Scriptural Principles of Unity and Gathering
John Nelson Darby
Table of Contents
Preface
This pamphlet was originally written as two separate tracts by J. N. Darby. The first was entitled “Separation from Evil: God’s Principle of Unity,” which presented one side of the matter. The second, “Grace, the Power of Unity and Gathering,” was written many years later to furnish the other side. Both aspects of this subject are especially significant in these last days.
A collective testimony unto the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the faithful and true Witness, in a day of outward ruin, cannot go beyond the reality of the true condition of things on the earth. Such a testimony will, of necessity, be to the ruin itself but on no other ground except the Word of God, if it is of Himself. A path within the “great house” (2 Timothy 2:20) is available to every believer who, through the power of grace, separates from evil unto Him, outside the camp (Hebrews 13:13). May the Holy Spirit be pleased to use this pamphlet to kindle a fresh desire in the heart of each of the Lord’s people to follow the Scriptural order for unity and gathering.
Separation From Evil - God's Principle of Unity
The need of union is felt now by every right-minded Christian. The power of evil is felt by all. Its pressure comes too near home, its rapid and gigantic strides are too evident and affect too nearly the particular feelings which characterize distinctively every class of Christians, to allow them to be blind to it, however little they may appreciate its true bearing and character. Better and holier feelings, too, arouse them to the sense of common danger and (as far as it is entrusted to man’s responsibility) the danger in which the cause of God is, from those who never did, and never would spare it. This need is felt wherever the Spirit of God acts, so as to make the saints value grace and truth and one body.
The feelings which the sense of the progress of evil produces may be different. Some, though they are but few, may yet trust to the bulwarks they have long looked at, but which had their force only in a respect for them which exists no longer. Others may trust to a fancied force of truth, which it has never exerted but in a little flock, because God and the work of His Spirit were there; others, to a union which never yet was the instrument of power on the side of good―that is, a union by concord and agreement. While others may feel bound to abstain from such an agreed union, by reason of previously subsisting obligations, or prepossessions, so that the union tends to form only a party. But the sense of danger is universal. That which was long mocked at as a theory is now too practically felt to be denied; though the apprehensions of the word, which made those who were subjected to that mockery foresee the evil, may be rejected and slighted still.
But this state of things produces difficulties and dangers of a peculiar kind to the saints, and leads to the inquiry, Where is the path of the saint and where is true union to be found? There is danger, from the very blessedness and desirableness of union, of those who have long truly felt its value, and the obligation that lies on the saints to maintain it, being led to follow the impulses of such as refused to see it when it was spoken of from the Word, and to abandon the very principles and path which their own clearer apprehension of the Word of God led them to embrace from it, as foreseeing the coming storm. They learned from that precious Word that it was coming; and, while calmly studying it in the Word, saw the path marked out there for the believer as such, and indeed, in every time. It is now pressed upon them to desert it for that suggested to men’s minds by the pressure of the anxieties they anticipated, but which, though there may be an impulse of good in it, the Word of God itself did not furnish when inquired into in peace. But is this the path of the saints, to turn from that which generally rejected intelligence of the Word afforded them, to pursue the light of those who would not see? This, however, is not the only danger; nor is it my object to dwell on the dangers but the remedy. There is a constant tendency in the mind to fall into sectarianism, and to make a basis of union of the opposite of what I have here just alluded to: that is, of a system of some kind or other to which the mind is attached, and round which saints or others are gathered; and which, assuming itself to be based on a true principle of unity, regards as schism whatever separates from itself―attaching the name of unity to what is not God’s center and plan of unity. Wherever this is the case, it will be found that the doctrine of unity becomes a sanction for some kind of moral evil, for something contrary to the Word of God; and the authority of God Himself, which is attached to the idea of unity, becomes, through the instrumentality of this latter thought, a means of engaging the saints to continue in evil. Moreover, continuance in this evil is enforced by all the difficulty which unbelief finds to separate from that in which it is settled, and where the natural heart finds its ties, and, generally, temporal interests the sphere of their support.
Now, unity is a divine doctrine and principle; but, as evil is possible wherever unity is taken by itself so as to be a conclusive authority, wherever evil does enter, the conclusive obligation of unity binds to the evil, because the unity, where the evil is, is not to be broken. Of this we have a flagrant example in Romanism. There the unity of the church is the grand basis of argument; and it has been the ground of keeping the world, we may say, in every sanctioned enormity, and made the name of Christianity its warrant―an authority to bind souls to evil, till the name itself became shameful to the natural conscience of man. The plea of unity may then be, in a measure, the latitudinarianism which flows from the absence of principle; it may be the narrowness of a sect formed on an idea; or, it may be, as taken by itself, the claim to be the church of God, and hence in principle secure as much indifference to evil as it is the convenience of the body or its rulers to allow or is in the power of Satan to drag them into. If the name of unity then be so powerful in itself and in virtue of blessings withal which God Himself has attached to it, it behooves us well to understand what the unity He owns really is. This it is I would propose to inquire into, acknowledging the desire for it to be a good thing and many of the attempts at it to contain in them elements of good feeling, even when the means may not carry conviction to the judgment as being those of God.
