A tract has been sent me of a departed Christian (A. J. Holiday), which it is far from my wish to criticize. As I told his friends who desired a judgment, though I should greatly prefer their judging his doctrine by God's word, I do not refuse to help as far as I am enabled.
Two points in particular seem to be the great aim: the necessity for the Christian, the member of Christ's body, to join himself to a company of disciples, a local assembly or church; and the oversight of elders as the necessary means of the due keeping of the flock.
No sober Christian doubts that in no long time after Pentecost there were local assemblies, not only in Judea and Galilee and Samaria, but among the Gentiles east and west, north and south. And the members of Christ from one local assembly were received in any other, only their identification needing letters commendatory. But all was grounded on their accredited relation to Christ as of His body. This was the foundation on which they originally had their place. Their brethren received them, because there was adequate testimony to their consciences and hearts that the Lord had been adding them together (ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ) (Acts 2:4747Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. (Acts 2:47)). He was building up His church; and these were living stones, members of the one body, even if the phrase “the church” only first occurs in chap. v. 11. None did then pretend to any other membership. Others too bowed to Him only, even when all the twelve were there to rule with apostolic authority.
There are two divinely appointed symbols, which mark, one the individual Christian, the other the fellowship of the body the Church as in due time was clearly explained in 1 Cor. 10.
Both necessarily take place locally; but both are based on Christ the Lord. The baptism is not to the local representative but to Christ the Lord; and if we seek the details of the formula, “unto the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Just so with the church symbol; it is the communion of the body of Christ, not of any local body, though observed locally; “because we, the many, are one loaf, one body; for we, the whole of us, partake of the one loaf.” There is no word or thought here or in any other scriptures to countenance a local source. The word of God speaks of no membership save of Christ's own body; just as not a word admits of any Headship of the church but His exclusively. The same act of divine grace which makes us members of Christ makes us also members one of another. Any other membership is human tradition, which, as the Lord taught and we may readily verify, never fails to make void the word, though men may think it a good, wise, and needed supplement.
Membership of a church is the vast error of Christendom. Rome, I presume, was mother of it, as of so much else incompatible with the truth of the church as God has revealed, though its Greek rival was no less keen for the same special member ship: a thing totally unknown to the apostolic day when all the Christians on earth enjoyed but one communion. Hence when the apostle would correct local evils in one place, he wrote “to the church of God that is in Corinth, sanctified [ones] in Christ Jesus, saints called [or, by call], with all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours:” a remarkable and emphatic guard against the principle of ecclesiastical independency. With this agree his words against schisms in chap. 1; “everywhere in every assembly,” chap. iv.; his call to judge those “within” (not a but the church), as the “without” was everywhere also; his words “thus I ordain in all the assemblies” in chap. vii. Compare also chap. 14:36, 37.
The Reformation, though a blessed work for delivering from Rome's servitude, and giving back the Bible in our mother-tongue frankly, in no due way attested the church, but fell back on the State to resist the Papacy, and Babylon the corruption of the church, and the denial of its Head. As this was clearly unscriptural, the system of accredited sects followed to our day, the ignoring and negation of the one body on earth united to its heavenly Head by the Spirit's baptism (1 Cor. 12:1313For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13)).
So also the apostle teaches in the same chap. that there are distinctions of operations, but the same God that operates all things in all; that to each the manifestations of the Spirit are given for profit, and that whatever the different kinds, the one and the same Spirit operates all these, dividing to each in particular as He pleases. “For even as the body is one and hath many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. For also in the power of [or by] one Spirit we all were baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and were all given to drink of one Spirit.” People talk of Christ's mystical body where the scripture account does not apply to present practice. But it is plain as words can make it, that here is given the principle and way of the Spirit's action in the body on earth, not for heaven or a future time. Only unbelief can argue that it is obsolete, and not obligatory so far as God deigns to give power in the present scattered state of the saints so lacking in faith, undevoted, and worldly-minded. Further, we are told that as the case is, “God set the members each one of them in the body even as it pleased Him,” surely not in a mere local body but rather in the body as a whole. Ver. 27 in no way weakens this truth, but applies it to the Corinthian saints as its local representative, to enforce their responsibility according to privilege, the very reverse of claiming independency. Again, he says, “God set certain in the church, firstly apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then powers” [or miracles], etc., putting lower down what carnal levity at Corinth raised to the highest. But without doubt all this energy of the Spirit was in the church now and here; and there remains in divine faithfulness all that is for His glory and our need in the day when the church was stript of her ornaments.
