ's name. It is to make Christ acquiesce in the sin— “a minister of sin.” God forbid! Christ's body (and we declare by “the one loaf” that we are one body) is a holy body. I cannot say I am one body with sinners. That a sinner or hypocrite may have slipped in, we all admit; but I do not own him. But if a body admit or acquiesce in sinners being there, it ceases to have the character of Christ's body altogether, or Christ's body is compatible with known sin; that is, the Holy Ghost and Christ present admit and allow the sin. This doctrine (of the assembly not being defiled by known sin being there) is a direct denial of the presence of the Holy Ghost making them one, and of the authority of, a present Lord.
Does He accept sin in the members of the body? If not, those who do are acting as a voluntary meeting, acting on their own rules, not admitting the animating power of the Spirit of Christ; for it is blasphemy to say He admits sin in those who belong to Him; an assembly which has this doctrine is not an assembly of God at all. Carelessness there may be—it should be corrected; but he, who as a principle, owns the existence of sin in the assembly, and denies it is defiled, denies its unity and the Lord's presence; that is, it is not an assembly gathered to His name at all. What I think, essential in this matter is the promised presence of the Lord, and the activity of the Spirit of God. If this be so, if I own the Lord, I must own the assembly and its acts; if it has a principle contrary to the presence of the Lord and the action of the Holy Ghost, I cannot own it as His.
(To be continued).
[Abridged].