Now, it will be at once admitted that God Himself must be the spring and center of unity and that He alone can be in power or title. Any center of unity outside God must be so far a denial of His Godhead and glory, an independent center of influence and power; and God is one―the just, true and only center of all true unity. Whatever is not dependent on this is rebellion. But this so simple and, to the Christian, necessary truth clears our way at once. Man’s fall is the reverse of this. He was a subordinate creature, an image too of Him that was to come; he would become an independent one, and he is, in sin and rebellion, the slave of a mightier rebel than himself, whether in the dispersion of several self-will, or its concentration in the dominion of the man of the earth. But then we must, in consequence of this, go a step farther. God must be a center in blessing as well as power, when He surrounds Himself with united and morally intelligent hosts. We may know that He will punish rebellion with everlasting destruction from His presence into the hopelessness of uncentered and selfish individual misery and hatred; but He Himself must be a center of blessing and holiness, for He is a holy God, and He is love. Indeed, holiness in us (while it is by its nature separation from evil) is just having God, the Holy One, who is love too, the object, center and spring of our affections. He makes us partakers of His holiness (for He is essentially separate from all evil, which He knows as God, though as His contrary); but in us, holiness must consist in our affections, thoughts and conduct being centered in and derived from Him: a place maintained in entire dependence upon Him. Of the establishment and power of this unity in the Son and Spirit I will speak presently. It is the great and glorious truth itself on which I now insist.
This great principle is true even in creation. It was formed in unity, and God its only possible center. It shall be brought into it yet again, and centered in Christ as its Head, even in the Son, by whom, and for whom, all things were created. (Colossians 1:16.) It is man’s glory (though his ruin as fallen) to be made thus a center in his place—the image of Him that is to come; but alas! his imitator in a state of rebellion in this same place, when fallen. I know not (I would venture to say no more) that angels were ever made the center of any system; but man was. It was his glory to be the lord and center of this lower world (an associate but dependent Eve his companion and help in his presence). He was the image and glory of God. His dependence made him look up; and this is true glory and blessedness to all but God. Dependence looks up and is exalted above itself. Independence must look down (for it cannot in a creature be filled with itself) and is degraded. Dependence is true exaltation in a creature when the object of it is right. The primeval state of man was not holiness, in the proper sense of it, because evil was not known. It was not a divine (but it was a blessed creation) state; it was innocence. But this was lost in the assertion of independence. If man became as God, knowing good and evil, it was with a guilty conscience, the slave of the evil he knew, and in an independence he could not sustain himself in, while he had morally lost God to depend on.
With this state (for we must now descend to the present actual question of unity), with man in this state God has to deal, if true real unity, such as He can own, is to be attained. Now, He must be still the center. It is not therefore in mere creative power. Evil exists. The world is lying in wickedness, and the God of unity is the Holy God. Separation therefore, separation from evil, becomes the necessary and sole basis and principle, I do not say the power, of unity. For God must be the center and power of that unity, and evil exists: and from that corruption they must be separate who are to be in God’s unity; for He can have no union with evil. Hence, I repeat, we have this great fundamental principle, that separation from evil is the basis of all true unity. Without this, it is more or less attaching God’s authority to evil, and rebellion against His authority; as is all unity independent of Him. It is a sect in its lightest and feeblest forms; in its fullest, it is the great apostasy, of which one of the characteristics, as ecclesiastical or secular power, is unity; but unity by subjection of man to what is independent really or openly of God because it is of His Word; not established by subjection to the Holy One, according to His Word, and by the power of the Spirit working in those that are united, and by His presence, which is the personal power of union in the body. But this separation is not yet by judicial power, which separates (not the good from the evil, the precious from the vile, but) the vile from the precious, banishing it from His presence in judgment; binding up the tares in bundles, and casting them into the furnace of fire; gathering out of His kingdom all things that offend (Satan and his angels being himself cast down and all things thereupon being gathered together in one in Christ, in heaven and in earth). Then the world, not the conscience, will be cleared from evil by the judgment which will not allow it, but will early cut off all the wicked (not by the power and testimony of the Spirit of God).
It is not now the time of this judicial separation of the evil from the good in the world, as the field of Christ, by the cutting off and destruction of the wicked. But unity is not therefore given up out of the thoughts of God; nor can He have recognized union with evil. There is one Spirit and one body. He gathers together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad. (John 11:52.)
And now, as to the principle in general: God is working in the midst of evil to produce a unity of which He is the center and the spring, and which owns dependently His authority. He does not do it yet by the judicial clearing away of the wicked; He cannot unite with the wicked or have a union which serves them. How can it be then this union? He separates the called from the evil. “As God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them;... Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate,... and I will receive you,... and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:16-18. Now here we have it distinctly set forth. This was God’s way of gathering. It was by saying, Come out from among them. He could not have gathered true unity around Him otherwise. Since evil exists―yea, is our natural condition―there cannot be union of which the Holy God is the center and power but by separation from it. Separation is the first element of unity and union.
We may now inquire a little further into the manner in which this unity is effectuated, on what it is based. There must be an intrinsic power of union holding it together to a center, as well as a power separating from evil to form it; and this center found, it denies all others. The center of unity must be a sole and unrivaled center. The Christian has not long to inquire here. It is Christ―the object of the divine counsel―the manifestation of God Himself―the one, only vessel of mediatorial power, entitled to unite creation as He by whom and for whom all things were made; and the church as its Redeemer, its head, its glory and its life. And there is this double headship: He is the head over all things to the church which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. (Ephesians 1:22-23.) This will be accomplished in its day.
