What we have already said leads us naturally to the second part of our subject, viz –What place does the church hold in the ways of God?
The heavenly aspect of this question finds its answer in several passages which we have just examined, which treat the subject of the nature of the Church. God has willed that His Son, Ruler of all things as Son of man, should have a bride to share His glory and His dominion. Glorious position! testimony of the infinite grace of God! Such is the Church—the companion of JESUS in the heavenly glory. This will take place at the same time with the earthly glory, which will be the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament. God, for the dispensation of the fullness of times, will gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him, as Head; whose bride and body the Church is. The Old Testament, which gives us the history of the ways of God upon earth, and in its prophetical part announces what the result will be, does not reveal to us this mystery. The Church, as such, does not come as part of the course of the ways of God upon earth. The object of the counsels of God from before the foundation of the world, she had been hid in the depths of these counsels, till Christ, having been rejected upon the earth, might become her heavenly Head; and the testimony to this glory, having also been rejected by the Jews, who, in a certain sense, had a right to the promises, the door was fully opened for the revelation of this glorious mystery hid in all ages.
In considering a little the facts, either with regard to man or with regard to the Jews, the suitableness of these ways of God will be understood without any difficulty. Until the rejection of Christ, man had been put to the test in every way—without law, under the law, and even under grace, presented in the Person of Christ, for God was in Him reconciling the world unto Himself not imputing their trespasses unto them. Now man, by the death of Christ, has proved himself an enemy of God, an enemy who hated even His mercy, which was nevertheless his only resource, because it was of God. Christ, as new Man, raised, glorified, at the right hand of God, outside the world, takes as Man the place where man was to be in the counsels of God. There is a Man at the right hand of God, to whom the Church can be united as His body by the Holy Ghost.
Such a heavenly standing of the saints could not possibly exist before. The body could not be before the head, to which it was to be united, had taken His place, such as it had been prepared for Him in the counsels of God. There was not a glorified Man in heaven before, to whom the Church could have been united.
If we consider the Jews, the thing is still more intelligible for other reasons. They had prophecies and promises. Christ was to be presented to them. Till they had rejected Him, God ever faithful, could not set them aside to establish anything else which denied their privileges, blotting out all distinction between Jew and Gentile—a distinction which the Jew was bound carefully to maintain. The crucifixion of JESUS has put an end to all that. No one is a Jew in heaven. But man having completely failed in his responsibility, and the Jews having rejected the One in whom the fulfillment of the promises had been presented to them, God (before fulfilling them, as He will do) has revealed the hidden mystery which was connected with the heavenly glory of the Son of man; that is, with the body united to Him, gathered during the rejection of Israel—a body which was to be manifested in glory with Him, when He should in His sovereign grace resume His dealings with Israel upon earth: for " blindness, in part, has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." Israel, unfaithful as men, have lost all title to the enjoyment of the promises by the rejection of Him in whom they were to have this enjoyment. They were, after all, children of wrath as others; but that will not hinder God from fulfilling His promises. He cannot be unfaithful to His promise whatever the unfaithfulness of man may be. His gifts and calling are without repentance, and the blindness of Israel is only temporary. This is what Rom. 11, teaches; as the Lord Himself said to them, " Your house is left unto you desolate.... till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." But here is the perfect wisdom of God. Israel having rejected the Christ when He came to present Himself to the nation, they are without remedy. It will be the sovereign grace of God which will reinstate them in the enjoyment of the promises, according to the word, as poor sinners. Israel, under chastening, and kept for that day, abide without the true God, and without a false god, according to the prophecy of Hos. 2; and God, during this interval, brings in the fullness of the Gentiles, displaying His multiform wisdom in the calling of the Church, a heavenly people, established upon more than promises, on a perfect redemption, accomplished through the act by which Israel placed themselves under condemnation. But it was not only that man and Israel had been fully tried in the history of past ages, before the accomplishment of redemption. God had also displayed His wisdom in His ways with both: His power, His patience, His mercy, His government in the hands of man and according to the conditions of His holy law, by promises, and by miraculous interventions, by chastenings and blessings, by righteous judgments, by the most tender care and the most magnificent providences, had all been displayed. Even a world swallowed up in the mighty waters had borne witness, in disappearing before His judgments, to the ways of God with man upon earth.
