Table of Contents

"A Circle of Fellowship" or Independency?

Papers on Eternal Punishment

Man's Neighbor

The Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven

"The Gospel of Healing."

Our Path and our Associations

A Divine Movement

F. W. Grant - Booklets

Frederick W Grant

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"A Circle of Fellowship" or Independency?

"A Circle of Fellowship" or Independency?

F. W. Grant.

Another question must now be considered, which unites itself to that which we have been just considering. We shall find that "independency" is one of the most successful means of evasion of scriptural discipline that could perhaps be imagined, — one of the most successful snares by which the children of God can be seduced into resistance to the will of God, while to themselves they seem to be standing only for the principles of the Word, against "confederacy," for purity, and unsectarian maintenance of the Body of Christ. We must therefore look seriously and with sufficient care into the matter: first, at what independency really is, and then at the fruits which make manifest the tree.

In its simplest and boldest form independency appears as the denial of any scriptural authority for any "circle of fellowship" outside of the individual gathering, wherever it may be; and this denial is made in the interests, as they imagine, of unsectarian recognition of the one Church only, which is the body of Christ. The formation and maintenance of any such circle is, they maintain, sectarian, and the adoption by such a circle of a common discipline is sectarianism full-blown. It constitutes the whole a "party," which may take the name of Christ, as some at Corinth did, and only be perhaps on that account to be the more avoided, as making that precious Name an instrument of division.

The charge is not, it may be, that of denying the Name of Christ, but it approaches it so nearly as to make it of the most serious consequence. Those who hold to a circle of fellowship and yet refuse the adoption of a sectarian name, with what is implied in this, can neither afford to give up their claim of gathering simply to the Name of Christ, nor accept the truth of what is charged against them. Let us examine then what is meant by these assertions, neither shaken from our convictions by their boldness, nor refusing to bring all these to the test of Scripture, as often as may be needful That which is true will only gain in its hold on us by every fresh examination, and the only danger is in this being lightly and not thoroughly carried out. We should be thankful for any suggestions that awaken fresh inquiry.

Now what is a "circle of fellowship"? That all such is not forbidden must be believed by the objector himself, if he have but "two or three" gathered with himself in any local assembly. For this, I suppose, is not the whole "assembly of God" there, but something indefinitely less than this. Yet, here there must be a within and without, a being, in some sense, of us or not of us, — a something which is saved from being a party, not by having no walls or door, but by its having no arbitrary, no merely human, terms of admission. If it have no terms, then it is a mere rabble of lawless men, and as such to be refused by every Christian.

If you say, "No, it is Scripture to which we are subject," that brings in at once the implication that it is Scripture as you see it, not as your fellow-Christians see it; and you take your place as before the Lord, to be judged of Him in regard to this. Your being a separate somewhat, a "circle of fellowship," does not constitute you a party: you own Christians everywhere, as members of the body of Christ, and receive them wherever a scriptural hindrance to their reception does not exist, and you speak of being gathered simply to Christ's Name, without an idea that you are making the Name of Christ a badge, or sign, or instrument, of division.

Well, then, in this place, at least, there exists a gathering of Christians that I can recognize, — I suppose, ought to recognize, — apart from the whole body of Christians in the place. I say, "ought," because I have duties in regard to the assembling of ourselves together; and here alone I find those with whom I can assemble, no unscriptural condition being imposed on me. Were there another assembly in the same place and of the same character, then I should have to ask why they were not together: for the sin of schism is a grave one in Scripture, and I should have of necessity to refuse this.

If, then, in this place, I repeat, there is a gathering that I can own, and must, — suppose, now, I went elsewhere and lived — found perhaps there also one that I had equally to own as gathered to Christ's Name alone, would it be right for me in the new place to refuse to own as a separate company, those in that from which I came, whom, when I was there, I had to own, and whom, if I were now there, I should have to own? Is it possible that my going from New York to Boston should make that wrong for me at Boston which at New York would be quite right, and if I went back there, would be right again? If so, that is independency in earnest; or else it is the most curious shifting of right and wrong that one can conceive of; morality shifting every few miles of the road, whichever way I travel. And yet, if not, we are connected in principle, to a "circle of fellowship"!

The recognition of each other by such gatherings throughout the world is, therefore, right; and everything opposed to it is false and wrong. Nay, it is impossible to maintain practically, if principles are of any value to us. For, were I taking the journey spoken of, must I not inquire for those who are of one mind with us in Boston? and would those in Boston expect anything else of me? To refuse a circle of fellowship may be held as a theory: the facts will always be discordant with the theory. The theory itself cannot be truthfully accepted by any one who has given it any sober reflection; except it mean independency of the grossest and narrowest kind; that is, associating where one will, and recognizing obligations nowhere but where I will. And this would be indeed the most perfect sectarianism that could well exist.

But we are to recognize the whole body of Christ! Surely, but not their unscriptural associations. In the interests of the body of Christ I refuse denominations; but in the same interests I am bound to accept the circle of unsectarian fellowship. The gracious words which, providing for a day of failure and confusion, sanction the two or three gathered to the Lord's blessed Name, sanction such gatherings in every place, and therefore a circle of such gatherings. It would be as sectarian to refuse identification with these as to take our place with the various denominations. Nay, it would be more so. Nor would it save us from this, to say we were acting for the good of the whole Church of God, when from Scripture itself the disproof is so easy.

Now, another step.

To accept these is to accept their discipline. For the Lord's sanction of the gathering is the express sanction of their discipline. Of course, I do not mean by that that they can add to Scripture, or invent a character of discipline that is not found there; nor yet that He could sanction what might be a mistaken judgment. He is the Holy and the True, the Lord and Master of His people always: and that is quite enough to say as to all this. But authority for discipline these "two or three" have: and woe to him who resists its rightful exercise: "If he hear not the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen man and a publican" is said of just such feeble gatherings as these.

It is plain that precisely the same thing is to be said for the discipline as for the gathering itself: if it is to be respected at A where it is exercised, it is just as much to be respected at B or C. If it be the decision of a local matter, then the Lord has plainly put it into the hands of those who are in circumstances to judge of it aright, though protest and appeal are surely to be listened to, and they are bound to satisfy consciences where honestly exercised about it.

As to a question of truth, as such it affects all consciences; it can be put before all: no local gathering has authority in any such matter; it would be making a creed to be subscribed. The truth as to Christ is a deeper and more vital matter, for we are gathered to His Name. Where truth of this kind is subverted the gathering exists no more, except as an instrument in the enemy's hand, and is to be refused, with all who take part with it.

If on the other hand, the question be of facts, then those who have them are bound (if these affect more than the local gathering) to make them known to their brethren; and here a circular letter may rightly have its place, not to establish a rule or principle of action, but as a witness: which of course is open to question, as all facts are, if there be contrary evidence, or that given be insufficient. No circular has authority in itself: it is purely a question of facts and of the credibility of the testimony.

With these limitations, which are the results of the frailty and fallibility which are common to us all, we have necessarily to own a circle of fellowship and the discipline connected with it, if we would be free from the charge of real independency.

And real independency is not of God, but always and everywhere acts against Him. It is to make the members of the same body say to each other, "we have no need of you," and to deny the unity of the Spirit which should pervade the body. The more we lament and refuse the sectarianism which exists, the more we are compelled, and shall rejoice to own the body of Christ wherever possible. And this circle of fellowship, while it is not the "body," furnishes us with the means of owning this in a truthful and holy way, so far as the state of ruin in which the Church exists permits it to be done. With love to all Christ's own, — with an open door for the reception of all according to the conditions of truth and holiness, — such a circle is not sectarian, but a protest against it, while the meeting that refuses connection with it is sectarian in fullest reality.

And that is what is meant by the "ground" of the one body. It is as different as possible from any claim to be the one body, and does not in the least imply any sectarian conditions of intelligence in order to communion. The maintenance of a common discipline is in no wise sectarian, but part (an an essential part) of that communion itself: absolutely necessary if the holiness of God be the same thing wherever it is found, and not a thing for the "two or three" anywhere to trifle with as they list.

Independency, in setting aside the practical unity of the Church of God, sets aside a main guard of holiness itself. It makes this no object of common care; it does not seek common exercise about it. It releases from the sense of responsibility as to the house of God: it is my own house I am to keep clean after my own fashion. And this real laxity as to the people of God at large (but which is so consoling to an unexercised conscience, that it is the great charm undoubtedly to multitudes today) naturally has the effect of lowering one's estimate of holiness altogether, and so prevents my own house being kept really clean.

Where, however, a circle of fellowship is in fact maintained, along with and spite of the protest against it, or where there is not the maintenance of a common discipline — where perhaps as the natural fruit of independency also, the unholy principle is contended for that an assembly cannot be judged for that which would compel the judgment of an individual, there, as is natural to expect, any local discipline almost can be evaded by a little dexterity. If the gathering at B will not receive you from A, it will from C, and C will receive you from A. No one is safe anywhere from the violation of a discipline which he himself recognizes as a scriptural one. Any particular person, if he be not too prominent, becomes lost to the eye amid the maze of bewildering differences. He who has conscience, and would fain be clear, has soon to resign himself to a general hope that what looks so like confusion will in the end conserve the interests of holiness; or in despair, to wash his hands of what he cannot avoid.

Yet it is an ensnaring system; for in this way pessimism and optimism both can find apology for it, and go on with it. One gets free of an amazing amount of trouble; and while not seeming to have given up all ecclesiastical ties, as many have, yet be practically as free as they for the gospel and from the wearying responsibility of being one brother's keeper. Why should we be, when we only get our trouble for our pains, find a narrow path instead of the broad, open one, which is so pleasant to all of us, and for this have only to shut our eyes at the proper time, and ignore what seems we cannot help.

And in fact the countless small breaches of independency make less show than the terrible rents which we are exposed to otherwise. Why not let this sad-faced Merarite go, with his pins and cords of the tabernacle always getting into entanglement, and be content with Kohath and with Gershom?

Still if the Tabernacle of the Lord is to be set up in the wilderness, how shall we do without the pins and cords?

In result it will be found that it is the truth of God which suffers, and tends to pass away and be lost. What wonder when we begin with choosing what we will have of it, and what we will discard? Fellowship becomes a thing of most uncertain quality: and what wonder, if obedience to the Word have anything to do with fellowship? Worship is largely displaced in behalf of service: for we have lost the necessary pins and cords. We may go on with the help of what truth we can still borrow and find room for; but the truth tends somehow continually to slip away from us; and in the jangle of many utterances, it is ever getting to be of less account.

One's voice may be little heard in a day like this; but I would do what I can to press upon the people of the Lord first of all their Master's claim. I press that this independency, little as one may imagine it, little as many may care to entertain it even as a question, means ultimately shipwreck to the truth of Christ, because it means independency of Him. One may find in it plenty of associates, for it makes little demands upon one and gives the kind of liberty which is so coveted today. The authority of Christ is not in it. It may support itself by the help of other names — names in repute as Christians too — and be in honor. It cannot have the commendation which Philadelphia, spite of its "little power," finds from her gracious Lord: —

"Thou hast kept my word, and not denied my name."

"One body" or Independency?

An Appeal

The foregoing is a reprint from "A Divine Movement and our Path with God Today," by F. W. Grant, published by Loizeaux Brothers. It includes ten items, of which this is one. It was written for today, this day of departure from the truth.

Since it was written, many have been received into fellowship who are perhaps not grounded in the truth of the one Body of Christ, and in these days of speed, have not as much time as our beloved brother; therefore it is to be highly commended in this day, and the whole ten items studiously assimilated.

When our Lord was on earth, Satan did his utmost to have Him killed, or have Him under his power. Failing this, he attacks His Body, the Church, which is composed of all believers. There is but one way to withstand his attacks, and that is by obedience to the word. "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God," was His object. To us He says, "If a man love Me he will keep My Word."

The truth of the one Body and the relationship of the members to one another, are the outstanding features of Paul's epistles, as such passages as Rom. 12: 5 clearly set forth:

"So we being many, are one Body in Christ, and every one members one of another."

Many have recognized this, and have walked in the truth of the statement many years, and were division impending, of such, this truth should be emphasized, but this is not the case at this time. There are, however, those who, in their walk, deny the truth of our being members one of another, and the responsibility of each member, or gathering of members to maintain this unity in a practical walk. This is what is known as independency. In John's first Epistle we read:

"If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another."

This at once excludes a great many lovable Christians, for two cannot walk together unless agreed.

Like Israel, the Church is a unit in the Lord's sight, but of how much closer relationship with Himself, as His Body, and Bride of the Lamb! If we fail to grasp this relationship, or lose sight of its dignity, failure will just as surely follow. If, too, our gathering together be not unto His Name, and all it implies, so, too, we shall drop back into disobedience, sectarianism, schism, worldliness and independency; this latter being in direct opposition to the glorious truth of the one Body of Christ.

We turn now to the history of Israel which God has graciously preserved for us, as we learn from 1 Cor. 10: 11, namely: —

Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."

Therefore it behooves us to read the Old Testament thoroughly with the New. It is not our purpose to draw admonition at this time except from the opening and closing portions.

After the trial and proven failure of man under various testings, God at last chose Abram out of idolatry for another new beginning; he is the stock from whom the nation developed. At the completion of 400 years' bondage in Egypt, Moses was raised up by God as their deliverer. Upon the death of Moses, Joshua took them over the Jordan into the land flowing with milk and honey. His death occurred about 1425 B.C., and their troubles now begin, for we read: —

"There arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel." Judges 2: 10.

Their history after this is but one of failures and departures, with some partial recoveries, until they were carried away captive by their enemies, as God had forewarned them, if disobedient.

The Church, at the beginning (Acts 2), in all its purity, was of "one accord, one heart, and of one soul." They sold their goods and possessions, and had every thing in common, being baptized into one Body as we read in 1 Cor. 12: —

"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is The Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body."

