Is the Assembly and its discipline One?
Is its Rule the Word or Christian Opinion?
And are Assemblies to walk by the Word, or is every man to do that which is right in his own eyes?
Such are the questions that come before the godly mind, as it has paper after paper brought before it, without a single reference, to that which is the foundation of all Assembly order, and discipline; in which papers the prominence of men are painfully prevalent, showing where those are, who issue such papers, leaving one the painful impression that if perchance at the beginning of their souls history they have bowed to the fact, that God hath made that same Jesus, Lord and Christ, they have sadly fallen from what is involved in that truth, to the level of the Corinthians, occupied with human leaders, “I am of Paul,” “I of Apollos,” etc., and therefore have the stamp of carnality branded upon them, as being “carnal,” and walking as men.
But before proceeding further, I would draw attention to Matt. 18:18-2018Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:18‑20), where we have the principles of true gathering set before us, and the power of binding and loosing brought in, in connection with it; and I would ask, Who is the one in the midst, by whom alone the Assembly has power to bind and loose? The answer is, as given us in the preceding chapters of our Gospel. It is He, who came on earth, the true Son of Abraham, the Son of David, Matt. 1:11The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1), the fulfiller of the promises, the royal heir to the throne of Jerusalem, who was born by the miraculous conception of the Holy-Ghost, in Bethlehem’s manger, who was called Jesus, signifying Jehovah Savior, but He Emmanuel “God with us.” It is He who was baptized of John in Jordan, and who was Anointed and sealed with the Holy Ghost, Matt. 3. It is He who offered Himself as the Anointed One to His own nation, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, but who was rejected, Matt. 4–12, and crucified, Matt. 27. Therefore His character, as the sower sowing the seed of the kingdom, had its results as we see in Matt. 13, in the kingdom being set up now in a mysterious form, the Anointed One having been rejected by the Jews: and this present form of the kingdom is set forth in the seven parables in that chapter, whilst the rejected King is in heaven. In Matt. 16 we see the Assembly and the kingdom in its present form, (the administration of the latter of which was handed over to Peter,) replacing Judaism.
But who is the one whom Peter confesses as the foundation of the Assembly? He is the Christ, rejected and crucified by Israel, but declared Son of the living God in victory over death. On this rock, Christ says, I will build my Assembly. Here we get the Assembly of living stones built on the foundation of a rejected Christ, but Son of the living God, in resurrection from the dead. In Matt. 18 we get the gathering of two or three to His name, on that ground, with the promise of His presence in the midst. Now, dear reader, have you Him before you? “The Anointed,” the “Son of the living God,” whose name is JESUS! It is He alone that gives authority to bind and loose! Woe to that man, or to that Assembly that sets itself against such a Person!
In John 20 as declaring His Father’s name in the midst of His assembled brethren, and imparting to them His resurrection life, He gives the administrative power, of forgiving and retaining sins, to those whom He had thus fitted for the ministry, and put into the full place of sonship before the Father, as members of the one family of God!
And now, dear reader, let us go on for a moment to Acts 2, when the Kingdom and the Assembly were set up. What was the great truth bowed to on that day? Why, that God had made that same Jesus, whom the Jews had crucified, LORD and CHRIST! ver. 36.