Angels had seen these things; they had seen the wisdom and power of God in exercise in His ways with men on the earth. The Church was to supply them with quite a fresh manifestation of the depths of the counsels and wisdom of the infinite God whom they adore.
The demonstration of the inability in which man was found, to profit by the ways of God, furnished the occasion of it. It was no longer proofs that God was governing on earth, but the care which, leaving apparently in the hands of the wicked that which was the dearest object to God upon earth, prepared it thereby for heavenly glory and joy.
There remains yet one thing to which I would call the attention of my reader. It is, that, until Christ was glorified, the Holy Ghost could not come down to earth: for the object of His testimony, the heavenly glory of Christ and the redemption accomplished by His means, were yet wanting. "The Holy Ghost was not yet [given], because JESUS was not yet glorified." We shall see with what clearness the word of God presents the Church to us, as quite a new revelation of that which had no existence before, save in the eternal counsels of God, who thus predestinated for her an existence outside the course of ages.
The writings of Paul, who was chosen to bear this testimony and to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ—a ministry which was connected with these truths—are full of this doctrine; bringing into prominence this glory of Christ, which was beyond all that the prophets had spoken. Thus 1 Tim. 3:1616And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (1 Timothy 3:16). Having spoken of the Church, in a passage already quoted, he naturally turns to the truth of which the Church was the pillar—this mystery of godliness. A Messiah, the fulfillment of the prophecies, was not a mystery; but a Christ such as the apostle presents Him in verse 16 had never been known before: " God manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." Certain elements found here were connected with Messiah upon earth: because this same Messiah, ascended up on high, must come down again to fulfill the promises made to the Jews; but such things as a whole, had never been presented to faith.
As to the Church, the thing is true in a still more absolute manner. This is what the apostle says of it, Eph. 3:9-119And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: 10To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, 11According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: (Ephesians 3:9‑11): " And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." It is impossible to get anything more absolute than " hid in God." This mystery of the Church, hid in the depths of His counsels, did not get disclosed, nor did she exist in fact, till then. It is " now," that unto the principalities and powers is made known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God. They had seen His patience, His power, His government; but never a heavenly body upon the earth, united to His Son in heaven. Thus God could set aside, for the time, the course of His earthly government, to enter into relationship with a heavenly people. This passage is very clear on this point; that the Church neither existed nor was revealed before. Up to that time it was a mystery hid in God; who, having established it in His counsels, was testing man under His government, before creating a heavenly system, based upon an accomplished redemption, in union with the Second Adam in heaven. It is important that the reader should get very clearly in his mind the teaching of this passage. The object of the apostle is to show, that the Church is a new thing. There had been other means to show forth the wisdom and ways of God, earthly means. Now, heavenly powers saw, in the Church, a kind of wisdom quite new. Not only the Church had had, as yet, no existence; but it had not been revealed before its existence; it had been a mystery hid in God. This last point is confirmed by other passages which we will quote; but it is well to develop the first point, by the teaching at the end of chapter 2.
The truth of the union of Jews and Gentiles in one body, the Church, is established, as the consequence of the cross, in verses 14 and 15, in the most formal manner. The middle wall of partition, established by God Himself and absolutely binding, had been broken down only by the cross; and by means of this, also, they were both reconciled in one body—those who were afar off, and these who were nigh. Then, they had been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. That is, the Church could exist only after the cross had rendered possible the union of Jews and Gentiles.