This truth was soon lost, and the Church, married to the world (Pergamos), sank towards its level. "Another generation" had arisen, its unity ignored, and instead of selling possessions, hoarded them — they became rich, and independent, and like Israel, were taken into captivity by the world.

We now come to the closing scenes of the history of Israel, and see again exactly the same conditions in the Church. God withdrew His throne, their name is "Lo-Ammi" — not my people, they are in captivity for disobedience. However, a small remnant of Jews return to Jerusalem, faithfulness being their characteristic. The unequal yoke is severed, the altar set up, the temple rebuilt, and the Passover kept.

In Ezra 9, however, we read of some who had "not separated themselves from the people of the land." Ezra, when he heard it, "rent his garment, plucked off the hair of his head and beard, and sat down astonied." He called for all that "trembled at the Word of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away, and sat astonied until the evening sacrifice." Prayer, confession and restoration followed.

At this point Nehemiah comes on the scene. He had heard that the remnant "are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem (God's beloved City) is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven. . . . We have dealt very corruptly against Thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which Thou commandest Thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech Thee, the Word that Thou commandest Thy servant Moses, saying If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations . . . . but if ye turn unto Me, and keep My commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set My Name there."

He then views the broken-down wall and amidst much opposition, laughter and ridicule, from their enemies, and at last discouragement from his own brethren, the rebuilding of the wall is completed.

How all this speaks to our hearts at this time, as we see the correlation with our day! The wall which protected the unity of the One Body at Pentecost was soon down, but the Lord raised up special gifts a century ago to build, for a remnant in the closing days, as He raised up Nehemiah for the last recorded days of the Jews.

Is it not remarkable that of this remnant there were those (the nobles) of whom it is recorded (Neh. 5: ): "Ye exact usury, every one of his brother . . . ought not ye to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies . . Restore I pray you to them even this day . . ."

And today is there not a hoarding of possessions instead of "selling" which was coupled with the one accord. May we be surprised if the opposite to Unity happens (Gen. 13: 6). We weep as we look back 1900 years ago, and a century ago. Has the Lord the Pre-eminence? Do business relationships hinder? Has the world and its ever increasing attractions and pleasures any claim upon us? Now is the time to confess our unfaithfulness, for the one lesson we are to learn of the Jewish remnant is Nehemiah's faithfulness amidst departure and ruin of the last days.

"Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent."

We think of Abraham and of Lot. If any of Lot's character are in the remnant, separation is necessary. (Gen. 13: 6.)

Nehemiah "was doing a great work." Some; would like to forget this wall-building, as interfering with their ideas of independency, but if we remember that a whole book is devoted to this great work, we surely see what God's thoughts are regarding the wall; let us not lightly esteem it. But what is its importance? Why is a wall necessary? Well, a wall is of little use but to protect and to exclude. We read of walls, hedges and fences from the beginning to the close of Israel's history, and the Lord Himself spoke of the "Hedged Vineyard" (Israel). He also prayed that His own may be sanctified (set apart) through the Truth, The Word.

It is true the wall was built in Old Testament times, but it has a deep significance to us, for: —

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

We are also told by Paul that their history was written for our admonition. Do we refuse it? If so, let us tear down our walls of 2 Cor. 6: 14-18, 2 Tim. 2: 19-22, and others, without any protest. To say it is legal is shortsightedness, if not blindness. It is the "whole armour" of our day. To tear it down is to admit the enemy. It is to give up the faithful fight. It is to let go, rather than "hold fast." It is to encourage the enemy rather than "resist" him. "Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." Let us honor the Inspired Writer of ALL Scripture, for "to obey is better than sacrifice."

How shall we apply this wall to ourselves? We notice first, a returned remnant. Second, the last days. Third, a wall rebuilt. We, too, are a returned remnant, (to divine principles); We, too, are in the last days. We, too, need the wall of Exclusion. If necessary for an earthly nation, how much more for the Body of Christ! But the wall built a century ago is being torn down today, the wells filled with earth, landmarks destroyed and the old paths forsaken. History is repeating itself. In Joshua 24: 31 we read: —

"Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that He had done for Israel."

This generation, like Israel, knows little of the exercises of our Elders, the Lord's special gifts for this specific time of the last days when "every man is doing that which is right in his own eyes," as in the days of Judges. With the increase of knowledge, when "many are running to and fro" (Dan. 4), we know the end is near.

With ourselves, overnight almost we hear of new affiliations throughout the country, Sandballet and Gesham have been met. The truth of the one Body is a back number; the pendulum is swinging "to and fro" with the velocity of the airplane which has superseded the God-given way of travel. It has gone over from the exclusive wall to open independence, diametrically in opposition to the truth we have maintained these hundred years, the truth of the one body. "The believer shall not make haste."

The elders even that outlived "Joshua" have gone Home, another generation is here. Let us note, too, that Moses, the first leader, was 40 years in solitude at the backside of the desert with God ere he could be used of Him as a leader. What a first lesson for our young men!

If we would know what the truth of the one body involves, we read 1 Cor. 12: where we are referred to our own body, where surely there is perfect harmony and oneness. Do we desire food? Both hands at once procure it. Do we need to walk. Both feet carry us; head and members one, for "The Head cannot say to the feet I have no need of you," nor one foot to the other. 1 Cor. 12: 12; Rom. 12: 5. "Every one members one of another."

What then is independency? Scripture's answer is: — "Therefore is the name of it called Babel." What does it mean? "confusion." Gen. 11: 9. Webster's definition is: —

"Freedom from support or governance by others: a competency: self reliance. One who supports measures or men independently of any organized party."

To apply this, it means that instead of acknowledging ONE Body, every member is doing that which is right in his own eyes: — "confusion." Once let this principle be a centre of gathering, all scriptural unity vanishes. To gather merely as believers, or even as a family, is to fall far below the Scriptural teaching and dignity as the Body of Christ, to whom we are subject. Eph. 5: 24. And to one another. Eph. 5: 21; 1 Peter 5: 5. And this with Eph. 4: 1-2 is the only preventative and power against division.

To go down stream requires no exertion, in fact, dead fish can do that, but to hold fast, to retain the wall, to keep the old paths, to remember our guides, to preserve their landmarks marking the treacherous pitfalls of these last days requires much faithfulness and watching. "The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith." "The spirits are to be tried whether they be of God." "Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge." Nehemiah had trouble within: — "Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things"; but how good to read in Neh. 8: —

"And all the people gathered themselves together as one man . . . . so they read in the Book of the Law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading."

Also in the last chapter: —

"Now it came to pass when they heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude."

Are we ready to read, understand and obey the Word of God, and separate, rather than affiliate with unscriptural independency? The Jews gathered as one man — and separated from the mixed multitude.

Read 1 Thess. 5: 21; 2 Tim. 1: 13; 2 Tim. 2: 20-22; Heb. 2: 1; Heb. 4: 14; Heb. 10: 23; Jude 3; Rev. 2: 25; Rev. 3: 2-3; Rev. 3: 8, and get the "sense" and see if they have any bearing on the WALL, to exclude so dishonoring a denial of the glorious, inspiring, and dignifying truth of the One Body, emphasized so much in Paul's Epistles.

If any desire these principles of independency, there are gatherings willing to receive them, but the ungrounded should not be carried away by fair speeches.

Satan has just completed one conquest; the thin end of the wedge is in, are we going to allow him to drive it home. "Let us stand therefore, having our loins girt about with the truth, and quench all the fiery darts of the Devil," even in the face of the prophetic declension of Rev. 2 and 3. Nehemiah had to build and fight. The task is not easy, but there is one who can put strength into the feeble knees, and into the hands that hang down. If a man love Me he will keep My word.

The Lord wants neither numbers or service first. To obey is better, He says. If we think to correct the recent dishonor done Him, by filling up the few gaps, it cannot be done in this way, for two wrongs do not make a right. Neither let us say the times have changed, for it is the truth we hold, and it should hold us. If we cannot get away from the "great house," we can at least hold fast that which we have, and we have never acknowledged independency — it has no scriptural holding power.

Only recently it was learned that the one responsible for the ten thousand appeals "to Brethren of every section and every name" came, some years ago, from the "open" meeting, and last year, visiting in Los Angeles, was received by the "Independent Open" meeting. We pass this on without comment (Rom. 14: 4) except to say another's conscience should be respected.

To invite all of every section and every name, just as surely invites another division. (The writer witnessed this in England last year when the Scottish Churches reunited). The days of "one mind" passed 1800 years ago. We are in the "Last Days" of many minds, and whilst the One Body includes all believers, all are not walking in the light, though of themselves lovable people, of whom we do not write, but of principles.

There is a recent publication to be had from Loizeaux Brothers, by Mr. Hamilton Smith, a writer for "Scripture Truth." His concluding remark is:

"In the light of the foregoing statements we judge that any assembly that acts on the principle of independency has forfeited its title to be owned as walking in the light of the Church." It is entitled "Open Brethren, their origin, principles, and practice."

Our beloved Brother S. Ridout said: —

Let us make the precious truth of the One Body of Christ so real and practical that none dare say it is but a theory. Shall we, or shall we not, seek to act upon the principles of the Church of God? Who dare refuse? Who dare let expediency decide?"

In writing on this subject, Mr. Bloore concludes his remarks in the last July issue of Help and Food as follows:

"As we study these things which pertain to God's people as gathered together to Christ's Name, we can see how the local assembly has its place, and that all such are viewed as in a unity of fellowship, teaching, order, custom, and action. This should at once set aside any notion either of independency or division among the assemblies of God. (1 Thess. 2: 14; 2 Thess. 1: 4)."

Thus "A Unity of Fellowship" (or "A Circle of Fellowship") "at once set aside any notion either of independency or division." Therefore all those who maintain "independent" principles or cause "division" are to be set aside (and "avoided." Rom. 16: 17), for both carry the same thought, both equally deny the truth of the one Body, and cannot therefore be in "a unity of fellowship" with those who for a century have denounced such unscriptural independent principles.

May we then keep to these old paths, and continue to walk in them. Where there is any real service for the Lord, He will see to its maintenance "as workers together with Him." To obey is better than sacrifice. Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." Christ's name surely Includes headship of the one Body.

Intercommunion is but independency "in earnest." It is the "mixed multitude" within the walls, which primarily, of course, were to exclude worldliness.

We write, not in a spirit of controversy, but with a measure of the deep solemnity of the subject, and for the sake of righteous and scriptural unity, rather than compromise. It is one thing for those in happy fellowship 40 years, holding the truth of the one Body, to dishonorably divide; it is quite another to unite with independency. Both are unscriptural.

What we need is a large heart in a narrow path; walking in His steps, following His example outside the camp, in suffering, persecution, contradiction, ridicule and reproach.

In closing, we ask: —

"Who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth, ye did run well: who did hinder you? This persuasion cometh not of Him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

Beloved, "We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip" (or we slip from them).

We deeply deplore division as positively unscriptural, and of the flesh, but must refuse to be linked up with independency.

P.S. — In a letter sent out March 15, 1928, calling for a conference in England, we read: —

"We believe there is a genuine desire to answer to the Lord's Word, 'Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown'; to maintain the great truths we have received from Scripture, through the teaching of faithful men, and to refuse to be drawn on to independent ground. During recent years, however, matters have arisen which indicate departure from what we have hitherto held and practised, and this is occasioning confusion, distress and disintegration.

"We feel the time has come when we must face and firmly refuse these departures from sound doctrine, principles, and practice, earnestly seeking that out of present exercises there may arise a clearer apprehension of the Lord's mind for His people in a day of ruin."

Papers on Eternal Punishment

Papers on Eternal Punishment.

by F. W. Grant.

1. — Eternal Destruction: Is it Annihilation?

2. — Eternal Life What is it? and When do we have it?

3. — Does Scripture Speak of an Immortal Soul?

1. Everlasting Destruction: is it Annihilation?

The denial of eternal punishment, in its only proper sense, has of late spread with amazing rapidity. Long scoffed at by the unbelievers as the doctrine of scriptures which they rejected, it is now often as openly scouted by those who professedly receive these as the inspired word of God. In one form or other, most of the sects of christendom are becoming infected with this denial, and few there are who can escape the contact with it, or the question which it will raise in minds hitherto unexercised, and unprepared for the subtleties by which it is supported.

As to the first class of deniers, it may be frankly admitted that the doctrine of eternal punishment must stand or fall with the authority of Scripture itself. Nor do I purpose now to discuss this. To those who can believe that that which for centuries has ministered peace to multitudes amid every form of sorrow that life is heir to, and in every bitter shape in which death can come, — which enforces truth with startling emphasis, consigning "all liars" to the lake of fire, — is itself a lie of the most audacious and incredible character, — to such I have nothing to say just now. It is to those who profess belief in Scripture that I would now appeal, and in behalf of Scripture itself, which is by their interpretation trampled underfoot, to the dishonor of God and the ruin of souls so precious that for them the Son of God suffered and died.

There are here, again, two classes, who are in entire opposition to one another. One which, with many variations otherwise, affirms the final utter extinction of the wicked; and one which, also amid various minor disagreements, with equal positiveness affirms their final happiness. A third class still, of later origin, combines these views, asserting the final restoration of the mass, while reserving the doom of extinction for some irreclaimable offenders.

The doctrine of Scripture, in opposition to all these, is that the wicked dead (which, with the righteous, includes "all that are in the graves," John 5: 28,) shall be raised in the "resurrection of damnation [or judgment]" (v. 29), and, receiving their sentence at the "great white throne," shall be cast into, and have their portion in, the lake of fire, which is the second death, but in which the first death comes to an end forever. (Rev. 20: 11-15.) Consequently they never die any more (in the sense in which we speak of dying now), and therefore never become extinct, while their doom is of "everlasting destruction" (2 Thess. 1: 9), not of temporary judgment: they "shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on" them. (John 3: 36.)

Terrible are these sayings. If true, how infinitely important that they should be known and owned! how awful to give encouragement to men to disbelieve or slight them! I would therefore produce Scripture in detail, as far as the compass of a tract admits, for each point in this statement. Let not my reader trifle with his own soul or that of others, while divine mercy waits upon men, and God warns, that He may not strike.