The whole system was set up under the revelation of Jesus in glory made LORD and CHRIST. Those who bowed were baptized to that name; they continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine, and in the fellowship and breaking of bread, and in prayers, showing thereby their allegiance to and acknowledgment of the Lordship of Jesus, and that He was the King, the Anointed One. I want my reader to mark that the whole new order of things was set up, under the acknowledgment of those who composed it, that Jesus who was crucified, was in glory, made Lord and Christ. It was He that was owned as such in that circle! It was the same thing with the first Gentile assembly planted at Antioch, Acts 11. The men of Cyprus and Cyrene who heralded the message, preached to the Grecians the LORD Jesus. The result was that many turned to the LORD. Barnabas heard of the work, and sent forth from the Assembly at Jerusalem, he found them turned to the Lord, and rejoiced, and exhorted them with full purpose of heart to cleave to the LORD, ONE LORD! what a truth! Before even the unity of the body of Christ was known as a truth in the Assembly, the Lordship of Christ was bowed to, thus owning God’s act of power in exalting Him as such, and also as the foundation of all order and discipline, both in the Kingdom and the Assembly. Ah, dear brethren, is not the secret of the self-will and independence we have seen manifested in so many professed brethren and saints so lately, explained by the fact, that many have never bowed individually in their souls to the Lordship of Christ. They have received the truths of salvation, but it is to be feared, they never have had their independent wills broken, by the acknowledgment of the truth that ought to precede salvation, viz., Jesus made Lord and Christ! The fatal absence of this truth is seen in all their papers! the very foundation on which all the order and discipline of the Assembly of God hangs; and indeed of the individual soul’s new birth and blessing!
But one word more as to this truth, which is so pressed in the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians. Here we have an Epistle bringing in the corrective power to disorder in the Assembly of God! What is the corrective power to party spirit, in the Assembly of God, and following party leaders? The name of our Lord Jesus Christ! 1 Cor. 1:1010Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. (1 Corinthians 1:10). What is the power of discipline for the Assembly gathered to the name of the Lord! The power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Cor. 5:44In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, (1 Corinthians 5:4). What is the table round which the saints are gathered to express the one body, the Assembly, in communion with their one altar, and to remember the Lord? The Lord’s Table; 1 Cor. 10:2121Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. (1 Corinthians 10:21). The Lord’s Supper; 1 Cor. 11:2020When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. (1 Corinthians 11:20). What are the commandments that regulate the saints there gathered. The commandments of the Lord! 1 Cor. 14:3737If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 14:37).
Seeing these things are so, it is no light matter to reject an Assembly decision, and doubly so when it seeks through grace to walk with the Lord, and act by His Word. Mr. Grant’s formation of a party, which is heresy, by his doctrines, was not a matter that came out before one Assembly merely. God allowed it to come out, and be manifested in, I think I may say, the three largest Assemblies in Canada, at one time. The evil was judged at Montreal true, because everything came out there; but at Montreal, at Ottawa, and Toronto, amongst hundreds of saints, and independently of one another, Mr. Grant’s course came up; and of these Assemblies, each Assembly (except the schismatics gone out) bears an undoubted witness, Mr Grant’s views formed a party here, and therefore beyond all gainsaying he is a heretic. Philadelphia bore the same witness, only happily without division. Then I ask, if he is a heretic, by such an undoubted witness; is it the Word or not, Titus 3:1010A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; (Titus 3:10) that the heretic should be rejected? (Was the delegate put over the Assemblies to reject him, and the Assemblies to receive him?) Then if, as the Word says, he is to be rejected, Montreal was right, and acted rightly, and if so every Assembly is bound by the word of God and His principles as to the “One Body and One Spirit,” to bow to the judgment, as that of the Lord!
Have these brethren that have separated ever considered what a heretic is in the sight of God. Supposing a man had a servant in his house, and that servant one day came and ran a knife into his master’s body, I don't think he would have him long in his house. And yet a man by spreading his opinions, can form a schism or rent in the body of Christ, (1 Cor. 12:2525That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. (1 Corinthians 12:25)), and if an Assembly puts him out, they find fault with what the Assembly has done, and brethren take sides with the man who has committed one of the seven abominations the Lord hates, i.e., sowing discord amongst his brethren! (Prov. 6:1919A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. (Proverbs 6:19).)
These brethren have altogether gone off the ground of the Word of God. One paper says, (headed “power of an Assembly,” (Extract from a letter) which is beneath notice, only it is taken up, and adopted as truth, by a brother B.C.G. {B. C. Greenman}, of whom I had hoped better things,)
It is the power of an Assembly to act in discipline, on what, by general consent, among orthodox Christians, or say, amongst those gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, is held to be false or deadly doctrine.
