But our business is to show that the church did not exist. “Church” is an unhappy word, because nobody knows what it means. Say “assembly,” and all is plain. Every gathering together of people is an assembly, but God's assembly is a distinct thing. Now Adam, nor any individual saint, could not be an assembly. This is clear. Israel was an assembly, and in a certain sense God's assembly, but in every way the opposite of God's assembly now. It was by birth of the race of Jacob: a Gentile, as such, could not belong to it. It was a nation, not a gathering by testimony and calling. The Gospel of John makes the difference. Christ died for that nation, but not for that nation only, but to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. The fact of their being children of God did not make them an assembly, but their gathering together into one. But another element characterizes God's assembly, God's dwelling amongst them. Now this He does not do with man, but on the ground of accomplished redemption. He did not dwell with Adam in his innocence, nor with Abraham and others; but as soon as He had brought out Israel by accomplished redemption, though then an outward one, then He came and dwelt among them, as it is written (Ex. 29:4545And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. (Exodus 29:45)), “And they shall know that I am Jehovah their God, that brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them."Let us come to the direct proofs of the different positions of the New Testament and Old Testament saints. The Lord's own declaration should suffice, “On this rock I will build my church—the confession that He personally (Jesus) was the Son of the living God. This could not be before. Looking for a Messiah with true faith, for the promised Seed, was before, and was surely saving faith; but that Jesus was the Son of the living God could not be before Jesus. And hence the Lord says,” I will build:” not that He had been long building, when in truth in that state as a man He did not subsist.
We have two aspects of the church. It is Christ's body, and the habitation of God by the Spirit. Neither could possibly have existed before Pentecost. First, till Christ ascended there was no head in heaven for the body to be united to. You would have had a body without a head. Ephesians declare that we are raised with and seated in heavenly places in Christ, “according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand.... and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all."
Thus it is distinctly the raised and ascended Man that is made head of the body, and set over all things. There was no such Man till the ascension, and thus union loses all its reality, the church all true existence, where it is set up by man's imagination before Pentecost. “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” “We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” All supposes the man Christ, and Christ ascended, when union is spoken of, and that is union by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Further, till after the ascension the Holy Ghost did not come down to form the church and dwell in it. In 1 Cor. 12 we read, “by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.” They were, as we are expressly taught in the Acts, baptized with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. (Acts 1) So John, “He it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.” (John 1) Now the Lord says, “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come; but if I go away, I will send him unto you.” I must here notice and correct a mistake. Mr. M. urges that Christ's breathing on the disciples, saying “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” was the giving of the Comforter, not the day of Pentecost; but John's Gospel is explicit. That was from Christ risen. As God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, so the Lord breathed on them that they might have the power of life by the Holy Ghost. But this was not sending the Holy Ghost.
We read in John 7 the Holy Ghost was not yet [given], because that Jesus was not yet glorified. We read explicitly, John 14:1616And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; (John 14:16), I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever. And (ver. 26), But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, &c. And (chap. 15:26), But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me. So chapter 16:7-15. These passages leave no question as to the Comforter being sent down from on high when Jesus had gone up, sent down by the Father in His name, and by Him from the Father. Hence we know we are sons, and the Spirit has revealed the things freely given to us of God, and the disciples were enabled to give all that the Holy Ghost led them to give of Christ's life here below. Hence Christ when He went up received the Holy Ghost afresh to communicate it (Acts 2:3333Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. (Acts 2:33)), which identifies the Comforter also with what was given at Pentecost, though gifts may be distinct power, but here the Holy Ghost distributes to every man severally as He will. (1 Cor. 12:1111But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. (1 Corinthians 12:11).)
It is a mistake of Mr. Marshall's to take the breathing on them the day of His resurrection for His sending the Comforter from the Father after He had gone away. He must, He tells us Himself, go away in order to send Him. (John 16:77Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. (John 16:7).)