For the present we take up the intermediate period, the unity of the church itself, and its unity in the midst of evil. Now there can be no moral power which can unite, away from evil, but Christ. He alone, as perfect grace and truth, detects all the evil which separates from God, and from which. God separates. He alone can, of God, be the attractive center which draws together to Himself all on whom God so acts. God will own no other. There is no other to whom the testimony could be borne, who is of God and towards God. Redemption itself, too, makes this necessary and evident: there can be but one Redeemer, one to whom a ransomed heart can be given, as well as where a divinely quickened heart can give all its affections, the center and revelation of the Father’s love. He, too, is the center of power to do it. In Him all the fullness dwells. (Colossians 2:9.) Love (and God is love) is known in Him. He is the wisdom of God and the power of God. And, yet more than this, He is the separating power of attraction, because He is the manifestation of all this, and the fulfiller of it in the midst of evil; and this is what we poor, miserable ones want who are in it; and it is what, if we may so speak, God wants for His separating glory in the midst of evil. Christ sacrificed Himself to set up God in separating love in the midst of evil. There was more than this―a wider scope in this work; but I speak in reference to my present subject now.
Thus Christ becomes, not only the center of unity to the universe in His glorious title of power, but (as the manifester of God, the one owned and set up of the Father and attracter of man) He becomes a peculiar and special center of divine affections in man, round which they are gathered as the sole divine center of unity. For indeed, as the center, necessarily the sole center, “he that gathereth not with Me scattereth.” Luke 11:23. And such, as to this point, was the object even, and power of His death: “I, if I be lifted up... will draw all men unto Me.” John 12:32. And more specially, He gave Himself “not for that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” John 11:52. But here again, we find this separation of a peculiar people: He “gave Himself for us, that He might... purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Titus 2:14. He was the very pattern of the divine life in man, separate from the evil, by which it was universally surrounded; He was the friend of publicans and sinners, piping in grace to men by familiar and tender love; but He was ever the separate Man. And so He is as the center of the church and high priest. “Such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,” ―and, it is added, “made higher than the heavens.” Hebrews 7:26. Here in passing we may remark, that the center and subject of this unity then is heavenly. A living Christ still became the instrument of maintaining the enmity, being Himself subject to the law of commandments contained in ordinances. Hence, though the divine glory of His Person necessarily reached over this wall as a fruitful bough of grace to poor passing Gentiles without (and it could not be otherwise, for where faith was, He could not deny Himself to be God, nor what God was, even love); yet in His regular course, as a man made of a woman, He was made under the law. But by His death He broke down the middle wall of partition, and made both one, and reconciled both in one body unto God, making peace. Hence it is as lifted up, and finally as made higher than the heavens, that He becomes the center and sole object of unity.
Let us remark in passing, that hence worldliness always destroys unity. The flesh cannot rise up to heaven, nor descend in love to every need. It walks in the separative comparison of self-importance. “I am of Paul,” etc. “Are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” 1 Corinthians 3:3-4. Paul had not been crucified for them, nor had they been baptized in the name of Paul. They had gotten down to earth in their minds, and unity was gone. But the glorious heavenly Christ in one word embraced all. “Why persecutest thou Me?” Acts 9:4. This separation from all else was more slow among the Jews, as having been outwardly themselves the separated people of God; but having fully shown what they were, the word to the disciples was, “Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” Hebrews 13:13. The Lord (when as the great result He would have one flock and one Shepherd) put forth His own sheep and went before them. Indeed we have only to show that unity is God’s mind, and separation from evil is the necessary consequence; for it exists as a principle in the calling of God before unity itself. Unity is His purpose, and, as He is the only rightful center, it must be the result of holy power; but separation from evil is His very nature. Hence, when He publicly calls Abraham, the words: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house.” Genesis 12:1.
But, to continue: From what we have seen, it is evident that the Lord Jesus Christ on high is the object round which the church clusters in unity. He is its Head and Center. This is the character of their unity and of their separation from evil, from sinners. Yet they were not to be taken out of the world, but kept from the evil, and sanctified through the truth; Jesus having set Himself thus apart to this end. Hence, as well as for the public display of the power and glory of the Son of man, the Holy Ghost was sent down to identify the called ones with their heavenly Head, and to separate them from the world in which they were to remain: and the Holy Spirit became thus the center and power down here of the unity of the church in Christ’s name―Christ having broken down the middle wall of partition, reconciling both in one body by the cross. The saints, thus gathered in one, became the habitation of God through the Spirit. The Holy Ghost Himself became the power and center of unity, but in the name of Jesus, of a people separated alike from Jew and Gentile, and delivered out of this present evil world into union with their glorious Head. By Peter, God visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And of the Jews there was a remnant according to the election of grace; as Paul, one of them, was separated himself from Israel, and from the Gentiles, to whom he was sent.
And so was the constant testimony. He that saith he hath fellowship with Him and walketh in darkness, lieth and doeth not the truth. (1 John 1:6.) Separation from evil is the necessary first principle of communion with Him. Whoever calls it in question is a liar—he is, so far, of the wicked one. He belies the character of God. If unity depends on God, it must be separation from darkness. So with one another. If we walk in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. (1 John 1:7.) And mark, here there is no limit. It is as God is in the light. There the blessed Lord has placed us by His precious redemption; and hence, by that, the whole manner of our walk and union must be formed: we can have no union (as of God) out of it; the Jew could, because his―though separation, and hence the same in principle―yet was only outward in the flesh, and the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest (no, not even for the saints, though in God’s counsels doubtless they were to be there through the sacrifice about to be offered).