Here the Word of God is utterly set aside. The rule of orthodox Christians, or the opinion of those gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus is the rule of discipline!
A large number of brethren see with him.
What has that got to do with it? The paper is a total subversion of the order and discipline of the Word of God. An Assembly cannot bow to what God says as to what evil or true doctrine is, and has no power to put it out!! unless as above! Let that brother solemnly listen to the word of the Apostle as to the teaching of evil doctrine.
Addressing the Assembly, he says,
Again, the Lord Himself, addressing the angel of the Assembly in Pergamos,
Thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam (Rev. 2).
Why are these Assemblies fault with, if they were not to judge what false doctrine was, and put out those that were spreading it?
In another paper, dated Milford, Delaware, the two things pressed are the unity of the body and unanimity. In a late edition just received, he states the normal condition of the Assembly is as having the mind of Christ, and says without this there can be no discipline! In other words unless the Assembly is in its normal condition, it has no power of discipline!! Poor, unhappy assemblies of F.W.G. then that have got away from the normal condition!! Now it is a remarkable thing, that in all the places where discipline is mentioned, (I mean in the books that refer to it) it comes before the unity of the body is taught or brought out. And as for unanimity, however desirable, it cannot be proved anywhere in the Word. The word in the Greek (2 Cor. 2) signifies the mass, the many, not all. The Jerusalem conference is referred to by B.C.G. to show that Plainfield was the place where F.W.G.’s matter ought to have been settled, but that was Apostolic and unique There is no such metropolitan Assembly now. No Apostles. But if they will have it, as to unanimity, it was the Apostles and elder brethren looked into the matter, not the Assembly, though the Assembly agreed to the decision, and that principle is just what those brethren refuse. It is the unanimity of the Assembly, that is the point with them. Besides how small the question of unanimity is, or any other question such as haste in action, or other things insinuated when the simple question is proposed, “Where is the Lord in the matter,” and “what does His word say?” In all these papers, as I said, there is a fatal absence of the one foundation of all order and discipline, “the Lordship of Christ!” I may add, the authority of the Word as the rule for the Assembly to walk by, and the using the theory of the unity of the body for independence and self-will, instead of endeavoring to keep the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Blessed it is to unite the blessed truth of the unity of the body with that of the Lordship of Christ; and those Assemblies who are bowing to the decision of the Montreal Assembly, are, I believe, acting in that blessedness, and inheriting the blessing of the Lord, and of His presence with them.
But if so, those gone outside are a sect proclaiming if not in word, I am of Grant! and are to be looked at, as any other sect, the making of which is the wisdom of the world, touching every fundamental truth of Christianity, and destroying the idea of the one Assembly, see 1 Cor. 1–3, and so if the wisdom of the world to begin with, it must end up in becoming part of the world, and be judged with the world, 1 Cor. 1; Rev. 3:1-61And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. 2Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. 3Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. 4Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. 5He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. 6He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. (Revelation 3:1‑6).
But with that there is still the more fatal step of the setting aside of the Lordship of Christ; and so off the track which the Lord Jesus leads in, what can there be but the dark downward course of Jude’s Epistle, as the result of denying the only Master and Lord Jesus Christ, ver. 4. Not the Savior, but the ignoring of Him as Lord!
I know that none of the true sheep of Christ will perish! He is the blessed present Servant of their necessities. In His very place of Master and Lord, behold Him, laying aside His garments and girding Himself for present service to the saints: What an example for us, dear brethren, in the present necessitous condition to His loved Saints. May we seek to follow Him!
And let every true hearted saint turn their eyes away from all human leaders, and get up in spirit into that mount, where the Father’s voice was heard saying,
This is my beloved Son, hear Him (Matt. 17).
Moses had had his day’s testimony, likewise Elias, now was the day of the Son’s testimony, resulting in the disciples getting their place “in Him.” Brethren, we are separated to the Son, and His Word! Who will dare after that to mingle the day of the Son’s testimony with the day of Moses and Elias! Yet that is the error we have got to meet to-day!