Let us turn to what we have afterward of the maintenance, for a little season, of the order of the church of God before the re-assertion of the human derivative claim came to take the place of the Spirit of God. Let us take a glance at another part of scripture, connected with this laying on of hands. The Priesthood of Christ is the great characteristic of this dispensation, hereafter in glory manifested for joy and praise, now for the intercession and gifts of grace, still the same in person. It is ministering by the Spirit below, that it might be a witness to the world of what it was in Christ, the Father of what He was; and this is what is brought out in John 17, not the thing itself till the glory comes, and Christ appears, and we appear; but a witness of it by a supply of grace from Him who will appear, and we with Him, the fullness of this (of both, that is) being in Christ. Hence is it that Paul (the Spirit as in the ministry of Paul) addresses the Hebrews, not the minister of the circumcision as speaking to them in their place, but as calling them out of that into the consciousness of the heavenly calling, speaking to them from the glory of the Son, so speaking, and sustaining them in the present failure of the dispensation in them, by the security of an enduring Melchisedec priesthood. “Wherefore,” says he, “holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider Jesus Christ, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession;” such a High Priest became us, such as was not only harmless and undefiled, but separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens. “If He were on earth, He should not be a priest.” He is gone, not into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. But this was not all; for, as we have seen, when teaching the understanding of the mystery among the Gentiles, we find His ascending up on high was leading captivity captive, and receiving gifts for men; “and He gave,” etc.
So we find many of the worthies said to act by faith in Heb. 11, the great point then of trial to the Christian Hebrews, testified of, as led by the Spirit, in their history in the Old Testament. But this is not the point I rest on here, but the comparative use he makes of the Priesthood in its Melchisedec character with the very circumstances here spoken of. “Wherefore, leaving the word of the beginning of Christ, let us,” he says, “go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God, and of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment; and this we will do if God permit.” From ver. 4th to the 6th, he then speaks of those things which are the proper portion of the church emerged out of its Jewish shape, the word of the beginning of Christ—that failure from this is irremediable after such patience of God; and in the rest speaks not therefore of the blessings of the given Spirit, save as to the danger of apostasy, but what, while Aaronical intermediate intercession indeed subsisted, their portion under the Melchisedec priesthood would be according to the word of the new covenant. Of this the Holy Ghost was present witness. It is not my purpose to open this out now; I refer to it to show the contrast of what were the first principles, or the word of the beginning of Christ, and the going on to perfection, i.e., the knowledge of the priesthood of Christ—the heavenly priesthood now witnessed to us by the presence of the Spirit. This is given in this Epistle, on account of 6:4-6.
But we find thereby the way in which the Jewish elements are treated, not as though they had not their place, but the place they had explained; and they are Jewish elements. These they are—The dead, we admit, will be raised. Eternal judgment will be, or guilt, more properly, will be judged. Repentance from dead works is acknowledged to be needful. Baptisms and laying on of hands we have heard of as existing. But they constitute not the glory and power of the dispensation. The exercise of the church's mind about them proves its return to Judaizing principles. The notion of derivative authority is a positive lapse into the order of the dispensation broken in upon by God, in its losing its Jewish character, and becoming the spiritual witness of the heavenly glory and fullness of Christ. Who is Paul's successor? I have heard of the successors of Peter, the direct and remarkable witness to the character of the association with derivative authority. It is all identified in the Gentile church with Peter, who was not the apostle of the Gentiles at all. It is the Judaizing of Gentilism; and the whole structure and fabric of the church rests upon this. Paul, as the apostle of the circumcision, held the witness of the character of this dispensation. Where is his successor? Of what see was he head Was it Rome, the source of the present derived authority? And of what character then is all this derived authority? Where is it in scripture? Let us see the facts a little further.
It is not to be denied that Paul and the presbytery laid their hands on Timothy, and a gift was in Timothy by the laying on of Paul's hands. The same does not appear in Titus at all, neither was he circumcised, which Timothy was; and Timothy, it appears, also laid hands upon others, for he is desired to do it suddenly on no man. They were thus special temporary deputies of Paul for setting the churches in order in the things wanting, and appointing elders. That they were not permanent episcopal superintendents is clear, because when Paul passed by Ephesus, he addresses the elders or bishops there, so as to demonstrate them not to be under the care of Timothy as from apostolic derived authority. And, in the second Epistle, he charges him to come to him, as he bids also Titus to come to him at Nicopolis, wanting them to be with him; they were his chosen assistants in ordering the churches, not his successors in them, unless he himself was bishop of both. We find John subsequently exercising the care under Christ, apostolically, of the Ephesian and other churches in those parts, quite inconsistent with the notion of Timothy's episcopacy derived from Paul. The energy of the Spirit then, using whom it thought fit in an authority of office, we find, in the conception of the church; derivative authority and jurisdiction no where. There was the conferring of gift, there was the ordering by those enabled to order, there was the appointment of elders in every city by those raised up to do so, and the committal of doctrine to faithful men, there was every care of the church; but no apostolical derivative authority, except the false derivation of Peter, who was the apostle of the circumcision, not of the uncircumcision, and whom the scriptures only so recognize.
I would only add a few words as to the term “Ordain.” There is no such word in the scriptures in the modern sense of the term. Laying on of hands, to have been used in given instances, I do not at all deny. We have seen an apostle ordained by laymen, afterward conferring a gift by the same ordinance, and Timothy charged not to do it suddenly; but as we find the whole energy of the church continually and long carried on without reference to it, so the word translated “ordain” has never, in scripture, any connection with laying on of hands. Used or not used, it does not so state it, foreseeing, I am persuaded, the apostasy of the latter day.
