Having considered the constitution of the Church, let us now examine the testimony committed to it, remembering in the first place that the Church is a unique body, singular and unconnected with any divine system preceding it, From not clearly apprehending this great fact, the door was opened to the introduction of many things from the Mosaic economy which eventually were insisted on with the weight of divine authority, The Church was not in existence save in the purpose of God until the resurrection of Christ; but God was not without a people. Israel was His earthly family, but quite distinct from this new body-the Church-called into existence after the resurrection of Christ. Now the eleven apostles belonged to, and had the hopes of, this earthly family; and yet we know that the Church was " built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone;" and we shall see as we proceed how, while belonging to both, they passed from the one to the other, so to speak.
The commissions given to the apostles embody and set forth to us all the varieties and character of the testimony incumbent on the Church, so we shall do well to consider them. I propose to divide them into three orders, premising this, that each of the orders being then incumbent on the Church is so still; nor can the people of God evade the responsibility which they are placed under by the truth committed to them through the apostles. I distinguish the three orders thus:-
1. The commission given to the eleven.
2.. The commission given to Paul.
3. The commission given to John.
Or this, the truth committed to it through the apostles, the Church is responsible and ought to be the witness.
In the commission given to the eleven (Matt. 28) there were two parts; the one relating to the world at large, viz., " Go ye into all nations and disciple them, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;" the other relating to the instruction of the disciples, viz., " Teaching them to observe all things. whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo! I am with you to the end of the age." Now the terms of this commission are binding on the Church. It is true that the eleven at first confined their testimony to Israel; in their own land too, and this was only consistent with the- promises of God to them; for the apostles were natural branches of the olive-tree, (the vessel of testimony for God on earth which Israel hitherto had been. See Born. xi.,) and therefore they testified in the land of the olive-tree of the title of the rejected Christ to the kingdom of God on earth. But instead of the nation as a whole receiving this testimony, some only-" such as were ordained unto eternal life"—received it; and thus the effect of the testimony was ecclesiastical and not national; for " believers were added to the Church and continued steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." They with unity of purpose and heart maintained the testimony set forth by the apostles; they owned the title of their absent Lord, and were waiting for Him to come and reign. This was the unanimous and happy testimony of the believers gathered out of Israel; the effect of this testimony declared the purpose of God, whatever was the amount of the apostles' intelligence on the subject; for souls were drawn out of the mass and gathered into one company, baptized into one body by the Holy Ghost, and that was the Church. The apostles were the natural branches and their testimony was one becoming the natural branches; but when the nation finally rejected the testimony at the death of Stephen, the concentration of it is broken up, it is carried beyond Judea; and the judicial excision of the natural branches of the olive-tree is begun.
THEN it is that we get the second commission. Saul of Tarsus, the witness of his nation's guilt in slaying Stephen, is now introduced into the presence of Jesus in the glory, and hears from Him there, that He is identified with His suffering saints on earth, and is then and there commissioned to be a minister and a witness of the things he had seen, and of the things in the which the Lord would appear unto him. Now those things which Saul had seen, constituted the gospel of the glory of Christ. To him is announced that not only was the glory with Christ Himself the place where Christ's rejected members like Stephen would be received, but that in the glory, the sinner was now to make his first acquaintance with the glorified Christ. The glory with Christ was to be the starting point of the saved sinner, as well as the end and goal of the martyred saint. And when the light of life first dawned on the soul of Saul of Tarsus, even then, was the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus at the end of his course. And besides this, Saul was to be a minister and a witness of the things in the which the Lord would appear unto him. Doubtless the place of the saints in heaven, in the peculiar relation of a body to Him the Head, was among the things in the which the Lord appeared unto him, and they are distinctly detailed to us in the epistle to the Ephesians.
