Dear Brother, Objections of various kinds are made by those who more or less follow the traditions of Christendom. Under this head cannot be honestly classed the common action which flows from the unity which is so urgently of the Holy Spirit everywhere in the New Testament, and here kept up by that remarkable phrase of Scripture, “the church in Jerusalem,” in Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, or any other. But reasons which even seem to be based on the word of God are entitled to a grave hearing. For Scripture must surely tally with Scripture, though one in no way pretends to solve, to the satisfaction of each objector, every difficulty that may be raised on this question or any other.
Thus it is argued that “the church at the house” (Kcve atcov) of this or that person, of Aquila and Prizes, of Nymphas, of Philemon, is proof of “churches” in a city. Nay, rather is it, when duly weighed with other Scriptures, distinct disproof of any such divisive idea. It then becomes part of the evidence for unity; for,—while no one denies “the church” in ever so many houses of a city, the saints there are notwithstanding invariably designated “the” assembly in (iv) the city. The notion of some Greek fathers, and of Calvin &c. since, that it means only a Christian household, strikes one as a mere evasion owing to their traditionalprejudices. Neander, though right in the main, shows his inattention to the precision of Scripture by citing 7) -KK TO [a _v Tli Zak, carrot,. Now it is never so written, though it might have been perhaps had all the saints met in one house. The Spirit uses 4v only of all the saints in a city. It is always _ KaT' 07000V, absolutely as in Acts 2:46 ("at home"), or relatively as in the four houses we are now reviewing.
It will not be questioned by any fair and intelligent enquirer that the church in Ephesus, the metropolis of Asia, had been planted before the first epistle to the Corinthians was written thence. Evidently too “the church at Aquila's” (1 Cor. 16:19) existed then in that city. “All the brethren greet you,” in verse 20, supposes souls gathered elsewhere, and the main body too. The active grace of God gathers freely and in all simplicity; but as the Holy Spirit is one and impresses unity on all saints here below, so is there care in a place like Ephesus, not assuredly to hinder the gathering of saints to the Lord's name in more houses than one, but also to guard them all in unity. There may be the assembly here or the assembly there; but the aggregate of the saints in the place were “the assembly in Ephesus,” never the assemblies in it or of it. Unity is the governing truth according to the will of our Lord, the Head of the church. So runs His word, which cannot be broken. To have them all meeting under one roof is an earthly notion: the presence and power of the Spirit rises wholly and essentially above diversity of place. Only it is indispensable that as Christ's body they be all gathered to His name in the liberty and unity of the Spirit.
From Rom. 16:3-5 it appears that Aquila and his wife were at Rome when the apostle wrote his great epistle to the saints there from Corinth (A.n. 57 or 58;) and here again we read of “the church at their house.” It may be said doubtless that the saints in Rome are addressed as such throughout, and never in Scripture spoken of as the church in Rome. For my part I admire the perfectness of Scripture and the wisdom of God in so speaking. But it is at once a human and a weak inference that the saints were not the church of God there, because they are not so spoken of. Just consider those at Philippi or at Colorise, in which cities none would be so hardy as to deny them church character. Why then; it may be inquired, were the saints in those places not styled “the church “? Not because they were not; for such a denial would be ridiculous where we hear as at Philippi of bishops or overseers and deacons—a fullness of order which many true assemblies might not yet possess (see Acts 14:23, Titus 1:5). The truth taught in the Epistle to the Philippians brought individual experience and Christian life into relief, rather than ecclesiastical relationship; as the subject-matter in the Epistle to the Colossians is not the regulation of the church, but the recall of the saints to Christ the Head when in danger of losing the true sense of His glory. So even the Ephesian disciples are addressed as “the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus that are in Ephesus,” rather than as “the assembly” there, which last we are absolutely sure they were long before (Acts 20:17, 28). The reason is, that, though the church is handled in this Epistle from the highest point of view and in all the extent of its privileges, the utmost care is taken first and foremost to treat of the blessings of the saints in Christ, which leads to the individuality of their title in the address.
Yet more obvious is the key to the address in the Epistle to the Romans. It is due to its character as laying down, not church order, but the broad and deep foundations of divine righteousness in the gospel (with the guilt and evil of man that requires it), its consistency with the special promises to Israel, and the practical life of the Christian that flows from it, suits and is due to it. The spiritual mind feels that to address such an epistle to “the church” in Rome would be out of harmony with the truth in question. For Paul, apostle by call, to address all that were in Rome saints by call seems to be perfection; not because they did not compose the assembly or church there, but because the style adopted is in keeping, as “the assembly” would have been quite incongruous, with the drift of the Epistle. It would be indeed remarkable if the inspired apostle had written otherwise. That they were not the church in Rome is an unfounded deduction or strange doctrine. That there may have been several companies in that great city even then is in no way improbable: verses 14 and 15 seem to indicate groups; and there are, besides, many names recorded in the chapter, unconnected either with these verses or with 5, where we hear expressly of the assembly at the house of Prisc(ill)a and Aquila. Yet the analogy of Jerusalem, to speak of no other, would not only warrant but require the conclusion, that, whatever the number of companies meeting in Rome, all the saints in it formed the assembly there. Of course it was “the assembly” in this house, and “the assembly” in that; but the saints as a whole constituted “the assembly in Jerusalem,” Ephesus, Rome, &c., as the case might be. All stood on one divine ground; and it abides for us. Had there been “churches” in Jerusalem without common action, it would have been not “the” but “an” assembly here and another there, not unity but independency, the most opposed of all principles to that of God's church.