So, again, one with the other. What fellowship hath light with darkness? Christ with Belial? What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? And then, addressing the saints, the Holy Ghost adds, “For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate.” 2 Corinthians 6:16-17. Otherwise we provoke the Lord to jealousy, as if we were stronger than He. Of this unity and fellowship, I may add, the Lord’s supper is the symbol and expression. For we, being many, are all one bread (loaf), for we are all partakers of that one bread.
We find then most distinctly that, as the unity of Israel of old was founded on deliverance and calling from the midst of, and maintained separation among, the heathen which surrounded them, so the church’s unity was based on the power of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, separating a peculiar people out of the world to Christ, and dwelling among them; God Himself thus dwelling and walking in them. For there is one Spirit, and one body, as we are called in one hope of our calling. Indeed, the very name of Holy Spirit implies it; for holiness is separation from evil. Whatever failure, moreover, there may be in attainment, the principle and measure of this separation is necessarily the light, as God is in the light; the way into the holiest being made manifest, and the Holy Ghost comes down thence to dwell in the church below, and so in power of heavenly separation, because the indwelling center and power of unity (just as the Shekinah in Israel), He establishes the holiness of the church and its unity in its separation to God, according to His own nature, and the power of that presence. Such is the church, and such is true unity. Nor can the saint recognize, intelligently, any other, though he may own desires and efforts after good in that which is short of it.
Here I might close my remarks, having developed the great, though simple, principle, flowing from the very nature of God, that separation from evil is His principle of unity. But a difficulty collateral to my main object and subject presents itself. Supposing evil introduces itself into this one body so formed actually on earth, does the principle still hold good? How then can separation from evil maintain unity? And here we can touch on the mystery of iniquity. But this principle, flowing from the very nature of God, that He is holy, cannot be set aside. Separation from evil is the necessary consequence of the presence of the Spirit of God under all circumstances as to conduct and fellowship. But here there is a certain modification of it. The revealed presence of God is always judicial when it exists; because power against evil is connected with the holiness which rejects it. Thus in Israel God’s presence was judicial; His government was there, which did not allow of evil. So, though in another manner, it is in the church. God’s presence is judicial there—not in the world, save in testimony, because God is not yet revealed in the world; and hence it plucks up no tares out of that field. But it judges them that are within.
Hence the church is to put out from itself the wicked person, and thus maintains its separation from evil. And unity is maintained in the power of the Holy Ghost and a good conscience. And indeed, that the Spirit may not be grieved, and the practical blessing lost, saints are exhorted to look diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God. (Hebrews 12:15.) And how sweet and blessed is this garden of the Lord, when it is thus maintained and blooms in the fragrance of Christ’s grace. But, alas! we know worldliness creeps in, and spiritual power declines; the taste for this blessing is enfeebled, because it is not enjoyed in the power of the Spirit; the spiritual fellowship with Christ the heavenly Head decays, and the power which banishes evil out of the church is no longer in living exercise. The body is not sufficiently animated by the Holy Ghost to answer the mind of God. But God will never leave Himself without witness. He brings home the evil to the body by some testimony or other―by the Word or by judgments, or both in succession―to recall it to its spiritual energy, and lead it to maintain His glory and its place. If it refuse to answer to the very nature and character of God, and to the incompatibility of that nature with evil (so that it becomes really a false witness for God), then the first and immutable principle recurs, the evil must be separated from.
Further, the unity which is maintained after such separation, becomes a testimony to the compatibility of the Holy Ghost and evil: that is, it is in its nature apostasy; it maintains the name and authority of God in His church, and associates it with evil. It is not the professed open apostasy of avowed infidelity; but it is denying God according to the true power of the Holy Ghost, while using His name. This unity is the great power of evil pointed out in the New Testament, connected with the professing church and the form of piety. From such we are to turn away.
This power of evil in the church may be discerned spiritually, and left when there is the consciousness of inability to effect any remedy; or if there be an open public testimony, it is then open condemnation to it. Thus, previous to the Reformation, God gave light to many who maintained a witness to this very evil in the professing church, apart from it; some bore testimony and still remained. When the Reformation came it was openly and publicly given, and the professing body or Romanism became openly and avowedly apostate, as far as a professing Christian body can, in the Council of Trent. But wherever the body declines the putting away of evil, it becomes in its unity a denier of God’s character of holiness, and then separation from the evil is the path of the saint; and the unity he has left is the very greatest evil that can exist where the name of Christ is named. Saints may remain, as they have in Romanism, where there is not power to gather all saints together; but the duty of the saint as to it is plain on the first principles of Christianity, though doubtless his faith may be exercised by it. “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” 2 Timothy 2:19. It is possible that he that departs from evil may make himself a prey; but this, of course, makes no difference; it is a question of faith. He is in the true power of God’s unity.