It is evident that the testimony, after the call of Saul of Tarsus, is of a different order. Before his call, Christ's title to the kingdom, and heirship founded on His resurrection, and a waiting for His return in the day of His power, was the first testimony. To this was added at the death of Stephen, that the glory where Jesus was, would receive them whom the world rejected, because they testified of the glory of the ascended Jesus; and this was coincident with the death of Stephen, for the re- sources of grace were unfolded as the violence of man exposed itself • but from that moment the judicial excision of the natural branches had set in. The testimony of the eleven, however, Still continued; and if the natural branches were broken off, it was that others-wild ones—-should be graffed. in, who would do-mark I what the natural branches had failed to do in the country and soil, if I may say, of the olive-tree. The saints who had been gathered out before the death of Stephen would not have relaxed or deviated from their faith in the title and coming of Jesus, or from the expression of it (which is testimony), because the glory where Jesus was, was shown to be the place of the rejected witness whom the nation of Israel would not suffer to live or testify in their land. Nor again, were these same saints distracted from their first faith and testimony because Paul discloses to them that the glory with Jesus is the beginning of a sinner's acquaintance with Him, as Stephen had shown that in the same glory was the end of it. These souls, far from relaxing their faith in Christ's title to the kingdom and of His coming in power to reign, were only greatly established therein as well as edified, by the new disclosures made to them through Stephen and revoked of the truth already committed to the Church, and which comprised its testimony; for according to the truth committed, so was the testimony. To Peter also was it now revealed that the distinction between common and unclean, which a Jew maintained, was not observed in heaven with God. There all, (common or unclean according to earthly standing) were on an equality. It was not a question of place but of rank which was disclosed and determined by the vision to Peter; and he, thus instructed, is sent to preach to the Gentiles, with this additional truth-even equality of rank, belonging to his testimony. But to Paul was committed the place of the saints (and this we shall find in his epistle to the Ephesians) as none other but in heaven with Christ; and, moreover, that they are there in the peculiar relationship to Him of a body to a Head; in a word, the second part of the commission to Paul. " Even those things in the which I will appear unto thee," is there, declared. Even the scope and range of the grace of God to the Church; and we are told that the power which wrought in Christ and raised Him from the dead, works in us to effectuate in us with Him what has been accomplished in Him, the fountain of life and power. And consequently the apostle presses on the saints- " to walk worthy of their vocation." it is most important- for us to remember and zealously to maintain that every truth committed to the Church is by grace in the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus; and, therefore, if we are members of His body, the Church, the grace of life in us must instinctively reach out after the truth belonging to it officially and naturally; and we must have in us- the elements of power which would enable us to be witnesses of what has been committed to the Church. I do not say that we should have equal power in the times of declension, and failure, and ruin, as in the days of the Church's vigor and first estate; but I maintain that the same grace is available for me, the feeblest member in the darkest day, as for any in the brightest days of the Church; the only difference being that the grace is not so strong or so developed in me as in my elder brethren. The instincts are the same; and though- I have a confusion to contend with which they knew nothing of, and which hampers and thwarts me at every turn; yet if I walk truly, be this the darkest day, in that grace which in ages to come the Church shall testify of, and by which each member is now introduced into the blessings of life and relation to our Lord Jesus Christ, I must have, in and through that grace, whether I understand it or not, the elements, virtues, and instincts, which essentially belong to it. No saint has a right to say, " I cannot be a testimony," though he may sorrowfully admit that he is a very feeble one; but the reason of this is that he is so weak in grace. " Make the tree good and the fruit shall be good." In the grace given to the Church is the power to testify; but the testimony can only be in proportion to the grace; the external expression can truly be only in accordance with the standard metal within. Every one is a testimony according to his grace; and if the grace were developed in each soul according to the instincts imparted to it of God, because of our relationship to Christ, we should certainly testify distinctly of the truth committed to the Church. There can be no question that it was so in the early Churches. The expression of the truth became feeble when the Church by alliance with the world and union with unbelievers, disqualified itself for the expression or testimony which depended entirely on an inward spiritual grace.
Forms were adopted in order to retain a semblance of the testimony or expression of that which became the Church; but so totally impossible is it to imitate life except by life, that even the public acts of the Church, such as Baptism. and the Lord's Supper, lost their true meaning, and though retained in form with great tenacity, yet they are now so diverted and perverted from their first meaning, that they do not express a feature of the scriptural institution. And not only this; human aid in the way of learning was called in to supply the felt need of spiritual instruction, and before long the Church lost the idea of its peculiar and unique calling, and borrowed from the Jewish economy, not only forms and doctrine, but became a state system: " of the earth, earthly." So that the Church, as the body of Christ, built on Him, consequent on his resurrection, the witness of his rejection and coming again, was nowhere recognizable.
True, there arose reformers from time to time; but, though godly men, (and, no doubt, the grace in them was dissatisfied,) they never regained in doctrine the true position of the Church as with Christ in heaven. They did not take a true spiritual standing; and though they preached justification by faith, and, in later years, the presence of the Holy Ghost, yet they never saw themselves set apart with Christ in a new creation, as citizens of heaven; or that they had no earthly place, nor hope respecting earth during the rejection of its Lord. Those reformers broke from the worldly trammels of a state religion, but they never discovered the heavenly place of the Church; and, therefore, with their best intentions, their testimony was defective, and their position on earth so occupied them, that they had to invent systems and government for themselves. And still more, they in doctrine rarely escaped from the law; for though they preached grace, yet, not seeing clearly that they were " dead to the law by the body of Christ," they did not reckon themselves to be dead before God, and consequently the law still addressed them, " for the law hath power over a man so long as he liveth."