1. "All that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth." It is no partial resurrection, as some dream. "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God," says the apostle. "As I live," saith the Lord, "every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. (Rom. 14: 11.) "Fear God, and keep His commandments; . . . for God shall bring every work into judgment, with;very secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." (Ecc. 12: 13, 14.)

2. Raised in the resurrection of judgment, the wicked stand before the great white throne, and are "judged, every man according to their works And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death;" and this, too, is the "everlasting destruction" of its unhappy subjects.

But death and destruction, it is contended, mean extinction. This is entirely untrue. All but the materialistic, section of annihilationists agree that the first death is not extinction, and it is easy to prove this against those who deny it. The seed "dies" to produce the harvest (1 Cor. 15: 36): does it become extinct? Where would be the harvest, if it did? Nay, the blessed Lord died. Will those who know Him say that He became extinct? Again, "They that kill the body are not able to kill the soul." (Matt. 10: 28.) Thus the soul is not merely the life of the body; and it remains alive when the body dies. Death, then, is not extinction; it is a man's "decease," or exodus, departure (2 Peter 1: 15), and his "putting off the tabernacle" of the body (v. 14).

But if the first death is not extinction, the second death, which takes its name from it, cannot be either. The first death is separation of soul from body, leaving the latter to corruption in the grave. Spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God, which involves the moral corruption of the soul. And the lake of fire is eternal distance from God, and wrath, in which the whole man suffers and "reaps corruption." Not one of these deaths is extinction and in the lake of fire the first death comes to an end forever. It is the time when all enemies are under Christ's feet, the last enemy destroyed being death (1 Cor. 15: 25, 26) but the lake of fire itself endures forever and ever, or "to the ages of ages," — a term five times given as the duration of the life of God Himself (Rev. 4: 9, 10; Rev. 5: 14; Rev. 10: 6; Rev. 15: 7). Thus, then, with the first death at an end, the wicked must needs last on for eternal punishment.

3. And this is "everlasting destruction: " which does not, therefore, mean "everlasting extinction" either. Destruction in Scripture has not in fact this meaning. When the new wine bursts the (skin) bottles, and the bottles are marred, (Mark 2: 22), the same word is used to describe this. The bottles are destroyed: not utterly gone, but useless as bottles and when man is by the judgment of God set aside eternally from the place for which he was created, this is his "everlasting destruction." The beast is made to be destroyed, — made to fill a place temporarily and be removed from it. Man was not made for this, and it is by the awful judgment of God alone that he becomes as one of these, and "utterly perishes in his own corruption." (2 Peter 2: 12.)

In Deuteronomy 28 the word is used six times as to Israel, and never once signifies their extinction: "Also every sickness and every plague . . . . them will the Lord bring upon thee till thou be destroyed." Are they extinct? No, but "ye shall be left few in number" and after the curse has been fulfilled, it is added, "the Lord will turn thy captivity"! (Deut. 30: 1-3.)

So it is said elsewhere, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thy help found." The "lost" sheep, again, is literally the "destroyed sheep." (Luke 15, etc.) And the word used here and ordinarily in the New Testament, the dictionaries tell us means "very frequently, in all sorts of relations, to destroy, ruin, spoil, waste, squander," and also "simply to fall into ruin, be undone," and even "to be wretched or miserable." (Liddell & Scott's Lexicon.)

"Everlasting ruin" is in fact the meaning of "everlasting destruction," — the awful doom of such as "shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever [to the ages of ages], and they have no rest day nor night." (Rev. 14: 10, 11.)

4. A host of passages are brought in here which have no reference at all to eternal judgment, but simply to what the Old Testament is full of — the removal of sinners from the earth, that the righteous may inherit it. The thirty-seventh psalm is an example of this: "Fret not thyself because of the ungodly, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb . . . . for evil-doers shall be cut off but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth for yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be, yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be," etc. This is the language constantly quoted to prove annihilation! It is quite true that the Old Testament is full of it, for it is full of the time which we are accustomed to call "millennial," in which all this will be fulfilled, and the earth be purified from the long reign of evil on it; but of hell or of eternal judgment this language does not speak.

"Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more," pleads the Psalmist. And the prophet answers, as it were," Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, all that do wickedly, shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts." (Mal. 4: 1, 3.) These words are constantly quoted by annihilationists; but is it in hell, or on earth, that the righteous will tread down the wicked? Certainly not in hell, but upon earth. All such quotation for the purpose of proving the extinction of the wicked is as idle and as ignorant as if they quoted for it the burning up of people in the fire of Chicago, or the "perishing" of "souls" in a shipwreck at sea.

5. Another class of passages quoted show another great mistake. The texts which really speak of eternal judgment are often, as descriptions of eternity are apt to be, full of figurative expressions, which must of course be treated as figures. Understand me, that I do not mean that they are to be thrown aside as of doubtful meaning, or as exaggerated statements, — God forbid. He speaks always so as to be understood, and it is as impossible for Him to exaggerate as to lie in any other form.

But take the Baptist's figure of the burning up of chaff to illustrate what I mean. Who does not see that the "burning up" must be as figurative as the "chaff" is? Material destruction is not a figure of material destruction: it must figure something else. Material destruction will figure spiritual destruction, which is, however, a very different thing.

And so when we come to look at the details. There is no doubt that annihilation has been helped in many minds by the tendency to take literally the expressions used in Scripture to image to us the awful realities of eternal punishment. A "lake burning with fire and brimstone," if taken literally, would suggest to many the idea of utter extermination of the bodies at least of those cast into it. But how should the devil, a spirit, be tormented there? And what was the "flame" which tormented the spirit of the rich man in hades? The truth is, these are figures, which Scripture itself explains, where over and over again God's wrath is compared to fire. Thus, in the Lord's solemn words in Mark 9: 48, the worm that dieth not is the gnawing of awakened conscience: who will suppose a literal undying worm? And so the fire that is not quenched is as surely that wrath of God which "abideth on" the wicked.

Thus we see at once how the fire may and must be eternal, so long as God's nature remains unchanged, and sinners remain to be the object of His wrath. Here, therefore, the argument for annihilation is gone forever. No plea from the nature of literal fire will suffice. It is as contrary to the nature of literal fire to allow the beast and the false prophet to remain a thousand years tormented by its flame as it is for it to be the instrument of torment at all to a spirit, such as Satan is. Yet we read of these that they "shall be tormented day and night forever and ever," — or, if people like better to say so, "for the ages of ages" but this is the measure of God's own existence. (Rev. 4: 9, 10; Rev. 10: 6; Rev. 15: 7.)

This fire of God's wrath, unlike material fire, affects soul and spirit equally with the bodies of the lost while it can be discriminative also, and thus "few stripes" or "many stripes be, as our Lord teaches, in fact their future portion.

This, then, is "everlasting destruction" — a doom by which men are set aside forever from the place for which their creation originally marked them out, and as "vessels of wrath." It is a death" in which the first death is found no more, and therefore from which there is for its unhappy subjects no escape.

These passages are as decisive on the one side as on the other. They show that the opposite doctrines of the annihilation of the wicked, and of their restoration, are equally false, equally unscriptural. As long as God lives, the wicked shall exist, and exist as objects of His abiding wrath. Yet, reader, God warns of it, because He is most unwilling you should suffer it. Trifle not with His statements, but accept His love, in Christ freely offered to you. He who died for sinners bids all men come to Him and find His mercy. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin." "Him that cometh unto Me," He says, "I will in no wise cast out."

2. Eternal Life: What is it? and When do we have it?

But in the first place, it seems, we must ask, What is it not? And we must answer, contradict whom we may, it is not immortality.

A good many, with much assurance, are teaching that it is, and loudly maintaining that Scripture is on their , side in this teaching. They tell us that we are bidden to "seek for immortality," and that "to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for immortality" God will give, as the thing they seek for, "eternal life." They tell us, moreover, that "life" means "being," or "existence" "eternal life," of course, "eternal being," or "existence." Thus death also is just "non-existence" and so evident do they think this that they charge those who deny it with ignorance of Scripture and of language alike. We will not allow, they say, that a dead man is really "dead," if we do not allow that he is non-existent.

As we cannot follow man beyond this life except in Scripture, it is to Scripture we must turn. Of what even natural life is, the men of science are ignorant still. What eternal life is, God alone can tell us. And here His word at least is not doubtful.

As to immortality, the text which is professedly quoted will not serve. The word used never means immortality, but "incorruption" and is a term applied, in 1 Corinthians 15: 42, 50, 53, 54, to the saint in resurrection, and, in 1 Peter 1: 4, to his inheritance. The saint alone inherits incorruption, and this of course is conditional upon a man's being a saint; but "conditional immortality" — so much heard of now — is unknown to Scripture. No one can produce for it a passage at all.

I shall be reminded, no doubt, that "God only hath immortality." (1 Tim. 6: 15.) Quite true, and therefore in this sense the angels have not. What this argues for man it argues for these also. Will they, then, die? No one thinks of saying so. And it proves as little that man or the wicked will. God alone possesses immortality in Himself; all creatures live and move and have their being alone in Him; by Him all things subsist; by the word of His power they are upheld: and that is as far as this Scripture carries us.

But eternal life is distinct from immortality. Eternal life is what a man may possess here, and not have "immortality" at all as yet. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." (John 3: 36.) Does this mean "hath it in promise" merely? It does not. He has the life itself, is quickened from the dead, and passed from death (that is, out of death, literally,) into life. (John 5: 24, 25.) In contrast, we are told that "no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him: " eternal life, then, the saint has abiding in him.

Yet he existed before, and no more exists now than he did before. The murderer too exists. Those yet dead spiritually exist. "She that liveth in pleasure," says the apostle, "is dead while she liveth." (1 Tim. 5: 3.) Death or life in this respect, therefore, has no reference to mere natural existence. Eternal life is not the prolongation of natural existence. It is an entirety separate and distinct thing. Just as the wicked exist now without it, so they may exist forever without it.

Eternal life is that which we possess, when we possess the knowledge of the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. So our Lord distinctly says (John 17: 3). It is that which we have as born again, and children of God; and "beloved," says the apostle, "now are we the sons of God" (1 John 3: 2); "Ye are all the children of God," says another apostle, "by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3: 26); "Being born again," adds yet a third, "not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, . . . and this is the Word which by the gospel is preached unto you" (1 Peter 1: 23, 25). And thus we find Paul saying, again, "In Christ Jesus have I begotten you through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4: 15).

Yet, in the face of Scripture, men have the audacity to say that we can have eternal life only in resurrection. Scripture says we have it here, and now, if we are children of God at all, or Christians at all.

It does indeed say that we "enter into life" hereafter, and this is their plea; but entering into life, and life entering into us, are two distinct things which they have confounded. When we speak of a young man entering upon life, we do not mean by this that he is just born, or has just received life. We use life here in a somewhat different though connected sense. It is life in what is called the pregnant sense, implying the full tale of its duties and responsibilities, its joys and cares and sorrows. We are speaking, in short, of the full realization of what the life, which he has long before received, implies from the first moment of its reception.

Had he not been alive before, he could not now be prepared to enter into life; and so exactly with the life eternal. While our entering into it as a state is future, we must possess it before in order to be prepared then to enter into it. Thus Scripture is every-where and every way consistent, and those who quote it to deny the present possession of eternal life, misunderstand or pervert it. But, assuredly, if the child of God does possess eternal life here, their whole theory is false and a delusion. For the child of God who has eternal life is no less "mortal" than he was before; and he no more exists than he did before, nor than the wicked do. Therefore eternal life and immortality are quite distinct; and the wicked can as well exist forever without it as they can exist now without it.

Have you, my reader, eternal life? It is a very solemn thing to have to say, No. It means you have not Christ, and do not really "know" the Father or the Son. "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Solemn it is, too, in view of the denial of Christ's true deity, which so often and so naturally goes with the false doctrines we have been considering, to hear the words with which the apostle John closes his epistle, "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and Eternal Life. Reader, to you is He the "true God"? Has He been to you "eternal life"? Do not evade the question. Do not rest till you can answer it aright.

"He that believeth on Him hath everlasting life."

3. Does Scripture Speak of an Immortal Soul?

It does. For the Lord's words are as plain as can be: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." (Matt. 10: 28.) A soul that cannot be killed when the body is is an immortal soul; and, as it is only "appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment," that which survives this death survives forever.

Men have tried hard to make this text speak differently, but their efforts only show the impossibility of doing this. The common way is to tell us that the soul is just the life of the body — animal life; but to say that man cannot kill the life of the body is too plainly false. They therefore reply to this that "it is a momentary death; what he has for the time extinguished is reserved by God to shine through all eternity: it is not, therefore, in God's eye or mind, lost, destroyed, or perished." But this is as plainly vain as an answer, for it is as true of the body, of course, that it dies but a momentary death; God will raise it again; yet the Lord is contrasting the body, which man can kill, with the soul, which he cannot. As then whatever is true of the body in this respect would be true of its life as much; the soul that the Lord speaks of is not the life. According to this, He would have said rather, Fear not them which kill neither body nor life.

Seeing this difficulty, others have tried to make "soul" mean the "life to come." But this the word never means. The word for the life to come is quite a different one; it is zoe not as here — psuche. These two are never confounded: no one can produce a single passage to prove them the same.

Killing means "taking life." For this reason alone, we never, and can never, speak of killing life. Killing the body, by itself means destroying the life of the body. Thus the soul is looked at as possessing a life of its own, just as the body does. The soul, then, is a living thing, which, when the body dies, does not die. It is not only a living but an immortal soul.

Some own this, but point us to the contrasted destruction of the body and soul in hell as proving the soul to to be finally annihilated. But they are not said to be "killed" in hell; and never are: judgment does not come till the death appointed "once" is passed away in resurrection. The "second death" is not the first repeated; it is the lake of fire forever; and destruction is often used where annihilation is impossible.