There is no evidence that Timothy was left for such purpose. The apostle states it to have been to guard doctrine, not for the purpose of appointing elders. It is a general instruction as to his conduct in the church, and it does not appear that laying on of hands was peculiar to any such office. It may have been used in it: they are never so connected in scripture. When elders are spoken of, laying on of hands is not; when this is spoken of, they are not. It may have been used: there was no scriptural identification. Probably it had a much wider scope. It was clearly used among the Jewish Christians for sickness and miracles, and by the apostle for conferring gifts.
Further, I would remark that while the present care of the church was exactly what would be consistent with the looking for the coming of the Lord, which possessed the mind of the apostle, the arrangement of prospective provision by derivative authority for future ages was wholly inconsistent with it. When he was passing by Ephesus in the consciousness that his personal care was closed, he warns the elders himself on their own responsibility, although long before Timothy had been left to watch the place, though it would appear he did not stay there long. But the charge to Timothy was doctrine.
All present care was as to the way in which they would wait for the Lord, and committal of trust to those called and gifted where needed. But the arrangement of derivative authority would have been positive unbelief. Accordingly we find it broken among the Jews, where it had this character, never attempted among the Gentiles where the glory was manifested; but taken nominally from Peter, when he was gone who withstood these things to the face. Our present duty is every possible care of the churches which God by His Spirit may enable us to take; using (with all diligence, humility, and energy, with crying and tears, in which we surely may expect to use it) whatever He give us to keep out Satan and feed the flock of God, where we may be or He send us, but lean in constant dependence for the constant supply of the Spirit of His grace, as our only ground of strength, and when we fail, commend them to God and to the word of His grace which. is able to build them up, and give them an inheritance among them that are sanctified. He who knows this in spirit will well know its sorrow, and how near it draws one to God. But all this is God's provision, and not for the wickedness of man, but for that failure which in man's foolishness shall cause all to center in the glory of the Lord.
But there is one further point with which we must close. To the mere laying on of hands, if done spiritually, I know of no objection; but reference, reference of the heart, to derivative authority has quite another character. It is Judaizing. It is, if insisted on, the principle of apostasy, as denying the power and calling of the Holy Ghost, or His competency to send, bless, and sanctify. Wherever we return to Jewish practice as an imposed necessity, we return to the idolatry of the world. There was a special sanction of worldly elements to a given purpose; and worldly elements, and glory and honor had their place while so ordered. The principles of the human heart, which sought them, were dealt with on their own ground and terms though in God's way; because, till the rejection of Christ, man and the world were not treated with as dead in trespasses and sins, as lying in wickedness, as at enmity with God; and riches and honors and worldly things accompanied the love of wisdom, and human principles were dealt with.
But in Christ's rejection the truth was brought fully to light, the system of the world was set aside as to all its elements as evil: God's sanction of it in any form or sort ceased. Its friendship was enmity with God. It was convinced of sin, and righteousness was set up not there but in the heavens, hid with God, revealed to faith. Judaism had been the place of righteousness, but iniquity was found in it; and being set aside, its principles became merely the simple worldly elements, without any sanction of God at all, and with merely their own worldly character; and the return to them became apostasy, return to the mere evil world. This is the apostle's statement, the force of which is by no means in general sufficiently estimated. Writing to the Galatians he says, “Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service to them which by nature are no gods. But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe etc. That is, Gentiles become Christians, and looking to Jewish principles, were returning to their own old Gentile state; for what else was Judaizing now? It was simply joining the world, the ungodly world, which had not the Spirit of God in it, ending in the flesh. So the apostle argues in Colossians. 2:19-23, especially 20.
Wherever then we turn to what is Jewish (a right thing while God's work was of this world), we have the principle of apostasy in us. These things have the rudiments of the world in them, and the world we shall more or less join which has not the Spirit, which is at enmity with God. And where, I would ask, has the church looked at this derivative character as essential and necessary that it has not joined the world? Receiving the principle of the world into its bosom, it soon fell into its practice, and this is the character, the form, of apostasy; and the absence or subversion of justification by faith, and maintaining the doctrine of works for salvation, derived authority and the church in the world have astonishingly gone together. However this may be, I refer to it here merely as a fact; certainly the church so fell, at first gradually. Of this we may be sure, wherever we join any Jewish principle of ordinance now, as that which is our order, or obligatory on us, we join the world in its rejected state; for these are now demonstrated the profitless elements of the world, and nothing else, and the apostasy of the church is involved in principle. With whatever patience we may bear with those subject to them while they are under them, their imposition as though needful is the snare of Satan leading us back whence we are delivered; for our conversation is in heaven. History will prove it, as to facts, to be the apostasy of the church, though the Spirit of God can alone prove or show the principle. I do not reject conferred authority from God where it can be shown in the grace of its exercise; derived authority from man I believe to be most evil, and to have apostasy in its character and principle.
The preceding observations may seem protracted; yet I think the importance of the principles warrants the deepest consideration of the subject: my own mind is very clear upon it in principle though I may have much to learn in detail. I have endeavored, under the Lord's mercy, to confine myself to the principles, to hurt no one, the matter being not of controversy but of deep and everlasting truth. It is a remarkable thing that, while almost all the churches, more or less, hang on derivative authority; where it is settled as a system, we may note, first, human derivation is its first basis as a principle; secondly, it is connected entirely with Peter, and the succession from him, and in conferring the authority, it uses the words used by the Lord in conferring it on His Jewish apostles, previous to His ascension. J.N.D.
(Concluded from page 131).