The enmity of man against God having been manifested, the enmity of his nature—Jew or Gentile— and the Jews having lost all title to the enjoyment of the promises, grace received in a sovereign manner both the one and the other, accord-big to the eternal counsels of God, for a better inheritance. God (having been manifested in the flesh, and having set things on the footing of eternal realties outside all earthly economy or dispensation, and, received up into glory, having acquired a people which was associated to Himself according to the election of God) purposed, before the foundation of the world, that He should share this glory with His bride and His body.
To return to the revelation of this mystery. Speaking of the Church, the body of Christ (Col. 1:2020And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:20)), the apostle calls it " the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." For the Jew, Christ is the accomplishment of the glory: but Christ, present in Spirit, becomes the hope, of heavenly glory for those in whom He dwells.
Thus, also in the Epistle to the Romans " Now to Him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest," etc.
The more the Epistles of Paul, or of Peter, are examined, the more examples we shall find of the contrast between the hopes and the election of Jews and Christians (only Peter never treats the subject of the Church), and the more we shall find the eternal election of the Church brought into light. In Eph. 3, this mystery is called also the mystery of Christ; for indeed before, it was Christ an individual Man, and not Christ the Head of a body spiritually united to Him: and the apostle declares, that it was by a special revelation that it had been made known to him (vs. 3-5) -the knowledge of a mystery, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men (this mystery being, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body).
These passages show sufficiently the way in which Paul presents the Church as an essential doctrine of truth; but yet as a mystery, which had never been revealed under the old Testament, and which never had any accomplishment before the death of JESUS had closed all those relations of God with Israel, which had reference to the prophecies and promises, so far as they depended upon the faith and faithfulness of man. They show that blindness having come upon them for a time, God, who will fulfill His promises to His earthly people, has found, in the period of their blindness, the occasion of manifesting this admirable fruit of His eternal counsels; viz., the Church which, when Israel is restored through grace to the enjoyment of the promises made to them, will shine as the bride of the Lord in the brightness in which He will Himself be manifested.
Such is her destiny! Whilst waiting, what is her place and what is her calling? We have said that the Holy Ghost, come down from heaven, gathers her upon earth.
If the Bridegroom delays His coming; and if souls go to wait with Him for the moment of the assembling of all that are His, raised or changed, in His presence in the air, those of the redeemed who remain gathered down here, where the Holy Ghost the Comforter abides, always form the Church. There may be ignorance, the members may be scattered here and there, the Church may have been unfaithful and stripped of her ornaments; but it remains equally true, that until Christ calls her to meet Him in heaven, she is always the Church, always the bride of Christ. She has been espoused as a chaste virgin to Him; but it is to a heavenly Christ. Israel is His people upon earth. Whilst Christ is in heaven, the Holy Ghost is gathering the Church to be His in heaven.
However, it is not merely that the Church has a heavenly calling; this is not the whole truth as to her relations with Christ. She is also His bride and His body. When all the thoughts of God have been fulfilled, she will, as a fact, be with Him. Her thoughts and her character are (or at least they ought to be) formed after her portion, according to God. Also she is already united to Christ by the Spirit. She is one and can be one only. But she is characterized by yet other traits. When the world rejected Christ, it passed judgment and condemnation upon. itself. " Now," said the Lord (John 12:3131Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. (John 12:31)), in referring to his cross, " is the judgment of this world."
The Church was set up in grace, when the relations of God with the world, on the footing of the responsibility of man, were ended forever by the rejection of Christ. Thus she has been called to come out of the world to be received of God. She is Christ's alone. " Come out from among them," says the word, " and I will receive you." It is a peculiar people belonging only to Him. " They are not of the world," says JESUS, " as I am not of the world." And this is true, not only as regards individuals; but " that they may be one," says the Lord,,` that the world may believe." It is a unity perceptible to the world outside itself. " What have I to do," says the apostle, " to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? Them that are without God judgeth." (1 Cor. 5) The Holy Ghost was upon earth to establish the closest and most formal union between the members of the body; they were members one of another. This unity was recognized among them. All knew that a Christian was not of the world, because he was of the Church. If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. This unity was truly and distinctly manifested in each cality. There was the church of each place as the very addresses of several epistles show. But this local unity proved the universal unity. Any one member of it was thereby a member of the universal unity. Teachers, evangelists, apostles, Timothy, Titus, Paul, did not belong to one church more than another. The gifts were members of the body. The idea of a member of a church is not found in the Bible. The thought there is very different; it is that of members of the body of Christ. But these "joints and bands," which might exercise their activity in local churches, proved the unity of the whole body, and made it visible and perfectly perceptible to the world.