At all events, we learn from 1 Cor. 12 that it was the coming of the Holy Ghost which is called His baptism, which we know (Acts 1:55For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. (Acts 1:5), answering to John 1:3333And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. (John 1:33)) to have been on the day of Pentecost. This forms the church, the one body of Christ here below, whereby the gathered saints become withal the habitation of God through the Spirit. Thus the fact that the risen and ascended Christ is head, and that the descent of the Holy Ghost forms the body, make it impossible for the church to have existed before Pentecost.
Another and lower ground of reasoning, though perhaps more palpable to some, alike shows the impossibility of the church's existing before the cross. Jew and Gentile could not be united in one. The Jew was bound strictly to keep up the middle wall of partition. The church is formed by its being thrown down, Christ thereupon forming in Himself one new man. (Eph. 2:14-1614For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 16And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: (Ephesians 2:14‑16).) The church was formed through the throwing down of that which Judaism was bound to keep up. It could not exist until Judaism was ended. Hence too in Heb. 12 we have “the church of the first-born which are written in heaven,” and “the spirits of just men made perfect,” as a distinct class. (Ver. 28.) The truth is that the bringing in the Old Testament saints into the church is only dropping the whole proper blessing of the church itself. The teaching of scripture as to it is wholly lost. Saints may be individually blest and saved, though that truth is darkened, but a body united to a head in heaven is entirely out of sight. Thus Mr. Marshall diligently argues that, as we are Abraham's seed, Abraham must have been in the church. “Of one seed,” he says in concluding, “or church.” But the seed are individuals, sons of God and heirs of God, which has nothing to do with being the body of a Man who is in heaven, or bulled together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. A man's bride and body is another idea from being children of a father. Viewed as children of God, we are Christ's brethren, not His body.
Mr. Marshall is mistaken, like many others, as to the prophets in Eph. 2 being Old Testament prophets. The Greek sufficiently shows in Ephesians that they are New Testament prophets; but chapter 3:5 shows, without question, to any reader, that they are New Testament prophets in contrast with all of old time. (Compare chap. 4:2)
Mr. Marshall again refers to the expression, “the whole family in heaven and earth.” Now I have not the least doubt that the only true rendering is “every family,” which upsets the argument altogether, in contrast with Amos 3:1, 21Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, 2You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. (Amos 3:1‑2), But the whole argument rests on the fallacy, even taking it as it stands in English, that a family is a body, and so the family of God. is the body of Christ glorified. Thus “surely all the members of a family may be said to belong to it” have no force in any way, because members of a family has nothing to do with members of His body. It is a relationship with God and the Father, and not with Christ, save so far as they are brethren—an individual place. Mr. Marshall's tract sees nothing of these differences. The judgment and song in Rev. 15 do not even apply to the church at all. Nor is relationship with the Father introduced into the Revelation. The nearest approach to it is in chapter xiv., when God is called Christ's Father. The book describes the government of God Almighty, and not even sons with a Father. The saints, old and new, are seen on thrones, but the body of Christ is not spoken of, nor the saints belonging to the church, or even to the Old Testament, seen on earth at all. Taking union on the lowest ground, mere gathering here, Christ gave Himself “to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad.” Even here (and it is not the unity of the body) being a child of God is one thing, and gathered together is another.
As to judging of the equity of putting them there with the comparative merits of individuals we have nothing to do, nor has it with the question. We must see what scripture states. Now I say that not only the church did not exist, but was not, even prophetically, revealed in the Old Testament—formed no part of promise or prophecy.
In Rom. 16:2525Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, (Romans 16:25) it is said, “according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but is now made manifest." Again, Eph. 3:55Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; (Ephesians 3:5), “which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body.” Again, verse 9: “the mystery which from the beginning of the world was hid in God; to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” “The mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints.” (Col. 1:2626Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: (Colossians 1:26).) We have thus the distinct and repeated declaration that the mystery of the church not only could not exist while the Jews were a separate people and bound to be so, but was not revealed. The revelation that there was no difference between the Jew and the Greek would have overturned the whole fabric by its base.