Here it is impossible; for death is "once," and is passed away forever when men are raised in the "resurrection of damnation."

Reader, the salvation of the soul does not mean making it exist forever. Exist it will, in happiness or misery, forever. But the Son of God died that eternity might speak to you of joy and peace, and not of terror. He has made peace by the blood of His cross. God preaches peace by Jesus Christ. And those who believe on Him, being justified by faith, have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Reader, if already you have not, will you now make friends with eternity by faith in Him?

[Those who would see this subject more fully treated are referred to "Facts and Theories as to a Future State."] Loizeaux Brothers, 63 Fourth Av., New York, 1885.

Man's Neighbor

Man's Neighbor.

Luke 10: 25-37.

F. W. Grant.

The various ways in which our Lord met and answered oftentimes the same question from different questioners, it is most instructive to see. He never answered a question simply as a question, but the state of the soul of him who put it. It is just there that, in reading His answers, people make such great mistakes. They take often the question simply as a question, and no more and thus, if a man comes, for instance, asking, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life?" and hear Him reply, "What is written in the law? . . . do this and thou shalt live," they put it down as settled that the way of eternal life for man is by the keeping of the law.

But the same Word of God says, "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse" (Gal. 3: 19). Is that a way of life? What then about the Lord's answer?

Scripture solves this difficulty very simply. For if "by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3: 20) — and what it says it says "that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God" (Rom. 3: 19), — then it is clear how the Lord, in answer to this questioner, is seeking to give him the knowledge of sins. For this He uses the law, with one whom, when he takes the ground of human goodness, He assures "There is none good but One, that is, God."

The case before us is different again from this. "A certain lawyer stood up and tempted Him, saying, 'Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'"

The question is the same as in the former case; but there, a real inquirer, however self-deceived; here, one "tempting Him," — this makes the difference.

The Lord again appeals to the law — "What is written in the law? how realest thou?" ' And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.' And He said unto him, Thou hast answered right; this do and thou shalt live.' "

Even so. It is all simple enough, dear reader; and the preacher of the gospel in the present day does not in anywise contradict the Lord's saying.

If "this do and thou shalt live" satisfies you, and you are assured of standing well before God upon the ground of loving Him with this all-absorbing love, and your neighbor, too, just as well as yourself, none will say that God will not accept that. Only remember, it is "Do this half or a quarter this, or as much of it as you can, or as you please to think you can. "Do this" are the Lord's words; "as well as you can" is Satan's interpretation of it, for which you will find no Scripture warrant from Genesis to Revelation.

But, you say, Of course we do not pretend to do it altogether. Then, if you go on that ground, you are under the curse; for it is written, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." And, moreover, that is not merely what the Old Testament said, but what the New Testament says, and for that very reason it adds that "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse."

Instinctively the poor sinner to whom the Lord spoke felt it. "But he, willing to justify himself, said." Why justify himself when no one accused him? Ah, conscience had spoken in him, and his excuse was the evidence of a consciousness of fault, which, nevertheless, the heart rose up in its pride to resist. Dear reader, do you want to justify yourself before God? It is the natural instinct, alas; but the very effort shows you dare not leave it to God, in whose hands nevertheless it only is. You cannot rest assured that He will do it that is, you cannot rest at all.

"But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'"

And what an answer that brings out! How it exposes the narrow selfishness which can raise such a question, with need in the countless shapes in which it meets us before the eyes! It is what the legal spirit engenders. The cold estimate of duty reckoned by a self-occupied mind, which is sure to seek to spare itself as far as may be, instead of the unreckoning self-sacrifice of love occupied with its object. The priest and Levite are the examples of the first the Samaritan, of the second. A little heart would have decided the lawyer's question for him. It was his shame to ask it.

But there is much more than this. Hid in a parable, for a solemn reason (comp. Matt. 13: 13), the Lord gives us a wondrous picture of One whose heart had made Him neighbor to the ruined and helpless among men. The picture of Him who had no duty to the fallen, but love which had found in men its object, and which, looking for no worth in them, or claim, poured itself out in unexhausted fullness. Oh that some soul, heedless and careless, might be wakened up even now by this tale of love, to find answer in a new way to the lawyer's question, "AND WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?"

"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead."

Do not lose the beauty of that description by making it a general picture of man's condition. Its individuality is meant rather to arrest the eye of some consciously ruined and despairing one. The Lord's words are not cold theological statements, but fresh from the heart for the heart. If you are on this Jericho road, stripped, to your shame, and wounded, to your hurt — a convicted and perishing sinner — it applies to you.

The road to Jericho was, and is, a downward one. From the city crowned with the glory of Jehovah's presence, whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord — with his back upon all this, and his face toward the city of curse, the traveler journeyed. Upon this road was he stopped, plundered, wounded, thrown aside without remedy, to die. It is the spiritual history of many. The sudden seizure of conviction could be figured by nothing more simply than the onset of robbers; and he who was but a short time ago well-to-do, in his own eyes well-clad and flourishing, has become a bankrupt, naked and perishing sinner.

Dying without help — lying in his blood upon the road, incapable of even seeking the succor that he needs, — such is the Lord's own picture of the misery that drew Him down to save. It is not sin in its revolting side, as enmity against God, that is seen in it, but the helpless misery it has wrought. Has my reader ever known spiritually what it was to be in such a state?

"And by chance there came down a certain priest that way." It is a noteworthy thing when the Lord Jesus speaks of chance. It means that the priest was no God-sent messenger to this wounded man. And so it proved — "and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side."

"And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side."

Think of the hope in his heart when those human forms met his fading sight, and human eyes peered into his! But no help for him was there. The men of law were not the ministers of the needed mercy. Nor have they now, more than then, help or hope for one that is simply lost for the law says "Do" and what can such an one "do"? Ah, you may better go and talk of work to the half-dead man upon the roadside in the picture, than talk of it to the whole-dead sinner whom he represents.

So the priest and the Levite pass and give place to another. "But a certain Samaritan, as lie journeyed, came where he was." Why a Samaritan? It was the name of reproach they had hurled at Him — "Say we not well that Thou art a Samaritan?" It was meant to convey the thought of one who walked outside the prescribed path of the law, and whom the law denounced. If the Lord take that name, there is meaning in it we may be sure. And, indeed, how came He where we were, but by being "made in the likeness of sinful flesh," and "a curse for us"? And how could His mercy reach unto us but by His taking a path outside of law "And when he saw him, he had compassion on him."

Here is that pity of God, true and effective, and equal to the need — which the true gospel bears witness to — which all mixed gospels tend to obscure and nullify, and which the soul needs so greatly, both for peace and to bring it in full reality to joy in God Himself.

That He loved me — not when a saint, but when a sinner — loved me when I was dead in sins (Eph. 2: 4-5); loved me so as to give Christ for me, ungodly and without strength; this is the truth by which I know God in very deed, and which bows my heart before Him in adoration and delight. Oh, the joy of knowing His joy who bears me on His shoulders, Shepherd of the lost, and when He cometh home, calleth together His friends and says, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!" Joy over me! Joy in the presence of the angels of God!

Take me, this prodigal with the rags of a far country upon him, put him under rule and discipline, let him reform and get back something of his former respectability before he meets his father, the meeting may be tender as ever, but the wondrous display of a father's heart outpoured over his dead alive again, could it be the same?

I want for my heart, I am jealous over it — this bringing together of my sin and His love, my ruin and His might on my behalf. I delight in such words as these: "When he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him." All the doing was on the one side here. And with what thankful joy the eyes of the wounded man must have looked on all this activity of love on his behalf. Did he grudge to be its debtor, think you? Do you, that the Lord should serve you? The faith that says, Well, it is love's joy to serve, and He came down to serve; He whom all things serve came voluntarily down to do me service; that is what honors Him, for it credits Him with what He is.

But come, do you know what this oil and wine are? Do you know what the power of the Holy Ghost (which is the oil) mingles with to form a salve for a wounded soul? The "wine that cheereth God and man" is the remembrance of the poured-out blood of Jesus. He has entered in with that blood into heaven itself. The witness of its value is His own place at the right hand of God. Offered to, and accepted of God, the Spirit of God bears witness of its efficacy in cleansing from all sin, and setting the cleansed one apart to God as purchased and redeemed forever. This is the Samaritan's balm for our deadly wounds. For whom was it shed, this blood of Jesus? See how He pours it in Himself, how He applies it He does not leave that to you, He applies it Himself. The blood was shed for sinners. You may be clear; if you are that, it is for you.

And then, on and on, towards a bright eternity, the love which has visited you will keep and care. So runs this parable "He set him upon his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out twopence and gave them to the host, and said unto him, 'Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.'" There is the care of the Holy Ghost for the saved in the time of Christ's absence. And because it is exercised oftentimes through human instrumentality, therefore this present payment and future reckoning besides. But how the same love shines out from first to last, on to that "coming again" which faith lays hold of and anticipates. "Surely, I come quickly." "Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." F. W. Grant.

Bible Truth Press, Vinton, Iowa.

The Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven

The Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven

F. W. Grant.

This booklet is in print with Moments with the Book: www.mwtb.org

1. What the Kingdom is.

There is perhaps no term in Scripture so largely used and so little understood as that of "the kingdom of heaven." Yet its importance must be (in some measure at least,) proportionate to the frequency of its use. It is only, indeed, one book — the Gospel of Matthew, — in which it is found, though there thirty-one times; but the kindred expression, "the kingdom of God," is used much more extensively, and in some parables in other Gospels is found in its stead. Taken together, these expressions have a very large place in the New Testament, and their interpretation will correspondingly affect a great deal of Scripture. I propose, therefore, a serious examination of the doctrine of the kingdom as covered by these terms, and to inquire as to the practical bearing of the doctrine also, which assuredly there must be, for "all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

"The kingdom of heaven" is a New Testament term, then; but it has its roots in the Old Testament. The idea is found in the germ in Daniel, in the prophet's words to Nebuchadnezzar, who, effectually humbled by his durance among the beasts, should learn by it that "the heavens do rule" (Dan. 4: 26). This is expanded afterward into the thought that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will" (v. 32). Here we have but the idea, however, — the rule of God, supreme necessarily over men. Here there is no thought of a special, limited, dispensational kingdom. This "dominion," as the king himself says, "is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation" (v. 34).

"The Times of the Gentiles"

But the book of Daniel carries us further than this in the direction we are seeking. Historically and prophetically both, it has for its scope "the times of the Gentiles," of which the Lord speaks (Luke 21: 24), — that is, of Gentile supremacy over Israel. But this is the consequence of her sin, and of God's controversy with her, and it means the interruption of His own dwelling in her midst, as of old He did, and as He yet will do. For Jerusalem shall yet be, saith the Lord, "the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever" (Ezek. 43: 7).

The "place of His throne" had been given up before Nebuchadnezzar could lay waste the city and the temple, and a notable change, therefore, is found in the Old Testament books which give us the history of that solemn and important time. The ark had been the symbolic throne of Him who "sitteth between the cherubim;" and as "the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth" it had passed through Jordan to take possession of the land (Joshua 3: 11). Now the glory had left its dwelling-place on earth, as Ezekiel had seen (Ezek. 10: 18; Ezek. 11: 23), and the very decree which ordains the rebuilding of the temple is that of a Persian king to whom the "God of heaven has given all the kingdoms of the earth" (2 Chron. 36: 23; Ezra 1: 2).

This is no mere casual expression. It is characteristic of the books of the captivity — of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel. Although the eternal throne of God can never be given up, yet a dispensational throne is now removed; and this is what characterizes the times of the Gentiles, — a responsible throne on earth which is set up by God, and yet not God's throne, not the kingdom of God. For the kingdom of God men must wait, but in hope; for the kingdom of God shall come.

Daniel accordingly shows us the end of these Gentile empires, and beyond them all a wholly different one: "In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever" (Dan. 2: 44).

This is in Nebuchadnezzar's vision, but the features of this final kingdom he is not able more distinctly to see. The vision granted later to the prophet (Dan. 7) develops, as we may easily see, the spiritual significance both of the Gentile powers and of that which supersedes them. For the king, the image has the form of a man, though with no breath of life in it; and there is brilliancy enough, though increasing degeneracy. But to the prophet's eyes there is no human form, no unity; plenty of life and vigor, but bestial. On the other hand, as to the final kingdom, though not much is seen as to detail, one feature newly given is of the sweetest encouragement. It is that the government is in the hands of One like a son of man, under whom the saints too possess the kingdom.

Here, then, is a "kingdom of heaven" — a heavenly rule on earth, — a final world-wide triumph of righteousness and peace. We recognize it as that of which all the prophets speak, the expansion of the first prophecy of the victory of the woman's Seed, — the unforgotten goal and purpose of the ages.

The Kingdom Announced

Old Testament prophecy soon comes to an end after the voice in Daniel has uttered itself. There is a long pause of expectancy, and then one more than a prophet takes up the burden of those many years past, and announces the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But the people are not ready: and the voice is of one crying in the wilderness, a priest who has forsaken the sanctuary, and stands apart from men. The baptism of repentance must precede the remission of sins. The mountain must be leveled with the plain, that the way of the Lord may be prepared.

Then there is another Voice, and He who was announced is come. The kingdom is presented, now with the signs and powers which make good its claim, and are ready to establish it among men. Nothing is wanting, except, alas! the loyal hearts that should greet their divine King; but here is a lack that nothing can compensate for. The more fully manifested, the more fully He is rejected. He finds in a Gentile the faith He cannot find in Israel (Matt. 8: 10). And thereupon declares that many shall come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness. with wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The King Rejected

The steps of His rejection it is not necessary here to trace. The twelfth chapter of Matthew already shows it complete. His mighty works, instinct with the power and love of God, they ascribe to Beelzebub, and He warns them that for blasphemy against the Holy Ghost there is never forgiveness. They sought signs, but none should be given them but the sign of the prophet Jonas, the Son of Man three days and nights in the heart of the earth. The chapter ends with the solemn disowning of natural ties: whosoever did the will of His Father in heaven, the same was His brother and sister and mother.