Eph. 4 gives us the selfsame principle, not as a contrast of the one Spirit with the many, instruments of Satan's evil work, but in view of Christ's glory on high and love to His body the church on earth. There too apostles and prophets share the first and the second rank; but we have also the evangelists to gather to Christ out of the world, and the pastors (or, shepherds) and teachers to tend and instruct the saints for their perfecting, unto ministerial work, unto edifying of His body. This was on earth, though for heaven where such working never was nor will be, but in His body here; and it was then the body visible, as the saints were responsible to continue. If it too soon became invisible, it was the church's sin in departure from its place as Christ's one body, its privileges, worship, walk, and ways in general, through unfaithfulness to God.
Is, or is not, the church responsible by grace to maintain this position, not merely “endeavoring” but giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit? Internal divisions (σχίσματα) practically opposed and misrepresented that unity; “sects” (αἱρέσεις) or external splits of self will were its open denial in principle. If we believe in the one body of Christ as the spiritual fact on the earth, we are bound to judge its anomalous state since the apostles departed, as an ever-increasing offense against grace and truth, judging as the Head does by the word, and humbling ourselves. So holy Daniel did for the similar departure of Israel, instead of pleading God's providence and excusing the change. If we are taught by God of the church's unity on earth, bound up with Christ's love and honor, the present ruin is felt as deep shame and sorrow; and all the more, because of the Holy Spirit sent forth, not only to form but to sustain this divine unity in the saints, as He surely would, if they had not allowed the flesh and the world to darken and turn aside and set up other unities incompatible with that of the Spirit, which can only be in faith, love, and holiness according to God's word.
Now one of the first, and widest, subtlest and most permanent contributing causes is the assertion of a local church membership, or of the largest possible federation of churches, in opposition to the only membership known to scripture, the membership of Christ by the gift and sealing of the Holy Spirit. For it is not the new birth or faith in Christ (however essential preliminarily) which constitutes one a member of His body, but the gift of the Spirit. Compare Acts 1:4, 5; 2:38; 11:16, 174And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. 5For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. (Acts 1:4‑5)
38Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 2:38)
16Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. 17Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? (Acts 11:16‑17); 1 Cor. 12:1313For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13). At Pentecost it began; and so according to scripture the Spirit abides, as for other ends, to effectuate the one body of Christ now on earth, not a mere mystical union on high, any more than membership of a church on earth. If the unity had been mystical only, the scattered children of God needed not to be gathered together into one. It was to be here and now since Pentecost, not for heaven only where was no difficulty or danger, “a unity” as the tract says “which none can ever break.” Here it was to be as a testimony “that the world might believe” (John 17:2121That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 17:21)), excluding Augustine's invention of an invisible church, though it will only be “perfected into one” in the day of displayed glory “that the world may know” (vers. 22, 23).
Of this unity, whether of God's family as with John, or of Christ's body as with Paul, the Christian forms part. The Lord adds each to the church; and the church is bound to His act when ascertained suitably; but there was no thought of the believer being brought into its assembly “by his own act and the act of the assembly also.” It was an act of God's supreme grace, above man's acts, though faith owned it in all concerned. A supplemental or sectional member is not only unscriptural but anti-scriptural, the parent error of no end of errors, and leading ultimately to congregationalism or independent churches, the antitheses of God's church here as Christ's one body.
On the other hand, the remedy of professing to be the church of God now, in the departed and broken state of Christendom is in principle as bad as the disease, a mere and false pretension. For in fact the members are here, there, and anywhere. Yea even if all the Christians in a given place were to re-assemble, they would belie the truth in claiming to be “the” church of God, while there is scattering over all the earth. But they are bound to give up every false unity, yet through mercy free to meet on the one divine principle, gathered to Christ's name its ever true center, and having Him in their midst, were they but two or three, as the Lord anticipated in Matt. 18:2020For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20), and the Holy Spirit enjoins in 2 Tim. 2:19-2219Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. 20But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. 21If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. 22Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:19‑22). It is the resource for those faithful to the Lord in the difficult times of last days.
(to be continued).