Thus, then, the Word of God affords us the true nature, object and power of unity; and, in so doing, it gives us the measure of it, by which we judge of what pretends to it, and the manner of it; and, moreover, the means of maintaining its fundamental principles according to the nature and power of God by the Holy Ghost in the conscience where it may not be realized together in power. Its nature flows from God’s; for of true unity He must be the center, and He is holy; and He brings us into it by separating us from evil. Its object is Christ; He is the sole center of the church’s unity, objectively as its Head. Its power is the presence of the Holy Ghost down here, sent as the Spirit of truth withal from the Father by Jesus. Its measure is walking in the light, as God is in the light; fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus, and, we may add, through the testimony of the written Word―the apostolic and prophetic word of the New Testament especially. It is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (of the New Testament), Jesus Christ Himself being the corner stone. (Ephesians 2:20.) The means of maintaining it is putting away evil (judicially if needed), so as to maintain, through the Spirit, fellowship with the Father and the Son. If evil be not put away, then separation from that which does not becomes a matter of conscience. I return, if alone, into the essential and infallible unity of the body, in its everlasting principles of union with the Head in a holy nature by the Spirit. The path of the saints thus becomes clear. God will secure by eternal power the vindication, not here perhaps, but before His angels, of them who have rightly owned His nature and truth in Christ Jesus.
I believe these fundamental principles are deeply needed in this day, for the saint who seeks to walk truly and thoroughly with God. Latitudinarian unity it may be painful and trying to keep aloof from; it has an amiable form in general, is in a measure respectable in the religious world, tries nobody’s conscience, and allows of everybody’s will. It is the more difficult to be decided about, because it is often connected with a true desire of good and is associated with amiable nature. And it seems rigid and narrow and sectarianism to decline so to walk. But the saint, when he has the light of God, must walk clearly in that. God will vindicate His ways in due time. Love to every saint is a clear duty; walking in their ways is not. And he that gathers not with Christ scatters. (Luke 11:23.) There can be but one unity; confederacy, even for good, is not it, even if it have its form. Unity, professed to be of the church of God, while evil exists and is not put away, is a yet more serious matter. It will always be found to be connected with the clerical principle, because that is needed to maintain unity, when the Spirit is not its power, and, in fact, takes its place, guides, rules, governs in its place, under the plea of priesthood, or ministry, owned as a distinct body, a separate institution: it would not hold together without this.
Grace, the Power of Unity and of Gathering
What I think important to be understood is that the active power that gathers is always grace―love. Separation from evil may be called for. In particular states of the church, when evil is come in, it may characterize very much the path of the saints. It may be, that through many acting under the same convictions at the same time, this may form a nucleus. But this in itself is never a gathering power. Holiness may attract when a soul is in movement of itself. But power to gather is in grace, in love working; if you please, faith working by love. (Galatians 5:6.) Look at all the history of the church of God in all ages and you will find this to be the case. Grace is the formative power of unity, where it does not exist. I take for granted here that Christ is owned as the center. If evil exists, it may gather out of that evil, but the gathering power is love. The paper which I would pass under review is a tract, which, from circumstances, is not unknown: “Separation from Evil, God’s Principle of Unity.” I trust I should have grace to acknowledge error where I thought there was such, and I am sure I owe it to the Lord to do so; but my object here is somewhat larger. That tract refers to the state of the church of God at large, and not any particular member of it; but as one part of truth corrects an evil, so another, by its operation on the soul, may enlarge the sphere, and strengthen the energy of good. There are two great principles in God’s nature, owned of all saints―holiness and love. One is, I may be bold to say, the necessity of His nature, imperative, in virtue of that nature, on all that approach Him; the other, its energy. One characterizes; the other is, and is the spring of activity of, His nature. God is holy―He is not loving, but love. He is it in the essential fountain of His being; we make Him a judge by sin, for He is holy and has authority; but He is love, and none has made Him such. If there be love anywhere else, it is of God, for God is love. This is the blessed active energy of His being. In the exercise of this He gathers to Himself for the eternal blessedness of those who are gathered, its display in Christ, and Christ Himself, being the great power and center of it. His counsels as to this are the glory of His grace, His applying them to sinners and the means He employs for it, the riches of His grace. And in the ages to come He will show how exceeding great these were in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Allow me, in passing, before entering on the examination of the point which is now directly my object, to say a word on the sweet passage I have referred to, because it opens out God’s full thoughts in bringing into the unity of which that epistle speaks. We are blessed in Christ, and God Himself is the center of the blessing, and in two characters, His nature and His relationship; He is both as related to Christ Himself, viewed as man before Him, though the beloved Son. The verses I refer to are Ephesians 1:3-7. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As the Lord, when ascending up on high, said, “I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God” (John 20:17); only that here He goes on to the unity in Christ. There Christ speaks of them as brethren. In this double character then, in which God stands to Christ Himself, He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, none left out, in heavenly places, the best and highest sphere of blessing, where He dwells; not merely sent down to earth, but we taken ourselves up there, and in the best and highest way, in Christ Jesus, save His divine title to sit on the Father’s throne. Wonderful portion, sweet and blessed grace, which becomes simple to us in the measure in which we are accustomed to dwell in the perfect goodness of God, to whom it is natural to be all that He is, who could be no other.