This introduces the thirteenth chapter, in which seven parables give us the prophetic character of the kingdom of heaven as it now is, the King rejected and away. Instead of finding fruit in His vineyard, He goes forth to sow the seed of fresh fruit among the Gentiles. Speaking in parables, because hearing they heard and understood not, He instructs His disciples in the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" (v. 11), — that is, in things not forming part of what had been revealed in Judaism, things which had been kept secret from the foundation of the world (v. 35).

Two Forms of the Kingdom

We see, in fact, in these parables that while the essential idea of the kingdom of heaven is preserved, the form of it is widely different. It is still a kingdom of heaven, and in the hands of the Son of Man; not yet, however, established in power, but committed into the hands of men, and of men who fail in the administration of it. Thus there is disorder, and a possibility of evil even in high places, — purging and rectification needed when the King comes in power. "He shall send forth His angels, and they shall purge out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity." The mysteries of the kingdom terminate thus in its manifestation. The kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ (Rev. 1: 9) looks on to His kingdom and glory (1 Thess. 3: 12), when the fruits of the present sowing-time are husbanded.

These two forms of the kingdom of heaven need to be distinguished carefully. The Lord's address to Laodicea very plainly distinguishes them: "Him that overcometh will I give to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father on His throne." It is as Son of Man He is seen in these addresses; His own throne, therefore, is clearly what is His as Man, in contrast with the Father's throne, the divine one. It is plain at once that while His saints are promised to sit with Him upon the one, none but One Himself divine could sit upon the other.

The Lord has, then, a present kingdom; but in it we can serve only and not reign. We are "translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son" (Col. 1: 13). The time for Christians to reign cannot be yet; cannot be till He takes the kingdom in the form in which the Old Testament shows it, — comes as Son of Man, and reigns publicly.

It is with His present kingdom we are now occupied. This is established in a very different way, namely, by the sowing of the seed — "the Word of the kingdom." The kingdom extends no further than as this is, in some way, "sown in the heart." Yet it may not be savingly. It is the sphere of profession and privilege that is before us. The devil may take away that which was sown in the heart. The man may have no root in himself, the heart being a "heart of stone." Or the springing up of what is native to the soil may choke the good seed so that it is unfruitful. By and by, among the wheat also the enemy sows tares. All this is a picture of the kingdom.

There may be other aspects of it, and there are. We may be called, as in the last three parables of this series, to look at the divine plan and purpose, which cannot fail of accomplishment; but from the human side there cleaves to it ever the idea of condition, of possible failure, of a mixture of evil with the good, of coming judgment needed to rectify this. If the idea of mercy come in, it is still conditional, never pure grace, as witness the parable which closes the eighteenth chapter of the same gospel.

The King is away, the administration in the hands of man in the meantime: this accounts for most of the characters we are considering. It is the distinctive, fundamental feature of this "mystery"-form; and as such, we must now examine it more attentively.

2. The Kingdom in the Hands of Men.

The kingdom in its present form is established and ruled by the word of an absent King. Being absent, it is clearly His word which speaks for Him, — which represents His authority. His kingdom is a kingdom of truth, according to His own words to Pilate, who asks Him, "Art Thou a king, then?" And He answers, "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice" (John 18: 37).

"Master" — or "Teacher" — "and Lord" are necessarily associated in thought. "Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am" (John 13: 13). "Master" implies of necessity, an authority, in Him absolute: and in this full sense He says to His disciples, "One is your Master, even Christ" (Matt. 28: 8). To receive His word is thus to bow to His authority: His word is, as in the parable (Matt. 18: 19), "the word of the kingdom." His subjects are thus nothing else than His disciples, and discipling is now into the kingdom of heaven — "every scribe which is instructed into the kingdom of heaven," in the end of the same chapter (Matt. 13: 52), is literally, "discipled."

The Sphere of Discipleship

In the parables of the kingdom thus we find pictured the sphere of discipleship, embracing true and false alike. There are tares and wheat, fishes good and bad, wise and foolish virgins, guests that have not on the wedding-garment, servants that have never truly served at all. The end declares the difference; and in the end the Son of Man purges out of His kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity. Till the harvest (which is "the end of the age" — not "world"), the tares and wheat, the good and the evil, are found together.

The kingdom, then, covers the whole field of profession. Those in it may be or may not be what they assume to be; and thus blessings of it are conditional accordingly. People may enter it in two ways; there is an outer and an inner sphere, as it were, in the kingdom itself. There is a mere outward belonging to it, not in heart: there is an inward and real entering in, to which salvation attaches: "Whosover shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved." It is here, of course, not merely a "Lord, Lord," but a true subjection of soul to Him.

All this will come out more as we go on with our subject. Yet it is well to realize it at the outset; for it makes simple much that otherwise would be dark and difficult enough. The conditionality of every thing is in accord with the general idea of a kingdom, where government, though it be gracious, is not yet pure grace; and where grace is shown, not in setting aside requirement, but in enabling for its fulfillment. This is how the children of God, as subjects of the kingdom, manifest themselves; and there is a whole class of passages in Scripture which, speaking in this manner, are often misread alike, yet in two opposite ways, by those who would maintain and those who refuse the full reality of divine grace toward men. The one class would take Paul's expression, "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest after having preached to others I myself should be a castaway," as meaning only that his service might be disapproved; while the other will have it that Paul fears here for his ultimate salvation. Neither view is correct: the term "castaway" is that translated "reprobate" in 2 Cor. 13, and it is of himself he speaks, and not his service. While the New Testment assures us, in its whole testimony in many concurrent lines of careful teaching, that true Christians "are not of them that draw back to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul" (Heb. 10: 39).

Binding and Loosing

The kingdom of heaven, then, in the form in which we are now considering it, is a kingdom of the truth, by subjection to which its true disciples are manifested. We are now to look at it as committed into the hands of men, the Lord being absent. It is plain that He uses men to minister "the word of the kingdom," and that a certain administration of its affairs is intended in the words, "whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven," "whose sins ye remit, they are remitted to them." The nature and limit of these assurances we shall have to inquire into immediately, but that the disciples are in some sense commissioned to represent their Lord, is clear and unequivocal.

The first of these we find for the first time in a promise given to Peter, when in the midst of nearly universal unbelief he confesses his faith in Christ as the Son of the living God: "Blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah," replies the Lord, "for flesh and blood bath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16: 17-19).

The keys of the kingdom are symbolic of authority over it; and almost the same language the Lord uses of Himself in the address to Philadelphia — "He that bath the key of David; that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth." The Pharisees He denounces for shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men: "Ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in" (Matt. 23: 13). And to the lawyers He says similarly (Luke 11: 52), "Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered."

All this agrees with what we have before seen — that the kingdom is a kingdom of the truth: thus the key speaks of entrance into the kingdom, and the entrance into such a kingdom is by the key of knowledge. The key speaks thus really, if not exclusively, of the power of discipling.

The power of binding and loosing, according to the Rabbinical writings, belonged to and described the office of a teacher. "The Rabbi set apart to 'loose or bind' might authoritatively declare what was binding on the conscience and what not; and in Talmudical writings, the phrase continually recurs by which a teacher or a school is said to loose or to bind, — i.e., to declare something obligatory or non-obligatory."* It is plain, then, that if the power of the keys speaks of entrance or admission into the kingdom, — of discipling, — that of binding and loosing applies to the regulation of the conduct of those already admitted or discipled, whatever may be the limits of this power. The latter naturally connects itself with the former, and follows it.

{* Edersheim's "History of the Jewish Nation," p. 405.}

There remains the question, Was the power of the keys personal to Peter only? The Romanist, it is well known, not only makes him the rock upon which the Church is built, but gives him in a special way the keys of heaven. The Church is, however, as distinct from the kingdom as the kingdom of heaven from heaven itself. With the former we have nothing to do just now: as to the latter, it is well to remark that the promise itself limits itself to earth as the sphere of this binding or loosing. "Whatsover thou shalt bind on earth" does not mean "whatsoever thou, being on earth, shalt bind," but just what it says. The earth is where only the binding applies; and "shall be bound in heaven" means simply that heaven being for the kingdom the seat of authority, it would confirm the act of its representatives on earth. On earth, — for earth, — alone is there power, though he who rebels against it rebels against the authority of heaven. It is as where the Lord says, "He that receiveth you receiveth Me" (Matt. 10: 40). The delegated power on earth represents the authority behind it.

But even for Rome, the keys belong not simply to Peter. There are successors to his chair. And the Protestant view, in which they represent the power of administering the Word and sacraments, must of course admit others as participants in this. Nor need there be a doubt that as Peter's faith was but the faith of the other disciples, so they as well as he participate in this promise. No doubt as his energy makes him foremost in confession, so also he retains a foremost place throughout; and so at Pentecost he opens the kingdom of heaven to the Jews, as afterward he is chosen of God to open it to the Gentiles in the person of Cornelius. But we can scarcely think of these two instances as being the only use made of the keys of the kingdom. The power of binding and loosing which is here also explicitly promised to Peter, we find in the eighteenth chapter of the same gospel (v. 18) extended to others also; and if the power of the keys be the power of administration or of discipling into the kingdom as we have seen, then the commission in the closing chapter explicitly extends this also: "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth," — the kingdom was just ready to begin, — "go ye, therefore, and teach" (or, as the margin and the Revised Version now, "make disciples of") "all nations." And that here successors are contemplated is plainly taught in the closing words: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

Thus the administration of the kingdom is committed to men. They are to initiate and receive others into it; they are to regulate it for and under Him. So completely is it intrusted to their care, that in the gospel of Mark the Lord represents the kingdom of God to be "as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how" (Mark 4: 26, 27). Not, of course, that His care over His people sleeps; but outwardly things happen in that which is professedly in subjection to Him without any open interference on His part. "But when the fruit is brought forth" (or "ripe," in the Rev. Ver.) "immediately He putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come." So will He presently put in the sickle; for, spite of man's doing, the harvest comes in its due season.

Yet in the meanwhile the kingdom takes strange shapes, and because it is true that He will have His harvest, and because it has been forgotten that the seed springs and grows up He knoweth not how, it has been taken for granted that if the kingdom of heaven is in the Word of God said to be "like" such and such things, — "like" mustard-seed, or "like" leaven in a woman's hand, — this decides that all is according to His mind. In fact, it is far otherwise; for this expression, "He knoweth not how," if it does not mean to convey, as we know it does not, any real ignorance, then does certainly imply that the growth spoken of is strange, irregular, as if He knew not. So it is said, "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish" (Ps. 1: 6). And if it be the fact of course that He knoweth the proud, yet to distinguish it from this approving knowledge it is added, "The proud He knoweth afar off" (Ps. 138: 6).

So of the growth of His kingdom in man's hand it may be truly said, He knoweth it not, or He knoweth it afar off; no new thing, alas! of that which comes of man's responsibility; here the words of the Psalmist surely apply, if any where, "Man being in honor abideth not" (Ps. 49: 12). Dispensation after dispensation has illustrated this rule: none have confirmed it more signally than the present.

Thus in the second parable of Matt. 13 it is "while men slept, the enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat" (v. 25). Thus, "while the bridegroom tarried," the whole company of professed watchers, wise as well as foolish, "all slumbered and slept" (Matt. 25: 5). But the history of this declension we shall look at, if the Lord will, at another time. We have yet more precisely to see first how the kingdom of heaven is entered, and what are the divine regulations for it. To appreciate the disorder, we must learn first of all the order; for it is plain that God has not committed it to man's mere will, but to his charge. He is to bind and loose, not despotically, but as himself in subjection to the will of Another. We must return, therefore, now to the subject of the keys.

3. The Keys of the Kingdom.

The mere expression, "keys of the kingdom," shows clearly that there is a definite mode of entrance, and that the kingdom is not in its present form territorial, as the kingdoms of this world are. A Christianized country, for instance, is not by this, or any the more for it, a part of the kingdom of heaven. Men do not come into it by natural birth, as they do into these. There is a mode of entrance, a method of discipling, not in the hands of the men of this world, but in the hands of disciples only. There is a door by which to enter, and which is in their keeping.

Moreover it is a double door. There is not merely a key, but there are keys to it. We need not be afraid to insist upon the Lord's words in their full meaning; nay, we are bound to insist upon this. His words are precise, and require loyal acceptance; we must neither add to nor yet take from them.

This sets aside (as any sufficient application) what is often taken as explaining this commission to Peter that he was the first to preach the gospel to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, and to the Gentiles in the person of Cornelius afterward. It does not take two keys to open the same door twice, that is plain. And the proclamation Of the gospel to men outside is by itself no real admission of any. It is the offer of its blessedness, but men must be received individually, and for this a distinct form of admission is prescribed.

We have seen that the Lord speaks of the key of knowledge, that the kingdom is a kingdom of the truth, its sphere that of profession, of discipleship; that people are discipled into it. But the key of knowledge is plainly only one key, and we need yet another before the door will open. The other we find in the commission given by the risen Lord to the eleven after His resurrection, in which He is about to ascend to the throne of the kingdom, — all authority given to Him in heaven and in earth; He instructs them as to discipling the nations: for so it really reads, "Go and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28: 19, 20).

"Baptizing" and "Teaching"

Here there are two keys: "baptizing" and "teaching" are the joint methods of discipling. In the one we have the key of knowledge; in the other that which as the outward part authoritatively admits into the body of disciples upon earth. Without this latter there would be no proper recognition of the body as such, nor of individual relationship to it, nor representation of the King's authority on earth.

