At the beginning of the preceding paper I observed that in holy Writ the church is presented in a two-fold character:-1. As the house of God, and 2. As the body of Christ, its Head in glory.
Each of these two high qualities granted on God's part to His church supposes on her part an equally great responsibility as to a corresponding moral and spiritual character and walk here below. Alas! how lamentably unmindful has the church been of her responsibility in this respect, forgetting “how she had received and heard.” — “Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth.”
1. THE CHURCH, AS THE “HOUSE OF GOD”.
In this character, scripture presents the church in a threefold aspect—1. As the “House of God.” (1 Tim. 3:15.) 2. As the “Temple of God.” (1 Cor. 3:16; 4:16; Eph. 2:21.) 3. As the “Habitation of God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:22; 1 Peter 2:9.)
We know what is the character of the “House of God” as such. It is holiness, “Holiness becometh Thine house, O Lord, forever.” (Psa. 93) What then ought to be the corresponding Christian-moral character of the church as the “house of God?” Holiness. “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”
The apostle of the church, therefore, when in his first epistle to his Timothy, he calls the church the “house of God,” at once insists upon a walk consistent with that holy character of the church: “that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth”.
It is not enough to believe and confess that Christ is the “Son of the living God,” which we have seen to be the only ground upon which Christ has built His church, however blessed to the heart it may be to realize this by faith. But we must remember that the church thus built by Christ is the “church of the living God,” as it is the pillar and ground of truth.
For Christians it is of paramount importance, that they should acquaint themselves more thoroughly with the truths taught in the word of God, concerning His church, so dear and precious to Himself and to His dear Son. May He in His grace incline the hearts of His dear children to a more prayerful study of His own word, bringing home to our consciences our sinful neglect in slighting that all-important portion of His truth.
But there is another thing which has a still more injurious effect upon individual souls and is damaging for the public testimony of the truth of the church of God. I mean the mere intellectual acquirement of church truths, without their producing a corresponding exercise of conscience and heart before God and consequent power in our walk and behavior in the church, which is the “house of the living God".
It is very easy to become a correct and orthodox church-Christian, but something very different to glorify God and the Name of His Son Jesus Christ by a corresponding walk in the family and in the church, and in the world, befitting those who are of the “household of God,” and work out our salvation with fear and trembling, as such who belong to the “church of the living God,” which is the “pillar” (as to public testimony) and “ground of the truth” (as to our fellow Christians). Alas! how little have we been mindful that the measure of our privileges and blessings and of our knowledge of the truth is also the measure of our responsibility. If, then, our walk in holiness and righteousness and the character manifested thereby on our part, do not correspond with the character given to the church on God's part, the church will fail to be a “pillar” in testimony to those who are without.
If we look at the human side, i.e. at what the church has become under human responsibility, one can, whilst bowing amidst the ruins, but tearfully exclaim with the prophet: “How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.” What has become of the “house of God” in its human aspect? A heap of ruins and rubbish! What of the “church of the living God?” Split up into churches and chapels—who knows their number? What of the “ground of the truth” and what of the “pillar?” Alas! the divine truth became to those within the house but too soon a matter of habit, and then the “house” ceased to be a “ground of the truth.” For if divine truth becomes a matter of habit instead of inhabiting us (Col. 3:16), and therefore being lived out by us, we shall soon grow cool and indifferent as to it; and instead of being established in the truth, shall be tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, and our testimony will be without the savor, power and unction of the Holy Spirit. It will reach only the cars but not the hearts and consciences of the hearers; and they will “speak evil of the way of truth,” instead of being turned to God and instructed in His way.
So it came to pass that the “house of God” in the hands of men became a “great house,” as it
appears in the Second Epistle of the apostle of the church to Timothy. The pillar of public testimony lies on the ground among the ruins, its inscription half effaced, overgrown with weeds and brambles.
But whilst being bowed down in shame and confusion of faces over ruins of which we ourselves form a part, we look up to Him Who is faithful if we are unfaithful, and Whose word is as faithful as He is Himself, and beholding the divine (that is, perfect and unchangeable) side of the church of God we ask, Has the church ceased to be the “house of God,” and have believers ceased to be “of the household of God,” because professing Christendom has become a “great house,” where everyone who desires to be a “vessel of honor,” has to purge himself from the “vessels of dishonor?” If so, the divine injunction in 1 Tim. 3:15 as to a Christian's behavior becoming the “house of God” would no longer have any meaning. Par be the thought! It would lead either to despair, as has been the case with not a few, who looking only at the human, instead of the divine, side of the church, give up everything, and, contrary to the very instinct of the new nature in the Christian, withdraw from fellowship with their fellow Christians, instead of serving them individually; I say individually—with the grace and gift and knowledge God has granted them. Others, worse still, grow indifferent to the truth, being driven along with the stream. Such a Laodicean indifference appears to be scarcely less hateful than the Nicolaitanism in the Lord's solemn warning addressed to the church at Pergamos.
A house does not cease to be a house, because it is in disorder. Whatever may be the sad aspect and condition of the church, looked at from the human side, its divine aspect and nature as it appears at the close of the second chapter of the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, cannot be affected by it.
“ Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; in Whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord; in Whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through [or, in] the Spirit.”
Holiness is the first requisite for the “house of God.” But there is another no less essential one, I mean Order. Not human order, which here as in all divine institutions produces but disorder, and only serves to “make confusion more confounded.” “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” If even in a worldly, still more in a Christian, household the principle of order is all-important for its welfare and prosperity, how much more in the “house of God”!
In the next paper, if the Lord will and under His gracious help, I hope to offer a few remarks as to these two essential requisites for the house of God, beginning with Christian discipline, a subject so little understood and yet of such intrinsic importance for all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, and remember that “holiness becometh His house forever.”