In verse 4 we have “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,” according to the glory of the divine nature, introducing into His own presence in Christ that which shall be the reflex of itself, according to its eternal purpose. For the church in the thoughts of God (and, I may add, in its life in the Word) is before the world in which it is displayed. Here, it is His nature. We are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. God is holy, God is love, and in His ways, when He acts, blameless. Then there is relationship in Christ, and His is that of Son. Hence in Him we are predestinated to the adoption of children to God Himself, according to His good pleasure, the delight and goodness of His will. This is relationship. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as God. This is the glory of His grace; His own thoughts and purposes, to the praise of which we are. He has shown us grace in the Beloved. But in fact He finds us sinners. He has to put sinners in this place. What a thought! Here His grace shines out in another way. In this same blessed one, Christ the Son, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins―what we need, in order to enter into the place where we shall be to the praise of the glory of His grace―and this is according to the riches of His grace; for God is displayed in the glory of His grace, and need is met by the riches of grace.
Thus we are before God. What follows in the chapter is the inheritance which belongs to us through this same grace―what is under us. Into this I do not enter; only remarking, as I have elsewhere, that the Holy Ghost is the earnest of the inheritance, but not of God’s love. This is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us. These two relationships, of God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, will be found to unfold much blessing. They are of frequent occurrence in Scripture.
But interesting as that subject is, I turn now to the one before me. I have read over the tract I have referred to. I confess, it seems to me that one who would deny the abstract principles of that tract is not on Christian ground at all. I cannot conceive anything more indisputably true, as far as human statement of truth can go. Still there is something more than truth to be considered, and that is, the use of truth. God’s imputing no sin to the church, through grace and redemption, is always blessedly and eternally true. To a careless conscience, I may have to address other truth. Now, I repeat, that on reading that tract I do not see how a person resisting the principles stated is on Christian ground at all. Is not holiness the principle on which Christian fellowship is based?
And the tract is really and simply that. But two other points I believe it important to bring out along with that―one, in relation to man; the other, to the blessed God. The first is this: Human nature we all own, and in a measure know, is a treacherous thing. Now separation from evil, when right, which I now assume, still distinguishes him who separates from him from whom he does so. This tends to make one’s position important, and so it is; but with such hearts as we have, one’s position mixes itself up with self―not in a gross way but in a treacherous one; it is my position, and not only so, but the mind being occupied with what has been important (justly so in its place) to itself, tends to make, in a measure, separation from evil a gathering power, as well as a principle on which gathering takes place. This (save as holiness attracts souls who are spiritual by a moving principle in them) it is not.
There is another danger: a Christian separates from evil, I still suppose, in a case in which he is bound to do so. Say, he leaves the corruptest system in existence; on this principle, it is the evil acting on the conscience of the new man, and known to be offensive to God, which drives him out. Hence he is occupied with the evil. This is a dangerous position. He attaches it, perhaps anxiously, to those he has left to give a clear ground why he has done so. They conceal, cover over, gloss, explain. It is always so where the evil is maintained. He seeks to prove it, to make his ground clear; he is occupied with evil, with proving evil, and proving evil against others. This is slippery ground for the heart, to say nothing of danger to love. The mind becomes occupied with evil as an object before it. This is not holiness, nor separation from evil, in practical internal power. It harasses the mind and cannot feed the soul. Some are almost in danger of acquiescing in the evil through the weariness of thinking about it. At all events power is not found here. God separates us surely from evil, but He does not fill the mind when it continues to be occupied with it; for He is not in the evil. It is quite true that the mind may say, Let us think of the Lord and drop it, and get a measure of quiet and comfort; but in this case the general standard and tone of spiritual life will be infallibly lowered. Of this I have not a shadow of doubt. The positive evil will not be actually acquiesced in; but God’s horror of it is lost in the mind, and the measure of divine power and communion just proportionately lost, and the general path shows this. The testimony fails and is lowered. This is the widest evil―where there is conflict with evil not maintained in spiritual power―and creates the most serious difficulties to extended unity; but God is above all. The new nature, when in lively exercise, because it is holy and divine, revolts from evil when it comes before it. The conscience, too, will then be in exercise as responsible to God. But this is not all, even as to holiness. There is another, which in many (I may say, at bottom, in all) cases distinguishes real holiness from natural conscience, or conventional rejection of evil. Holiness is not merely separation from evil, but separation to God from evil. The new nature has not merely a nature or intrinsic character as being of God. It has an object, for it cannot live on itself―a positive object, and that is God. Now this changes everything; because it separates from evil―which it abhors, therefore, when it sees it―because it is filled with good. This does not enfeeble its separation. It makes its abhorrence of it lively when it has to be occupied with it, but it gives another tone to that which is abhorrent to it, the possession of good sufficient, when it is not forced to think of evil, to put it quite out of mind and sight. Hence it is holy, calm and has a substantive character of its own, apart from evil, as well as abhorrent of it. With us this can only be in having an object, because we are and ought to be dependent only so far as we are positively filled with God in Christ. We are occupied with good, and hence holy, for that is holiness; and, therefore, easily and discerningly abhorrent of evil, without occupying ourselves with it. It is God’s own nature; He is essentially good; delights in it in Himself: and therefore He is abhorrent, in virtue of His goodness, of evil; His nature is the good, and hence in His very nature He rejects the evil. He will do so authoritatively, no doubt, in judgment; but we now speak of nature.
Hence you will find that when it is in power, love precedes and makes holy, whether it be mutual or the enjoyment of it in the revelation of God. “And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: To the end He may stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.” 1 Thessalonians 3:12, 13. So in 1 John 1:1-6: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.”