Baptism is "unto Christ" (Rom. 6: 3), "unto the Name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 8: 16), a putting on of Christ (Gal. 3: 27). It is a separation to Him as Master and Lord, as by the cloud and the sea the Israelites were marked off as followers of their divinely-appointed guide, — "baptized unto Moses" (1 Cor. 10: 16). "Unto the Name of the Lord Jesus" — not "in" — defines it as the recognition of His Lordship — of the throne as His. Thus Paul also is exhorted by Ananias, "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the Name of the Lord" (Acts 22: 16). Thus also in Eph. 4: 5, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," are joined together.

And thus as a "baptism unto death," Christ having died for us, it is a "being buried with Him by baptism unto death, . . . that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead . . . so also we should walk in newness of life." It is thus for us the passing out of the old into a new condition; a change in which our sins are washed away; as the apostle, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins;" and as Ananias, "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins."

"Whose sins you remit they are remitted to them," the Lord had said before this; words which cannot be applied, as some would apply them, to the preaching of the gospel. We do not, in the gospel, remit any one's sins. We do what is more blessed: we declare on God's part the terms upon which He remits. "Through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by Him all that believe are justified from all things" (Acts 13: 38, 39). It is the declaration of the forgiveness of a certain class, but it does not declare any one to be of that class, or to have received the forgiveness. And when a soul through grace believes the gospel, and receives forgiveness, — though it were I that preached it, it is still not from me that he receives it in any wise, — it is not I that remit. Here is a thing in which God and the soul meet personally, and not by representatives. And it is of the greatest possible moment to maintain this. It is just here that popery brings in her falsehoods and builds the Church up into a barrier wall to shut God out into the old darkness.

Disciples have no place in the administration of such forgiveness. They are no more the channel than the source of it. God has not given this glory of His to another; and after this manner none can forgive sins but God alone. Let us only keep clear the distinction between heaven and the kingdom of heaven, and it will be impossible to make such mistakes as these. The kingdom of heaven is but the shadow of heaven upon earth. It witnesses to what is heavenly, finds its authority and sanction there, but remains still only the shadow. Useful and important in its place, it becomes only so much the more important that it retains that place. To confound the shadow with the substance is to degrade and displace both.

"I baptize with water," was John's answer to those who would have implied that, not being the Christ, to baptize was to invade His office. No use of water could possibly do that; and with water "Jesus Himself baptized not." No water can wash the soul; no spiritual transformation could be wrought by it. Divine power never works such marvels. The Creator uses His creation according to the sphere to which it belongs; for which He made it; and Creator and Redeemer are but one blessed God. The mysteries of Babylon the great are no Christian mysteries, but magic. The perversion of truth manifests them as not from above but from beneath.

Water Baptism — A Figure and Witness

When, therefore, baptism is spoken of as for the remission of sins, and when the Lord says, "whosoever sins you remit they are remitted unto them," it is certain that He does not mean that the water of baptism has power to wash the soul. What then is this remission? To understand this we must recognize it as the entrance into the kingdom, that in which one is received out of the outside world into the ranks of Christ's followers and subjects. It is plain that ideally the crossing of the line here is salvation — "the like figure whereunto even baptism Both also now save us" (1 Peter 3: 21). To cross the line in spirit is true salvation, and to this grand truth the whole figure witnesses. The controversy with the world is for the rejection of Christ; submission to Him means the controversy over, "Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved" (Acts 2: 21). Yet the activity in salvation is all on His side; men baptize not themselves, but are baptized. And this is the confession of guilt, of being under death; it is burial, yet to Christ, to His death: there is the power of life, not in baptism, but in Him to whom we are baptized: "Buried with Him by baptism Tinto death, that, as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6: 4).

There is thus really a witness to the gospel in baptism which is beautiful in its simplicity. No subtlety of understanding is needed for entering into it. No complexity of thought is here. Man's guilt and helplessness, and need of the work of Christ are vividly portrayed and powerfully enforced in it; while also the freeness and certainty of salvation are fully declared, and the blessing appropriated on God's part to the one received. Wilt thou have Christ for thy Lord? wilt thou indeed take thy place as His subject and disciple? Then here is remission of sins, here is salvation for thee, through the work of Christ which He accomplished for thee; take thy place among His disciples a saved man!

It is to be no doubt if He receives thee. He casteth out none. As surely as thou comest thou art received. "Repent and be baptized every one of you unto the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2: 38).

Thus the preaching of baptism is a clear, simple, straightforward gospel, with good holdfast for the fingers of drowning men. There are no refinements, and there is no doubt. So only could it represent the salvation of Christ, which is yea only, and not yea and nay, — rest, and self-torture.

But then it is evident also that this is but the shadow, the witness of salvation, not the salvation itself. Not all that are baptized are saved, alas! and this from no uncertainty in the gospel terms, but from uncertainty only as to the reality in the soul of the disciple. And in regard to many, how much uncertainty must there be. And this is expressly contemplated in those parables of the kingdom, in which the mysteries of it are shown forth. Ten virgins go forth alike to meet the Bridegroom; but five of them are wise, and five are foolish. The wedding is furnished with guests, but among them comes the one who has not on a marriage-garment. And in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, at the close, this very matter of forgiveness is taken up, and we are taught in the person of the pitiless servant that forgiveness in the kingdom is not the full and absolute forgiveness which the gospel preaches, but conditional upon character. If the professed disciple turn out to be not one in heart, then the remission grounded on the supposition becomes finally no true remission. The blessings of the kingdom are all conditional and reversible.

Baptism, then, is admission into the kingdom of Christ, out of a world of sin, lying in the condemnation of it. It is reception among those to whom as His own remission belongs. But, as administered by man, the blessings and privileges of it must be received by faith or not received. And this reconciles the fact of baptism as admission into it with what the Lord says as to the necessity of conversion: "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18: 3). This is indeed the necessity for the class to whom the Lord addresses Himself. Discipleship means no less than this, if it be real. To enter into the kingdom is not merely to come into it in an outward way, but to come into it in spirit also, to be really subjects and followers of the Lord of the kingdom.

But this does not at all imply that people cannot be in it except as converted. The parables that the Lord uttered as to it show the reverse of this. Tares are in it as well as wheat; foolish virgins, as well as wise; in the end of the age, the Son of Man will send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all that offend, and them which do iniquity. Thus the kingdom will be freed: but they must be in it to be gathered out.*

{* Our Lord's words to Nicodemus on the other hand are really different; and I do not ground this upon its being the "kingdom of God," of which He there speaks. While the kingdom of God gives a somewhat different aspect, it is true, it is nevertheless not a different thing. Parables of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew's gospel are in the other gospels parables of the kingdom of God, and among these are those of the leaven and the mustard-seed. But what makes the words of John's gospel different is that the Lord is speaking in them to a Jewish teacher with direct reference to Ezekiel's prophecy of Israel's conversion in the latter day (Ezek. 36: 24-26). And this is how, in fact, they will be brought in, the sinners still remaining such being consumed out of their midst by judgment. Thus Isaiah speaks also of the time (Isa. 4: 3, 4), — "And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem; when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning."

That the Lord's words had a wider application than to Israel I do not for a moment question, but it is of the kingdom in its future state He speaks, when that which offends, and those who do iniquity, are removed from it. A teacher in Israel should have known the absolute necessity of such a change as new birth for the enjoyment of the blessings the prophets had declared.}

But the breadth of the kingdom we must look at more fully now, and together with this the relation to what by many is strangely confounded with it, — the Church, of which the Lord speaks to the apostle in the words preceding those we have been seeking to explain.

4. The Breadth of the Kingdom.

There is no need to produce further proof that the kingdom covers the whole profession of Christianity. A glance at the parables should settle this. But we have to see yet that it goes beyond even what we can properly call profession; that discipleship goes beyond this; the kingdom being indeed exactly commensurate with this last, — ideally, with the whole of the baptized.

And here I am reminded that in what I shall have to say I must speak contrary to the convictions of many beloved brethren, and seem, perhaps, even in speaking, to make light of these. I do not in the least, but sympathize fully with the strength of their feelings regarding the dishonor done to Christ, and the injury done to men's souls by views widely current as to baptism. Babylon the great has been built up by the use of bricks for stones, and slime for mortar, — the substitution of human manufacture for divine creation, — of a "sacramental host of God's elect" for those "baptized by one Spirit into one body." And in the hands of these builders baptism has been made to build up a "great house" with vessels to dishonor, from which we are called to purge ourselves if we would be "vessels unto honor" (2 Tim. 2: 20, 21). Protest against this false ritualistic system can hardly go too far or be too strongly maintained.

Water Baptism is Not Baptism of the Holy Spirit

The baptism of water has been confounded with the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and infants have been supposed to be regenerated by it, and made partakers of a life that gave no sign, and bore no fruit for God, and but deluded those who trusted in it. Then, as they could not say that every one so baptized was fit for heaven, they had to send a large part of these man-made children of God to hell, and most of the rest to purgatory to be purified by fire there. While yet, without this baptismal regeneration, not even a little babe could go to heaven.

The fundamental error here is twofold: first, in confounding, as already said, the natural and the spiritual spheres. Water cannot cleanse a soul, nor impart spiritual life. It may be "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," but not "a means whereby we receive the same." Secondly, in confounding heaven and the kingdom of heaven, or again, the kingdom of heaven and the Church. And from these last two, Protestantism has not in general, any more than Rome, escaped. The distinction between the two leaves a place of privilege and conditional blessing, which is not the Church, and yet which is not the world either, save as it is untrue to its character, and the principles of the world may leaven it. And this is what Scripture attests would happen, and history shows has happened.

But man's unbelief cannot make the faithfulness of God without effect. The kingdom of heaven, with its message of peace and reconciliation, remains the testimony of a love which goes out to all, and would gather in to God wherever the will of man is not hardening itself in opposition. We do not, in fact, in Scripture meet with that long delay of baptism, and that preparation of catechumens, which came in as baptism itself came to be looked upon as reception into the Church, and the symbol of the full Christian state. In the New Testament the catechumens were inside, not outside, the sphere of discipleship. Instead of being kept waiting at the thresh old, the applicants were met with a generous and unsuspecting welcome. Three thousand were baptized on the day of Pentecost: how much preliminary instruction had they? And if, as at Samaria, a Simon Magus were received, with his heart not right in the sight of God, his reception had not defiled those tender arms of mercy which had been flung around him, and from which he had, as it were, to burst, to pursue the headlong path to everlasting ruin. I say, it is evident upon the face of Scripture, that baptism was not then fenced round, as many now would fence it round. It was a door, not carelessly, but readily and with a full heart, opened to the applicant for it. No question of Christ's heart, no "if thou wilt" was to be permitted.

But notice also, no hint of the Church of God is connected with this, its occurrence even in Acts 2: 47 in the common version being a copyist's error. The doctrine of the Church was revealed to Paul much later, and he who "received of the Lord" (1 Cor. 11: 23), as to the institution of the Supper, had no commission to baptize (1 Cor. 1: 17). In the first is involved the question of communion; in the second, the responsibility is only individual.

Baptism of Children

This wider character of the kingdom we see further in our Lord's words as to the little children brought to Him. "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," are words which become very plain when we have seen what the kingdom is. In these little ones is no resisting will, and divine love would lay hold upon them for its own. Once see that the kingdom is not heaven, but a sphere of discipleship on earth, you can no more stumble at the thought of baptizing them than of taking them into your Sunday Schools. They belong, the Lord says, to His school at all times, and here He would meet them, put His hands on them, and bless them, as when on earth He did. The great arms of the Redeemer will not wait even for their final choice of Him to be made manifest, but would Will them, prevail upon them by their tender clasp, mark them as His in His will, whatever even in the end may be their own. How precious is this thought of His, which then He turns to us to help carry out: "Bring them up," He says, "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6: 4).

They are His disciples, taken into His school, and to be brought up for Him. And who would, as such, reject them? Is it not because of the superstition which has been connected with the thought, and the confusion between the kingdom and the Church, that so many now reject the baptism of infants as a popish figment, while they would do for them gladly the very thing which baptism implies, and rightly think it any thing but popish?

Let us remember that baptism is not to take them to heaven as a charm, but to mark them as belonging to Christ's school on earth; that, as far as it goes, it is "baptism unto death," not life; burial, the putting the dead in death, where they belong; but in that touching confession of their need, baptizing them "unto Christ," "to His death," looking for all to come to them, not from the water, but from Christ, through His work for them, which we thus own. Find me in this one shred of popery or superstition, any one that will. It is only the sweet and suited, open and apparent action of One who says in it what He says of old: "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven": words that charm our hearts, beloved brethren, and command our allegiance.

This character of the kingdom, then, is a beautiful one, that it represents to us the very character of Him who is on the throne of it, — the grace that casts out none that come, that would fain receive all, even those who break away at last from its shelter. Yes, such is the love of Jesus; and to me, while I own the difference of the dispensation, and do not want to press uncertain analogies, yet it seems only the more suited that He, who in the days of law recognized the children of His people in the mark of circumcision, should now, in the grace that is come in with Christianity, not leave them without some corresponding mark. I am assured He has not done so; and the confusion and evil in His kingdom cannot affect the grace of it, or make it less certain that His kingdom it is. And when the limit of His patience has been reached, love it will be still that will act, the rod of iron will be the Shepherd's rod.

But we must now consider more attentively the distinction 'between the kingdom and the Church.

5. The Kingdom and the Church.

To most Christians perhaps, even at the present day, the kingdom and the Church are one. The Church practically is the whole body of professors: what else is the kingdom? They would not deny that these are different aspects, — that the thought connected with each is different, but they are aspects only of the same thing. We have now, then, to consider how far this difference extends — whether it be only of thought, or of the things themselves.

The kingdom we have seen to be the sphere of discipleship; the Church is, in its fundamental idea, the body of Christ, — it is the unity of His members. Notice that that action of the Spirit by which we are brought into this body is called "baptism:" "by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body" (1 Cor. 12: 13). Scripture, by adopting this word in this connection. institutes a comparison, thus, between the kingdom and the Church. But the one baptism is an external rite; the other, inward and spiritual. The error of identifying the two spheres has led to that of identifying the two baptisms; but the one is in the hand of man, the other in the power of God alone.