Now the Apostles Paul, Peter, and Jude, who lived in the first days of the Church, foresaw the coming ruin, and their counsel to the saints we may divide into three headings:
1st. They were to maintain the truth committed to theta after the example of Daniel, who, though in Babylon, and Jerusalem in ruins, prayed three times a day looking toward Jerusalem. At all costs, they must continue in the things they have learned; they must " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered;" and they should have these things always in remembrance. No excuse, no palliation-no matter what the condition of ruin into which the Church had sunk -for remission or neglect of the truth committed to them.
2ndly. Separation from defiling associations is insisted on as the only door of escape. Because in the great and widespread ecclesiastical laxity, the faithful one finds himself associated and in communion with the impious and profane, and he must therefore purge himself from these vessels of dishonor and associate with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Tim. 2:2121If 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. (2 Timothy 2:21).) Or, as Jude puts it—" Building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost." Or, as Peter—" Beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness."
Lastly. The coming of the Lord-being with Him in the appearing; (2 Thess. 2:11Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, (2 Thessalonians 2:1).;) waiting for the crown of righteousness in the day of His appearing; (2 Tim. 4:88Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:8);) or, preserved unto His heavenly kingdom; (2 Tim. 4:1818And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (2 Timothy 4:18);) is presented as the only sure rest and hope of the heart. So in Peter-" The power and coming of his majesty;" and in Jude-" Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless in the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, as already awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." In a word, when the failure and declension of the Church were before the minds of the apostles, what they pressed was, the maintenance of the truth-separation from all evil associates and a simple and eager waiting for the Lord's presence and power.
I have now only to notice the third commission, the last order of testimony, committed to John, which I shall do briefly. We have traced the commissions to the other apostles and to Paul, in which were revealed the truths that would edify the saints unto a knowledge of God's purpose and calling, and therefore necessarily demanded of them to be expressive of the same, because they were by the power of such truths enabled to do so. We have seen that the purpose of each revelation was to confirm the saints, and as they were confirmed, they testified of God's grace in a world which had rejected the Lord of • life and power. We have glanced at the history of the Church from its rise until the whole mystery of its great and exalted relation to Christ in heaven is unfolded through the Apostle Paul; and we have seen how soon failure and corruption crept in, and how the saints are admonished to act when the house of God was no longer a testimony of the light and truth committed to it. But in the commission to John, as recorded in the Revelation, we have something still further made known to the Church; for in that book quite a new era is presented to us. Light is given of God in order that I should escape from the darkness; and as I do, I am a witness of the light. In the Revelation the Church is presented as sinking to the state of final removal. It is seen there first threatened with the deprivation of its great function as Christ's candlestick on earth; (chap. ii. 5;) and at last as speed out of his mouth. (chap. 3:16.) Now I do not think that this was revealed before John's time. He, let us remember, was a natural branch of the olive-tree, and to him is shown the wild, graffed-in branches in utter failure as to answering to the trust reposed in them, and still further, to him it is revealed that the trust would be recalled, and the Church set aside as no longer to be seen on earth, and all that pretended to it (now become Babylon) would eventually be swept from the earth, and that at length the green olive would be planted in the house of our God, the natural branches grafted in again on their own olive-tree. The testimony constituted by, or derived from, the Revelation amounts to this, that the faithful seek the place of overcomers, as we see that all the blessings promised to the seven churches are conferred on the overcomers only. This testimony was a new one for the saints, and one indicating the state into which the house of God had sunk. But more than this: they were to know and maintain that the Lord walked in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, as represented in Rev. 1.; that personal knowledge of Himself suited to the need of any assembly could alone afford strength and guidance to any to be overcomers, and connected also with this fact; that this especial ministry should be communicated, not necessarily through gifts, as the Church in her first state had known, but angelically, i.e., by ἀγγελος or special messenger; and finally is disclosed the fearful end and doom of Christendom, the manifestation of the Church in her millennial glory and the glory of Christ consummated on the earth.
What a fine and blessed testimony for the faithful, even though as to the structure of the house of God, the carved work was broken down with axes and hammers, and that which should have been a lowly plant on earth should now in its wide-spreading branches lodge the denizens of the air!
May our God give us grace to see and own the large and wondrous truths which He has unfolded to His Church, as to her own proper standing because of His grace; and may each godly member know and feel in himself that the grace acknowledges responsibility to the whole range of truth committed; and that as he has grace, he is witness even individually of its power and principles, never admitting that he is irresponsible, though he may be feeble, and therefore expressing only according as he has grace, and assuming nothing beyond it; for we are not called to forms and ceremonies, but to power, And withal, may we 'see how far we have fallen from the Church's true estate, and not fear to see it. The one who honestly aims at any elevation shrinks not from surveying the ascent. In fine, let us see what We are called to, and may we adhere to the divine admonitions for the day of declension, seeing our place to be that of overcomers to the last for His name's sake.