Let me urge Mr. Marshall to read, not the writings of “Brethren,” but the Bible, and see if the church is not a wholly new thing, consequent on the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God, and that it could not by any possibility have existed before; and not to confound the promise of a coming Savior, received by faith, with membership of Christ's body, when He is exalted to be head over all things to His body, the church; nor to think it impossible because of the grace given to Abraham, that God may have “reserved some better things for us."
I will add a few words on ordination. Mr. Marshall cites a number of passages in which Paul exhorts Timothy as to his ministry, stirring up the gift which was in him. Most admirable exhortations assuredly; for indeed they are of the Spirit of God Himself, though we speak of Paul, but they have nothing to do with the ordination of ministers. But Mr. Marshall misquotes the only material citation. Timothy had been ordained, he tells us, by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Scripture does not say “by,” but “with;” and, when we see what Paul says elsewhere, we see the importance of the difference. The whole sentence is, “the gift which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.” Now here we find the real force of the matter: a gift was given, a very different thing from ordination; and elsewhere we find more information as to it (2 Tim. 1:66Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. (2 Timothy 1:6)), “the gift that is in thee by the patting on of my hands.” A man was personally marked out by prophecy [as we see in the case of Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13), again at Antioch], and then Paul laid his hands on Timothy, and conferred a gift, which was the privilege of the apostles, as we see Paul and John going down to Samaria, and so conferring it, and Simon wanting to buy the power.
Now I freely admit that the presbytery also accompanied this by the laying on of their hands, as a testimony to Timothy; just as in Acts 13:88But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. (Acts 13:8), an act interpreted in chapter 14:26 and repeated again in chapter 15:40. But the substance of the act was the conferring the Holy Ghost with a careful changing of the word, which has escaped Mr. M.'s notice. Hence in the Episcopal church, in which the officiating prelate professes to give the Holy Ghost, the laying on of his hands is ordered to be accompanied by that of other priests; but no one ascribes ordination to them, but to the prelate.
The difference between eldership and gifts is clearly established in every respect in scripture. It was desirable that an elder should be apt to teach, still it was said, “especially those who labor in the word and doctrine,” so that some did not; and in their episcopal work—for they were all bishops, that is, in their service as overseers of the flock,—each was to be able “to exhort and convince gainsayers, holding fast,” if he had no special conferred gift of teaching on which he had to wait (Rom. 12), “the faithful word as he had been taught.” He is even here contrasted with a teacher, and is to use in his service what he had learned, to stop people's mouths. Elders were appointed in every city (Titus 1:55For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: (Titus 1:5), compare Acts 14:2323And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed. (Acts 14:23)), aptness to teach being a desirable qualification; but eldership was no gift at all. It is to be presumed hands were laid upon them, though it be never positively said so; but it was the common use in every signification of blessing, approved and commended to the Lord, used with the sick, used by prophets, or the church as to apostles; and as Timothy was to lay hands suddenly on no man, it may be very well presumed he did so on elders. It is a mercy that it is never said, or we should have apostolic succession. And it is not ever said.
But let us see on what a totally different footing gifts stand. First, the Lord (when He goes away) gives talents to His servants, and they are bound to use them without other authority. He who had not sufficient trust in the Lord to do so was a wicked and slothful servant. Then I learn the fact that “they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word,” and afterward (Acts 11) that “the hand of the Lord was with them."
I find Peter giving directions as to this, “As every man has received the gift, so let him minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (1 Peter 4:1010As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. (1 Peter 4:10).) In Rom. 12:66Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; (Romans 12:6) the word is, “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth on teaching,” &c. So in 1 Cor. 12 it is elaborately stated that they had their gifts according to the dividing of the Spirit as He would, making this man one member in the body, that another; and, wherever a man was, he was that member. So, if Apollos taught at Ephesus, he taught at Corinth when there, and Silas and Judas at Antioch, and so on; and in 1 Cor. 14 directions are given as to the use of gifts, when they were not to be used, how many were to speak, &c., that all might be to common edification, concluding by saying, “for ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and that all may be comforted.” The women were to keep silence in the assemblies; it was not permitted them to speak; it was a shame for them to speak in the assembly. So persons (2 John) who went about preaching were to be judged by their doctrine. Then we get a warning in James not to be many masters (teachers), showing by the moral warning that ordination to do it had no place.