The Church is not only the body of Christ; it is also the house of God: and under this figure of a house the Lord first speaks of it in the gospels, — "Upon this rock I will build My Church." Peter, taking up and extending the Lord's words, shows us this building and its foundation clearly: "To whom coming. as unto a Living Stone, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2: 4, 5). But Paul it is, to whom the doctrine of the body of Christ was committed, who first explicitly calls the Church, as indwelt by the Holy Ghost, the house and the temple of God (Heb. 3: 6; 1 Cor. 3: 19). As the Church, then, is in the kingdom, which is yet wider and external to it, it stands with respect to the kingdom as the temple to its outer court. In the former, the priestly family drew near and worshiped; in the other alone, the Israelite of the common people. Peter identifies, as it were, the house and the priesthood: "a spiritual house, a holy priesthood."

The house and body were, in God's design, and for a short time at the beginning, exactly commensurate. The one was composed of living stones, the other of living members. But men with their bad building have done as was foretold: they have unduly enlarged the house. They have built in "wood, hay, stubble" (1 Cor. 3: 12- 17). Thus the house is become "as a great house," in which there are vessels of gold and silver, of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor." And it will be purged from its disorder only when the Master comes.

But we have not here to think of the disorder, but to look back to the beginning to get the true design of the divine Architect. The more simply we can do so the better.

In the kingdom, then, we have individual responsibility, conditional blessing, a place of privilege to which man has authority to introduce his fellow; in the Church, a place of absolute grace, relationship to one another, communion: and here belongs another institution which expresses this. Paul, the special apostle of the Church, to whom it was given to complete the doctrine of it, was not sent to baptize (1 Cor. 1: 17). But he has, by distinct revelation from the Lord, the institution of the memorial feast, in which not only do we symbolically "eat the Lord's flesh and drink His blood," but in which also it is expressed that "we, being many, are one bread, one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread" (1 Cor. 11: 24; 1 Cor. 10: 17).

Baptism and the kingdom speak of conditional blessing and individual responsibility; the Church, and the breaking of bread, of already-enjoyed (therefore absolute) grace, and fellowship in it, relationship to one another and the Lord. The kingdom is the outer court of the sanctuary; the Church, the house of God, the sanctuary itself. The first affirms God's desire toward all; the last is the espoused object of Christ's unchanging love.

It may thus be seen why Paul, the "minister of the Church" as we have seen in a special sense, claims to be also specially the "minister of the gospel" (Col. 1: 23), and to have as his peculiar mission "to preach the gospel" (1 Cor. 1: 17), the last in some sort of opposition even to a commission to baptize. So he speaks of "my gospel" (Rom. 16: 25), associating with it the "mystery" of the Church. And, as has been fully shown by others, in fact it is Paul who alone speaks plainly of justification and of our place in Christ. With the other inspired writers it is rather forgiveness, although I do not say that there are not passages which look beyond this.

In the kingdom, the twelve are to sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19: 28). Here we cannot imagine a thirteenth throne for Paul. The commission to baptize, we have seen, was given to them also, although Paul takes it up and acts upon it, as we all do since.

Paul thus completes — as the sense is in Col. 1: 25 — the Word of God. The complete truth is given through him, and hence he preaches also the kingdom of God (Acts 20: 25). All lines of truth we shall find in his epistles who in his own person is the expression of the perfect grace of God. Nay, in a sense, he can bring out the very truth of the kingdom itself with more distinctness, because he is able to give along with it the full position and standing of the true believer.

Accordingly, nowhere so fully as in Paul's epistles do we find the warnings as to a fruitless profession with which we are so familiar. He who can say, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under law, but under grace," can on that very account the more insist that "to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness" (Rom. 6: 14, 16). The freedom to which God has called us, the power with which He endues us, make the service of sin now so unutterably solemn; because it is manifestly on man's part the choice of evil: it is man's will in rejection of the grace of God.

On the other hand, even he in the experience of the seventh of Romans can still say, "The good that I would," "the evil that I would not," while of Christians characteristically it is said, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Rom. 8: 14). The true Christian, conscious of the grace of which he is the subject, and established in a place which is unchangeably his, is just the one who submits himself joyfully to all the conditions of discipleship; and this is what Paul does in those words of his so often misinterpreted, (Rom. 9: 26, 27) — "I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest after having preached to others I myself should be a castaway." He is here speaking as a disciple under the rules of the kingdom, — as a disciple to disciples; but he knows not only how to tread the courts of the Lord, but how, as a priest, enter the sanctuary also, and to say, "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us: who can separate us from the love of Christ?"

Here again, to keep the kingdom and Church distinct, throws light upon the Word. Never will you find these conditions insisted on where it is a question of the child of God as such, or of justification and the place in Christ, membership in the body of Christ, or any thing which implies that divine grace has indeed wrought in the soul. All such conditions apply to the disciple — to all disciples surely, but as such, — to the kingdom, the court of the temple. The Church is the temple of God itself, the place of enjoyed nearness and settled relationship.

Three Spheres in Ephesians 4

Before we close this, it will be well to notice how the apostle separates these different spheres in the fourth chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians. His seven unities there comprise and are divided into three concentric circles of blessing, of which he begins with the innermost and proceeds outward. The innermost circle is that of the Church: "There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." Next, we have that of the kingdom: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." Outside, again, is the world; not, of course, in the evil sense, but as the creation of God: "one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all." This is the Scripture classification, which it has been our object to establish here.

6. Parables of the Kingdom in Matthew Thirteen.

Seed-sowing and its Results

We have now seen what the kingdom is, and learned the general principles by which to interpret that parabolic teaching in which the Lord was pleased to convey to us most of the instruction which we have concerning it. Of these there are first to be considered the seven parables of the thirteenth chapter, in which we have its prophetic history from its commencement in the seed sown by the Lord Himself, until the mystery-form is ended by His appearing in the heavens. It is plain that this alone will close it, as it is that this is what is contemplated in the parables themselves; but we shall have to look at it fully at another time in answering some objections which have been raised to what I believe the true interpretation of the last parable.

In the twelfth chapter, the Lord, in announcing His death and resurrection, has declared the rejection of Israel. No sign further should be given them but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for as Jonah had been three days and nights in the whale's belly, so the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And thereupon He shows what would be the result to that wicked generation which had rejected Him (Matt. 12: 41-45). His new relationships would be with the doers of His Father's will, and with these alone (Matt. 12: 46-50). This manifestly would exclude the nation of Israel in their unbelief, while it would bring in any and every believing Gentile. Judaism, with its narrow restrictions, was therefore gone.

A significant action on the Lord's part introduces the parables of the thirteenth chapter. He leaves the house, to sit by the seaside. Let any one compare the picture of the woman that "sitteth upon many waters" in Rev. 17: 1, and he will find the meaning of this. The angel interprets it for us in that chapter: "The waters where the whore sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues" (v. 15). So here the Lord is leaving the house, the place of recognized natural relationship, to take His place, as it were, in the highway of the commerce of the world, which the sea is. And there, to the multitude upon the shore, He begins His parable with "Behold, a sower went forth to sow."

But Israel had been His vineyard, long ago planted, fenced, and cared for, according to His own words at another time (Matt. 21: 33). From it He had looked for fruit, not as a fresh field to sow it for harvest. From Israel He had to "go forth" elsewhere, with that "word of the kingdom" already by them rejected, to get fruit for Himself with it in the field of the world at large. For "the field is the world," as He Himself interprets to us, — not a chosen nation, but the whole earth.

We are at once, then, brought face to face with what has been going on during the whole of the history of Christendom. The results, as the Lord gives them here, are before our eyes.

The seed is "the word of the kingdom" (v. 19), the declaration of the authority and power of One rejected and crucified as "King of the Jews." Raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, He sits upon the Father's throne, all authority in heaven and earth being given unto Him who is exalted to be at the same time "a Prince and a Saviour." This is the seed He sows, and the sowing is always His, though He may use others as His instruments. The form the kingdom takes, therefore, is not as it will be yet — set up by almighty power, to which every thing must needs give way. It is offered for man's acceptance. It may be rejected. Faith is still to prepare the way of the Lord, and it is seen in result that "all men have not faith." In the kingdom predicted by the Old Testament prophets, and yet to be upon the earth, a "rod of iron" will break down all opposition. Here, on the contrary, it shows itself at once in its three fundamental forms — as devil, flesh, and world. Three parts of the seed fail thus of fruit. Not only is there distinct and open rejection, but also men may receive the word outwardly, and thus become subjects of the kingdom, and yet be quite unfruitful and merely self-deceived. Thus in some of its general features the world of profession all around us is portrayed.

The Wayside Hearer

The first class represented here comes before us in the way-side hearer. In him the power of Satan is seen, though in such a manner as to leave the man himself fully responsible. It is solemn to read even of such an one, that the word was "sown in his heart" (v. 19). That does not imply conversion. He does not even "understand." But why? Because, as with the way-side, the ground on which it is sown is too hard-trodden for the seed to penetrate; and it lies exposed to the birds of heaven, tempting, as it were, the tempter to "catch it away." Of such souls there are many: preoccupied with what hardens and deadens them to other influences — be it business, be it pleasure, — lawful or lawless: it is the effect here that is noted, little matter how produced.

Still the word is "sown in the heart." Marvelous power of the Word of God, which, wherever it speaks, carries with it something of its divine authority. The "inner man of the heart" is reached, and made aware of that which brings with it its own evidence and claims. "By manifestation of the truth," says the apostle, "commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." Not every man will own how he winces under the truth. But he does wince. "Light" is there, consciously to the soul that turns away from it even, but turns away because conscious it is light, and loving darkness rather, the fit cover of evil deeds.

These moments of conviction, who that has ever listened to the Word can be a stranger to them? Nor does it follow that the Word is understood in any proper sense. It is felt as light, detecting the thoughts and intents of the heart; and the one who feels, and turns away from it because he feels it, falls thus under the devil's power. The impression made is soon removed. The seed sown is caught away. The poor dupe of Satan learns perhaps even to laugh at the momentary conviction, and to congratulate himself upon the wisdom of his present indifference.

The Stony Ground Hearer

In the next class of hearers, the stony ground illustrates the opposition of the flesh. And for this end it is pictured, not at its worst, but at its best. This man "heareth the word, and immediately with joy receiveth it; yet has he not root in himself." Here is not the natural man's rejection of the Word, but his reception of it; though there is no more real fruit than, in the first case. The seed has rapid growth, the rocky bed forming a sort of natural hot-bed for it, so that it springs up quickly with abundant promise. But the very thing which favors this ready development forbids continuance. The seed cannot root itself in the rock, and the sun withers it up.

It is easy to see what is wanting here, and that the picture is of the stony heart of unbelief, unchanged, denying the Word admittance, where seeming most to receive it. Many such cases there are — where the gospel is apparently at once and with joy received, but where the immediate joy is just the sign of surface-work, and of unreality at bottom. With such, the plowshare of conviction has never made way for the seed to penetrate. The work is mental and emotional only, not in the conscience. There has been no repentance, — no bringing down into the dust, in the consciousness of a lost, helpless, undone condition, which nothing but the blood and grace of Christ can meet. There has been no coming out of self — self-righteousness and self-sufficiency — to Him.

Thus there is no root in the man himself, Christ is not his real and grand necessity. So "when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the Word, by and by he is offended." This is the religion of the flesh, of sentiment, of unreality, and this is its end. It lacks the sign and seal of a work truly divine — permanence. It "dureth for awhile." "I know that what God doeth, it shall be forever" (Ecc. 3: 14).

It should admonish every workman who goes forth with the precious seed of the Word of God, that there is such a hasty springing up of the Word he carries, which (in souls unexercised before) is not to be caught at and rejoiced in, but just the contrary. An easy passage into joy and peace, without any deep conviction, — any real taking the place of a lost sinner before God. It is not that experiences are to be preached, or trusted in by souls, for peace. Christ alone is our peace, most surely. But we should nevertheless be admonished, that if Christ came "to seek and to save the lost" (and that is the gospel — "good news" — if any is) men must know that they are lost in order to receive this gospel message. This is the Scripture truth and necessity of repentance; and this is its place: "Repent ye, and receive the gospel."

The Thorny Ground Hearer

We come now to the third class of these hearers, to him "that received seed among the thorns." The Lord interprets for us what is figured here as the opposition of the world; "the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the Word, and he becometh unfruitful."

It is a more solemn warning, perhaps, than either of the others. For the Word here seems to have deeper hold, and it is not the violent assault of persecution that overthrows this faith, but the quiet influence of things in one form or another about us all. No one of us but proves more or less how occupation with needful and lawful things tends to become a "care" that saps the life of all that is of God within us. Soul-care is not despised, but just crowded out. We all feel the tendency; and who does not remember cases such as this, of those in whom the seed of the Word apparently was springing up, and where, by no sudden assault or pressure of temptation, but just in the ordinary wear and tear of life, perhaps along with the unsuspected influence of prosperity so called, like seed among thorns, the promise of fruit was choked?

But in all three cases, let us carefully mark that, however fair the appearance, there was, at the best, no "fruit." It was, in all, "faith," which "having not work," was dead, being alone. It wrought nothing really for God in the souls of those that had it. It brought about no judgment of sin, no brokenness of heart, no turning to God: where these are, there is fruit and real faith, and eternal life. Such shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of His hand in whom they have believed.

The Good Ground Hearer

Of the fourth class alone is it said, "He heareth the Word and understandeth it." This is the character of him who "received seed into the good ground." And this man also "beareth fruit." The understanding of the Word is thus the great point here. And what puts us into a condition for understanding the gospel is just the understanding of ourselves. Our guilt, our impotence, our full need apprehended by the soul, opens the way to apprehend the fullness and blessedness of the gospel message. If I am a sinner, and powerless by any effort of my own to get out of this place, how sweet and simple is it that Jesus died for sinners, and that through Him God "justifieth the ungodly." If I can do nothing, how that word, "to him that worketh not, but believeth," shines out to my soul! I understand it. It suits me. It is worthy of God. There is no good ground, prepared to receive the seed of the gospel, save that which has been thus broken up by the conviction, not of sin only, but of helplessness. "When we were without strength" came the "due time" in which "Christ died for the ungodly."