Now here the separation from evil, walking in the light, in God’s revealed character in Christ, in the practical knowledge of God as revealed in Christ, in the truth as it is in Jesus in whom the life was the light of men, is fully insisted on with lines as clear and strong as the Holy Ghost alone knows how to make them. He who pretends to fellowship, and does not walk in the knowledge of God according to that knowledge, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But what makes the fellowship? This keeps it pure―but what makes it? The revelation of the blessed object, and center of it, in Christ. He was speaking of One who had won his own heart―who was the gathering power into fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. He knew by the Holy Ghost, and enjoyed what the Savior had said, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” John 14:9. This was love, infinite, divine; and, through the Holy Ghost, the witness of it had communion with it and told it out, that others might have fellowship with him; and truly, his was such. They joined in it. Now that, I apprehend, was gathering power. The object gathered to necessarily involved what follows. So, indeed, he closes the epistle. “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” 1 John 5:20-21. That is, the gathering power of good comes before the warning. This is the more remarkable in this epistle, because it is, in a certain sense, occupied with evil, is written concerning those that seduced them.
Holiness, then, is separation to God, if it be real, as well as from evil; for thus alone we are in the light, for God is light. This is true, in our first sanctifying—we are brought to know God, brought to God. If we come to ourselves it is, “I will arise and go to my father.” Luke 15:18. If it is restoration, “If thou wilt return,... return unto Me.” Jeremiah 4:1. Indeed a soul is never restored really till it does; for it is not in the light so as to purge flesh, even if the fruits of flesh have been confessed; nor is sin seen as it is in God’s sight. Hence love comes in, in all true conversion and restoration, however dimly seen, or through however dark workings of conscience. We want to get back to God; there is forgiveness with Him that He may be feared (Psalm 130:4); otherwise, it is despair which drives us farther away. Indeed, what would or could restoration be if it were not to God. But, in the full sense of gathering, that is, to common fellowship, it is clearly the blessed object which reveals that in which we are to have the fellowship, which so gathers. We are to have fellowship in something, that is, with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. This, then, must draw hearts to itself, that in their common delight in it their fellowship may exist. The principle of the tract is this, that in doing this it must separate from evil. It is the “this-then-is-the-message” part of the statement. So Christ says, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” John 12:32. Now here was perfect love, entire separation from all sin and condemnation of it. “In that He died, He died unto sin once” (Romans 6:10)―separation from the world, and deliverance from the whole power of the enemy and the scene of it. It is perfect love drawing from everything to itself; showing all was evil, absorbing the soul into what was good, in a saving way from it. But when we follow Him into life, all is gone from which He separated. “In that He liveth, He liveth unto God;” that is His whole being, so to speak. Now He is, in this life, made higher than the heavens―the divine glory I do not here enter into, but the life. It is a heavenly place He takes, and our gathering through the cross is to Him there, in the good where evil cannot come. There is our communion―entering into the Father’s house in spirit. And this, I apprehend, is the true character of the assembly, of the church, for worship in its full sense. It remembers the cross, it worships, the world left out, and all known in heaven before God. He gave Himself that He might gather into one. (John 11:52.) But here I anticipate a little, for I am speaking as yet of the object, not of the active power. I apprehend that what separates the saint from evil, what makes him holy, is the revelation of an object (I mean, of course, through the Holy Ghost working), which draws his soul to that as good, and thereby reveals evil to him, and makes him judge it in spirit and soul: his knowledge of good and evil is, then, not a mere uneasy conscience, but sanctification; that is, sanctification is resting, by the enlightening of the Holy Ghost, on an object, which, by its nature, purifies the affections by being their object―creates them through the power of grace. Even under law it had this form, “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16); though, I admit, it there partook necessarily of the character of the dispensation. In the cross we have these two great principles perfectly brought out. Love is clearly shown, the blessed object which draws the heart; yet the most solemn judgment of and separation from all evil; such is God’s perfectness―the foolishness and weakness of God. Divine attraction in love, evil in all its horror and forms, perfectly abhorred by him who is attracted and attaches himself to that. The soul goes with sin, as sin, to love, and goes there because love thus displayed has shown him that it is sin, in being made sin for us. This is the power objectively that separates from evil, and ends all connection with it; for I die then to all the nature I lived to. Evil ceases to be, through faith, as I live hereafter in blessed activity in love. But I have, perhaps, dwelt long enough on what objectively gathers and gives fellowship; and surely, our fellowship, communion, is in that which is good―and as heavenly by no evil being there. Imperfectly realized no doubt here, but so far as it is not, fellowship is destroyed, for the flesh has none. Hence it is said: “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” 1 John 1:7. But we cannot walk out of darkness but by walking in the light, that is, with God: and God is love, and were He not, we could not walk there.
But we have other privileges; God’s love in Christ is not only an object which gathers—it is an activity which does so. Love is relative; it acts and shows itself. Hence God has acted. It is not the silent depths of self-consciousness which heathenism made of God, as mere intellect, though erroneously supposing matter equally eternal, receiving merely form from God; though it then became active in generating thoughts―and, delighted with them objectively, became active in creation to produce them according to truth. In this scheme they justly made primeval darkness the mother of all things. But such is not our God. These, save in benefits sensibly known in creation, knew not love in God. Jesus has revealed Him, and we thus know Him to be love, and light, too. Blessed knowledge! It is, as given to us in the Word, eternal life; and this life is occupied with it, as we have seen, with the Father and the Son. But we can equally say that we know this sweet and blessed truth: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” John 5:17. It is the activity of love which is the power of gathering. He gave Himself that He might “gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” John 11:52. Even in Israel: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” Matthew 23:37. Here we have not only the attractive, sanctifying object bringing into fellowship, but the activity of love, which acts, gives itself, in order to gather; in this we are allowed to have a part. It is this, while sanctifying and maintaining His holiness, making us partakers of it, reveals God and gathers weary souls.