Finally, in the important passage in Eph. 4 it is referred to gifts from Christ on high, when He fills all things in the power of redemption. Five permanent and regular gifts are mentioned, of which two had been declared to be the foundation, which is not laying now, Pastors, teachers, and evangelists remain, sadly hindered by the state of the church—still they remain. In addition to this we have “the increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.” The difference of this and 1 Cor. 13 is worthy of note. There it was mere power by the Spirit of God, which might be, and was, abused; here it is what Christ, who cannot but be faithful to His own body, gives till all grow up to Him who is the head. There being by the present Holy Ghost, you have tongues, miracles, healings, &c., but there is no “till we all come,” as there is in Eph. 4; on the contrary it is “as he will.” We may have lost a great deal, but the principle of scripture is as plain as possible.
Of ordination, as connected with these gifts, we have nothing, unless that apostles could confer the Holy Ghost and gift by laying on of hands. Committing doctrine to faithful men, which may be done in any age, if one be capable to do it, has nothing to do with conferring official authority, and this is what ordaining means in modern language. And this is why “ordain” is objectionable, because it conveys a distinct meaning in modern language, which scripture does not warrant. The English version is intentionally unfaithful in this. In Acts 1 it has “must one be ordained,” where there is no word at all; it is simply “must one be a witness.” In Acts 14 it is “they chose for them,” where they have put “ordained them;” and in Titus it is “ordain elders,” when it is simply “establish.” This was not without intention.
The other passages Mr. Marshall quotes prove rather the contrary of what he cites them for, as 1 Thess. 5:12, 1812And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; (1 Thessalonians 5:12)
18In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Why call upon people to know those that labored among them, and love them for their work's sake, if they could not help knowing them as their own ordained ministers? Their work was the ground of knowing and valuing them, and a very just one. So Heb. 13:77Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. (Hebrews 13:7) has really nothing to do with it, (for these were dead, and, knowing their end, they were to follow their faith), verse 17 has; but here their work is again the ground: there is no hint of appointment.
When Mr. M. speaks of the hundreds of thousands of churches which need ministers, he is assuming the whole system of modern churches, of which there is not a trace in scripture. Men have made the churches; and so they must make ministers for them, whether God has made them or not. Such a church as Paul wrote to does not exist in Christendom; and if he were to address a letter as he then did, no one would get it. “No one,” Mr. M. adds, “ever knew or heard of any such direct divine appointment since the time of the apostle Paul!” Just so. In scripture such are found, as we have seen. And he told us that, after his decease, from without and within, ruin would come; and it has. But these would become the perilous times of the last days, for which we have directions in 2 Tim. 3, and more detailedly in 2 Tim. 2 in the next, or third chapter, we have our resource, knowing from whom we have learned, (the inspired teachers, and generally the scriptures) that which was from the beginning. (1 John 2:2424Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. (1 John 2:24).)
But Mr. M. has just told what has been, I may say, our desire, certainly mine—to go straight back to the time of the apostle Paul, that is, to the scriptures, the written word of God: for there only we have His ways and directions. I admit it has never been done since then. The mystery of iniquity was already at work. We have returned to that which was at the beginning, conscious that much has been lost, but persuaded that Christ can never fail His church, and that He will give it needed care and blessing, and gifts to minister to it, till all are come. We may fail in our faithfulness, but not the blessed Lord in His love, nor in what is really needed. But, however feebly, Mr. M.'s is just the true account of what those commonly called the “Brethren” have done. They have gone back to Paul's time, that is, to the word of God.