Christians acknowledged one another, and were acknowledged as one body—a sole, well known, and well defined body, having common interests and the most intimate ties, as a body apart from the world. The Holy Ghost cannot unite the Church with that world out of the midst of which He has taken her. Persons might come in unawares into the formal body, but it was a distinct body, into which they come as false brethren. It is plain that if the Church be one in the midst of the world, her duty is to glorify the Lord in that unity, and by that unity, and as a whole. For this responsibility cannot be separated from any position whatsoever in which we are placed by God.
But the motives are so much the more powerful as the grace of that position is excellent. We are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a city set on a hill, the epistle of Christ, an epistle which ought to be read and known of all men. The body of Christ ought to reproduce, by the power of the Spirit—that power which overcomes all the separative principles which selfishness and sin have introduced into the world—the character of its Head; and thus glorify Him on the earth. The bride should manifest her attachment to the bridegroom —that she is wholly and exclusively His! People talk about an " invisible " church. The word says nothing about this. It is a notion which quite denies the force of the passage we have just quoted. The scattering of the children of God has hid them. Would any one venture to maintain that individuals should be invisible; that is, that they should conceal their Christianity? "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." It is clear, then, that individuals should not be invisible. Now, if that be true, to say that the Church may be invisible means nothing short of this, that these individuals ought not to be united. Yet it is certain that the Lord says that they ought to have been one, that the world might believe.
If there be divisions, they are carnal, and walk as men. If the duty of all individuals be to let their light shine before men, and if all these individuals are closely united, and form a separate body outside the world, making everywhere a profession of their union (as it was undeniably the case at the beginning), to say that this body is invisible has no sense. " A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." But this is passing.
The question I am now treating is not, how far the Church realizes this position. I am speaking of the Church such as it is presented in the word.
But if the Church be the bride of JESUS, she ought to desire as such to glorify Him during His absence. Her heart must be given to Him—she must receive her directions from Him alone. If she be the house of God, she must seek to keep herself pure on account of the holiness of the Spirit who dwells therein. If she be the pillar and ground of the truth, she will not be able to endure anything but the truth, which is the basis of her existence; for the glorious revelation of Christ, who has accomplished her redemption (God manifested in the flesh, preached to the Gentiles, received up into glory), has given her being; and she is the witness of it.
Conscious of being the bride of the Lamb, she will have the affections proper to such. a relationship; she will long for the coming of the Bridegroom to receive her to Himself. She will understand that she belongs to Him in heaven; and consequently will not mix herself up with the world, nor confound her expectation with the corning of JESUS to judge the world, while she believes it firmly. She knows that, when He appears, she will appear with Him in glory. Thus, separated from the world by the Spirit who is the power and earnest of this hope, she will seek to realize it as much as possible upon the earth " He that hath this hope purifieth himself, even as He is pure.
This is also the force of the teaching of Phil. 3, which however has an individual for its object. I quote it because speak of the normal effect of this truth in the heart of the Christian. He who has learned it will have the conscience that the Church is one—can be only one. He will have the conscience that she belongs to Christ tmd can belong to none other. He will have the conscience that she ought to manifest this unity, and render a constant and practical testimony that she is His alone. The presence in her of the Holy Ghost, who gathers the members in one body, will be the power and life of this testimony. The path will be the path of faith; and the path of faith will be the path of sufferings, but they will be the sufferings of Christ for His body, that we may be glorified together.
(Concluded from page 160.)