Still more manifest and to the point is the evidence yielded by Col. 4:15, “Salute the brethren that are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the assembly that is at his [or, according to some of the more ancient copies, their] house.” It is in vain to assume that this was the only gathering of the saints in Laodicea. Properly viewed it would even of itself imply the contrary; for had this been the only company gathered to the Lord's name in the city, it would have been naturally calledthe church “in Laodicea” rather than “at Nymphas' house,” (or according to the Vatican &c., adopted by Lachmarm, and Westcott and Hort, Nympha's house). It might be argued of course that we are told in ver.13 of “those that are in Laodicea,” as if they were only so many individual saints not gathered at all. But there is really no room for such speculation; for in the next verse following (15) we read of “the assembly (or church) of Laodiceans,” just as we might speak of the assembly of Londoners, meaning the assembly in London. “The” Laodiceans as in the Authorized and Revised Versions would be too much; and so with “the” Thessalonians in 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1. But the case is of moment, in that it shuts us up to a clear issue as to the unity of the church in a city, against the independency of the churches therein.. The apostle does not at all identify the church at Nymphal with the assembly of Laodiceans. Nor does he speak of the churches, but of the church of Laodiceans, suggestive of common, not several, action.
Accordingly “the assembly of Laodiceans” expressly goes beyond those meeting at that house; while the unity of all the saints in Laodicea in no way hinders or denies the assembly at a certain saint's house. Does not this answer well to what has been so happily maintained among us hitherto, the unity of the saints in a city with local gatherings here or there in it? That they all met under one roof (save on extraordinary occasions), and that unity is only to be secured in this material way, is natural enough for those who do not believe in the unity of the Spirit; but it is really a crass idea and a delusion opposed to Scripture. Brethren may have assembled in this or that brother's house; but there was also the capital truth of the assembly “of Laodiceans” or “in Laodicea” (Rev. 3:14, where the commonly received reading “of Laodiceans” rests only, as far as is known; on the Codex Reuchlini, which Erasmus used, out of some 110 MSS., five uncials, and 105 cursives.) Each meeting had no doubt its local responsibility; but none the less was there unity for all in the city. And who that knows what the church of God is could doubt that what appears in Col iv. 15, 16, was equally true everywhere else, if there were more meetings than one?
Philem. 1:2 remains for brief consideration, “the church, or assembly, at thy house.” By comparison with Col. 4:9 and other corroborating evidence, it does not admit of doubt that Philemon. s house was in Colossai. But it were an eccentric conclusion that this was the sole meeting of saints in the city. It was “the church at Philemon's house “; but it could not be, or it would have been called, the church in Colossaa. Other gatherings, one or more, existed there. Here again, if we have proof of a local meeting and of course responsibility, we have not a word to weaken the unity of God's assembly in the city, but rather what distinctly implies it.
Thus every case of the church in a house fails as a solid objection, and rather tends to confirm by other connected facts, (which the Holy Spirit carefully states as if to exclude independency), that unity along with local responsibility is of God, and to hold both is essential to all sound and spiritual conception of the church of God. One is far from referring to the late A. Neander as an accurate reflection of God's mind, revealed in His word, on the constitution of the church. Still he honestly states, in general beyond others, what is found there, even if it condemn his own Lutheranism as well as the rest of Christendom. And thus, in the “History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles” (Book III., ch. iii., a chapter most damaging to traditional usages), he admits that while companies met in particular houses, without separating themselves from the whole, “the Epistles of the apostle Paul give the clearest evidence that all the Christians of one city originally formed one whole church.”
Another scripture has been cited with some confidence, not indeed to prove assemblies with independent action in a city, but to destroy the force of “the” assembly in a city by a citation meant to show its application to provinces. The insinuation therefore is that, if “the church” can be predicated of a province as of a city, the phrase cannot carry with it such unity as leads to common action in a city, because this is clearly out of the question in a province. But is it true that there is any single instance of such equivalence? Acts 9:31 is alleged, where the Authorized Version based on the received text says that “Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria,” &c.
Now it does not seem upright to plead in bar of this that the uncial MSS. E H L P with the great mass of cursives, two ancient versions, and some Greek and Latin fathers, oppose A B C, some dozen cursives, most of the very ancient versions and several ecclesiastical writers. For it is my judgment that “the church,” as it has the best and oldest testimony, so also ought to be frankly accepted as the true reading. It was probably changed by scribes, who were struck with its peculiarity and did not understand its force, into conformity with Acts 16:5, where the plural is as right as here it seems weaker than the singular. “The church, then, throughout (Kati with the genitive) the whole of Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace,” &c. It is a phrase wholly distinct from that which those want who advocate separate action in a city; and hence it is absolutely worthless for their purpose. For it is a simple intimation that the church viewed as a whole, wherever it had extended, had peace; and hence it is in sense equivalent to the church of God in its entirety here below. For at that time, though there may have been individual members disseminated more widely, gathering to Christ's name as yet was unknown beyond the lands here defined.
Had the phrase been “the church (or assembly) of Judea and Galilee and Samaria,” or “the church in Judea” &c., it might indeed have been lawfully used to neutralize the language on which so much stress is justly laid by those who for truth and practice cleave to the written word. As it stands, the marked difference of phrase destroys the wished for application; while its unforced sense falls in exactly with the truth of the facts and the interpretation just now given. It is the church as far as it then existed on earth, the church throughout the designated lands, the church as a unity in this world; a sense which none of us questions elsewhere, and of the deepest moment to hold fast, though not the point at present in dispute. Only ignorance could cite it to weaken “the assembly” in a city, or “the assemblies” of a province. Unity in the comprehensive sense is conceded on all hands.
I feel thankful for this little research into the wondrous word of God, the perfectness of which ever grows on the Christian who digs into it in faith. May we use its every word to the glory of the Lord Jesus in deed and in truth.
Yours affectionately in Him,
W. K.