Now this alone is the proper principle and power of gathering: I do not say on which souls are gathered; for that is clearly holiness—separation from evil in which alone communion is maintained—or darkness would have fellowship with light. But love gathers; and this is as evident to the Christian as that it gathers to holiness and on the principle of it. For when would the mind of man separate from and leave the evil in which it lives, which is its nature, alas! as to its actual desires, and the sphere in which it lives? Never! Alas! its will and lusts are there—it is enmity against God. This is what the presenting of grace in Jesus has so solemnly proved. Law was never given to gather; it was the rule of a people already with God—or a convicter of sin. Sin does not gather to God, nor law; and one or other is all man’s state unless grace acts. Besides, grace alone fully reveals God; and hence without grace that to which we are to be gathered is not manifested. Grace alone reaches the heart so as to bring it—all short of this is responsibility merely, and failure. It is Christ gathers, and hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us. (1 John 3:16.) Indeed, truth itself is never known till grace comes. “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” John 1:17. The law told man what he ought to be. It did not tell him what he was. It told him of life if he disobeyed; but it did not tell him that God was love; it spoke of responsibility; it said, “Do this and live.” All this was perfect in its place, but it told neither what man was nor what God was; that remained concealed; but that is the truth.
The truth is not what ought to be, but what is—the reality of all relationships as they are, and the revelation of Him who, if there are any, must be the center of them. Now that could not be told without grace, for man was a ruined sinner, and God is love. And how tell, moreover, that all relationship was gone—for judgment is not a relationship, but the consequence of the breach of one—as the truth of any existing one, but in the revelation of that grace which formed one on this very ground by divine power? Hence we read, “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures” (James 1:18); that incorruptible seed of the Word. Hence Christ is the truth. For since, grace, God Himself, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, even, are revealed as they are; what man is in perfection, in relationship with God; what man’s alienation from God; what obedience, what disobedience, what holiness, what sin, what God, what man, what heaven, what earth; nothing but finds itself placed where it is in reference to God, and with the fullest revelation of Himself, while His counsels even are brought out, and of which Christ is the center. Hence grace is the acting power in and alone capable of revealing truth; for Christ’s being here is grace; His working effectual grace.
Now, the very existence of such an object and such a power would prove a gathering power, gathering into unity, for it must, being divine, gather to itself; yet, we are not left to abstract consequences, however practically familiar to every renewed soul who does and must know, that all such are drawn together to Christ. The Word of God is plain: He “should die . . . that also He should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” John 11:51-52. 1 speak of these things as characterizing the power which gathers. Christ, though the truth itself, yet, while here, was lonely truth: no new relationship was established on a divine basis for other men. Hence presented grace was rejected grace; the corn of wheat abode alone; but, dying, redemption was accomplished and atonement made. He was no longer “straitened;” the grace and truth shut up, so to speak, into His own heart could now flow freely forth. The highest love was shown; and sin in man, instead of hindering its application and barring relationship, was its object, at least that as to which it was displayed; and thus, therefore, He gathers. Divine righteousness supplants—what, indeed, never existed, though it was called for—human righteousness; divine life, mere human life; and God finds His glory in salvation. Grace reigns through righteousness. Now, this it is, by uniting souls in the power of the Holy Ghost to Jesus, which gathers by the cross, whence the truth is told to us as we are here, to Christ in heaven, who tells our true place to faith there—saving always, of course, His personal divine title.
Now this, I apprehend, is what Ephesians shows, only that as it begins with the divine glory, the true source of all, that epistle begins with the purpose of love as to us in heaven in glory; and brings in redemption itself as a second thing, needed to bring us there. But this clearly does not alter the love which is, and is acting to bring us into this blessed and heavenly unity, and which is thus heavenly, and, in connection with God’s glory, is holy according to the holiness of His presence. Christ’s path on earth is the pattern of it below—in its full measure on the cross. Hence heaven and the cross are correlative. When the blood went into the holiest the body was burnt without the camp—outside; yea, denying all relationship of God with man as he was. Then gathering into one began. He slew the enmity—as between Jew and Gentile—and reconciled both in one body to God; and so we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. (Ephesians 2:16,18.) Ordinances always separate according to human holiness; grace unites according to divine.
I believe I have said enough to make what is in my mind plain; and I am more anxious to state than to insist on it. In the full divine sense, without grace, there is neither truth nor holiness (out of God, of course, I mean), save as holiness may be applied to the elect angels—nor can be; because it is impossible that a sinner can be with God but on the ground and by the power and activity of grace. The power of unity is grace; and, as man is a sinner and departed from God, the power of gathering is grace—grace manifested in Jesus on the cross, and bringing us to God in heaven, and bringing us in Him who is gone there. This is holiness: certainly the cross was not acquiescence in evil.