The lessons of this parable are plain enough. It teaches that the kingdom is not established by power, but by the reception of the Word, which in an adverse world is not only not universal, but often unreal where nominally it exists. It shows that the kingdom is not territorial — that in its nature it is a kingdom of the truth, whose subjects are disciples, and the introduction to which is discipling, and which grows by individual accretions. So much is plain; and it is the foundation of all that follows.

7. Tares Among the Wheat.

Thus it is plain that the kingdom in its present form is not to be a universal one. From that which the prophets of the Old Testament picture, it is widely distinguished. Left to man's reception of it, and not set up by the right hand of power, it is received by some, rejected by many; and even where outwardly received, in many cases no real fruit Godward is the result. There are thus "children of the kingdom" who in the end, like those among Israel, are cast out of it; and that where there is no fault with the seed or with the sowing of it, but the fault is entirely in the nature of the soil in which the seed is sown.

But that is not the whole picture by any means. We are now to see not merely the ill success of the good seed, but the result of the introduction of seed of another character, and sown by another hand, — the positive sowing of the enemy himself, and not simply his opposition to that sown by another. "The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way" (v. 24, 25). Thus, in the very midst of that which the first parable has shown us springing up — good wheat, although there may be many barren and blighted ears — the enemy sows, not wheat at all, but tares. In this case, it is not the Word of Christ that is sown, clearly, but Satan's corruption of it. The springing up of the good seed could not produce tares, nor the father of lies preach truth. Hence, the test of a man's speaking by a good or evil spirit could be, "Every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ come in the flesh* is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist," etc. (1 John 4: 2, 3). The enemy of Christ ("His enemy," v. 25), even "as an angel of light," will not hold up Christ, for he knows too well what Christ is for souls. On the other hand, when Christ was preached, even of envy and strife, the apostle could rejoice for the same reason (Phil. 1). But here, not the "corn of wheat," (John 12: 24) which would bring forth wheat if it sprang up at all, but "tares" are sown; and "tares" and nothing else spring up. The word "sown," in imitation yet in real opposition to the truth, produces under a Christian name and dress a host of real enemies to the truth and to Christ, "children of the wicked one" (v. 38), not mere children of nature, however fallen, but the devil's own, — begotten by his word, as God's children by His.

{*This is more literal as a translation than "that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," of the common version.}

And here, alas, we read of no hindrances, no opposition of hard-trodden ground, or underlying rock, — no catching away by the birds of the air, — no choking` by thorns. All circumstances favor this seed and its growth. It needs no nursing; will thrive amid "cares of this world," and grow up in companionship with the "deceitfulness of riches." It is at home everywhere, and the soil everywhere congenial, for its "wisdom" is not "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God:" it "descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish" (James 3: 15).

So it prospers. And even the children of God, — nay, "the servants" (v. 27), are slow to discern the true nature of what is being sown, and growing up amongst them. Sad and solemn it is to see how lightly we think of error; for it is but another way of saying how lightly we value the truth. Yet by the word of truth are we begotten, and by the truth are we sanctified (James 1: 18; John 17: 17). It is this by which we alone know either ourselves or God. It is of the perversion of this that the apostle said, "Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1: 8); words that he emphatically repeats, that we may be assured that it was no hastiness of ill-tempered zeal that moved him, but the true inspiration of the Spirit of Christ.

The seed springs up, then, and there are now tares among the wheat. How soon that began in the professing church! Judaism, legalism, ceremonialism, and even the denial of the resurrection itself, the keystone of Christian doctrine, you may find again and again among the churches of the apostolic days; and in the sure Word of God what solemn warnings as to the future, — a future long since present. "Even now are there many antichrists," wrote the last of the apostles, "whereby we know it is the last time."

But for the sowing of these tares, those are responsible to whom the field has been intrusted. "While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat." There was the failure. In the case given in the first parable, they had not power to prevent the ill-success of the Word of truth in men's hearts, or the hollowness of an external profession of the truth, which yet had no proper root in the man who made it. All who "gladly received the Word upon the day of Pentecost" were baptized "the same day." There was no waiting to see if, when tribulation came, they would endure, and yet that was the real test for the stony-ground hearer. Such would "immediately with joy" receive the Word, and so baptism, and be added to the disciples. It was not failure on the part of the baptizers, if such there were, for the heart they could not read. There each man stood on his own responsibility to God.

But it was a different thing when that which was not the Word, but Satan's corruption of it, began to be sown, and that in the very midst of disciples. And, once again I say, how soon that took place! and how soon it became needful to write even to the little babes about Antichrist; and to exhort men "earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints;" and that, because of "certain men, crept in unawares, — ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 3, 4). Thus were the tares already manifested. "The children of the wicked one" were there. Christ was denied in His own kingdom. The question of His actual sovereignty was raised, and He must come in sovereignty and in judgment to decide that question. The servants are not competent to decide it. "The servants said unto Him, 'Wilt thou, then, that we go and gather them up?'" these tares. "But He said, 'Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.'"

A solemn lesson, from which we may, if we will, learn much; while it does not teach what so many seem disposed to learn from it. For plainly, communion at the Lord's table is not at all the question here, and it is nothing less than willful blindness to persist in this application of it in the face of the manifold Scriptures which contradict it. What meaning could "Put out from among yourselves that wicked person," addressed to the church at Corinth, have for those who here learn from the lips of the Lord Himself, as they say, that tares and wheat are to grow up together in the church, and that it is vain and wrong to attempt any such separation? And what mean even their own feeble efforts to put out some notorious offenders, if this be so? If this be to gather up tares, why attempt it in the case of even the worst, when the principle they maintain is not to do it at all?

Gathering of Tares in Angels' Hands

On the other hand, this passage does teach us that it is one thing to know and own the evil that has come in, and quite another to have power or authority to set things right again. Men slept, and the tares were sown. No after-vigilance or earnestness could repair the mischief. The gathering up must be left for angels' hands in the day of harvest. "Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say unto the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn."

Jude's remedy for the state of things is just the same. Of the ungodly men of whom he speaks as having crept in among the disciples, he says, "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, 'Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.'" Thus alone in the wheat field of Christendom is the separation of the evil from the good effected. It is quite another thing to purge ourselves, according to the apostle's word to Timothy (2 Tim. 2), from the vessels to dishonor in the house; and this we are bound to do. The purging of the house itself the Lord alone will and can do.

Meanwhile, tares and wheat do grow together. The dishonor done to Christ in Christendom no means of ours can ever efface or rectify. No, not even the most zealous preaching of the gospel, however blessed the result of that, will ever turn the tares of Unitarianism, Universalism, annihilationism, popery, and what not, into good wheat for God's granary. Nor can we escape their being numbered with us as Christians in the common profession of the day. If we meet them at the Lord's table, as if it were no matter, ,or we could not help it, we should proclaim ourselves "one bread, one body" with them (1 Cor. 10: 17); for "we, being many, are one bread and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread." But while refusing to link ourselves with them to the dishonor of our Lord and Master, we cannot put ourselves outside the common profession of Christianity to avoid companionship with them there. Nor if we had power, have we skill to separate infallibly the Lord's people, many of them mixed up with most of the various forms of error. "The Lord knoweth them that are His" is alone our comfort. He will make no mistake. And "Behold, the Lord cometh," is the only available remedy which faith looks for, for the state of things at large.

Tares Gathered in Bundles for Burning

The separation, which men's hands are thus declared incompetent for, remains for angels' hands in the day of the harvest of Christendom. They are the reapers then. The field is to be cleared of wheat and tares alike; and at one moment it is bidden both to gather the tares in bundles to be burnt, and to gather the wheat into the barn. Thus solemnly the day of Christian profession ends.

But let us look a little more closely at the order and manner of it, which is of the greatest importance in order to understand it rightly.

"Gather together first the tares, and hind them in bundles to burn them." There is no actual burning yet, and there is no removal from the field. It is a separation of the tares in the field, so as to leave the wheat distinct and ready for the ingathering. In what manner, we must refrain from conjecturing; whether it will be gradually or suddenly effected, we do not know. The separation will be, however, made, and the true people of the Lord will stand in their own distinct company at last when that day is come. There will follow then, not the removal of the tares, but of the wheat. The tares are left in bundles on the field; the wheat are gathered into the barn.

Wheat Gathered into His Barn

We know what this is very well; and how many joyful hopes are crowded into that brief sentence. The scene is pictured for us in 1 Thess. 4. The descent of the Lord into the air; the shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; the resurrection of the dead in Christ, the myriads fallen asleep in Him through the ages of the past; the change of the living saints throughout the earth; the rise of that glorious company; the meeting and the welcome; the henceforth "ever with the Lord," — all these are the various parts and features of that which these words figure to us: "Gather the wheat into My barn." Suddenly, we know, this will be. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," this change will be effected; every living saint will be gathered out of the length and breadth of Christendom,* and it will be left but a tare-field simply, with its tares gathered and bound in bundles, ready for the burning.

False Professor Finally Linked With the Tares

And where are the barren and blighted ears of false profession? Where is he of the stony ground? where the man in whom the good seed of the Word was choked with the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and brought no fruit to perfection? We have seen that the "tares" are not simply such, but the fruit of Satan's perversion of the Word. They are not those of whom the apostle speaks as "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof;" but rather they are those, whether teachers or taught, to whom apply the words of another apostle, concerning "false teachers, who shall privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them," and whose "pernicious ways" many shall follow, "by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of" (2 Peter 2). These are the tares of the devil's sowing, and it is important to distinguish them from the mere formalist and unfruitful professor of the truth. It is on account of these, as both Peter and Jude tell us, that the swift and terrible judgment which ends the whole comes. "Enoch," the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, 'Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all.'"

{*There is a notion current among many who believe in the Lord's coming, that only those who are in a certain state of preparation among the saints then living will be caught up then, and the rest will be left on earth to be purified by the tribulation that follows. I cannot do more than allude to this just now: but it is completely contradicted in the words of the parable before us.}

And yet the formalist, the man of mere profession, will not escape. In the judgment of the dead before the great white throne they will receive according to their deeds as surely as any, but that is long after the scene before us in this parable. Here is a simple question of good wheat for the granary or of tares for the burning. Nothing else is in the field at all. There is no middle class, no unfruitful orthodox profession; all seem to have taken sides, before the solemn close of the time of harvest, either manifestly for Christ, or as manifestly against Him. Is this indeed so? and have we warrant for such an interpretation of the language of the parable?

The Apostasy of Christendom

The answer to this is a very solemn one; and we shall find it in the second epistle to the Thessalonians. In the first epistle, the apostle had spoken of "the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him." He had assured them that even the sleeping saints would be brought with Christ when He should come again (1 Thess. 4: 14); and that in order to accompany Him so on His return to earth, they would be raised from the dead, and together with all the living ones of that day, be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Thus, when He "appeared" to judge the world, they would appear with Him in glory (Col. 3: 4). He could therefore in His second epistle beseech the Thessalonian Christians, by their knowledge of this coming, and this "gathering," not to be shaken in mind, or troubled, as supposing or being persuaded that the day of the Lord had already come.* That day (as all the prophets witness) is the day of the Lord's taking the earth from under man's hand and into His own, the time in which His judgments are upon the earth, and the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. That day, he assures them, shall not come unless there come a falling away (an apostasy) first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped.

{* 2 Thess. 2: 2: The word rendered "is at hand" in the common version, is the one rendered "present," in opposition to "to come," in Rom. 8: 38 and 1 Cor. 3: 22; and so Alford renders it here. It is the only proper rendering. The generality of editors also read "the day of the Lord" instead of "the day of Christ."}

The Anti-Christ

Now, my object is not any special application or interpretation of this. So much is manifest, that this "man of sin," whoever he may be, is one who heads up an, or rather "the" apostasy of the latter days. The evil, the mystery of iniquity, was already at work even in the apostles' days (v. 7). There was, however, for the present, a restraint upon it. When that should be removed, the wicked one would be revealed, who was to be destroyed alone, mark, by the Lord's coming (v. 8).

Thus we are evidently in view of the same period as that contemplated in the parable before us, as well as of the judgment which Jude warns of. The passage in the Thessalonians exhibits, however, the "man of sin" as the distinct head and leader of the latter-day apostasy, and, moreover, declares to us how far this apostasy shall extend. The coming of the "wicked one" is declared to be with a terrible power of delusion which will carry away captive the masses of the unconverted among professing Christians until none of that middle or neutral class remain. "Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they may believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (v. 9-12).

Thus terribly shall close the history of Christendom. The true saints once taken out of it, the door of grace will be closed forever upon those who have rejected grace. They will be given over to become, as they speedily will become, from being unbelievers of the truth, believers of a lie. The wheat being gathered out of the field, tares alone will be found in it.

The actual burning of the tares is not found in the parable itself, but in the interpretation of it which the Lord afterward gives to His disciples. "As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this age. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (v. 40-43).

The Coming of the Son of Man

This is when the Lord comes as Son of Man to take that throne which He has promised to share with His people. Then, when the time of "patience" is over, and the rod of iron shall break in pieces all resistance to the King of kings. Then "judgment" — long separated from it — "shall return unto righteousness," and the earth shall be freed from the yoke of oppression and the bondage of corruption. It is the time of which the thirty-seventh Psalm speaks, when "evil doers shall be cut off: but those who wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth" (v. 9); when "yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be, — yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be; but the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (v. 10, 11).

Sometime before will the gathering for heaven have taken place, and the saints have met their Lord, as we have seen. Now, in this day of the judgment, which prepares the way for the blessing of the earth, they are seen in their heavenly place. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun." Blessed words! which speak of their association with their Lord in other ways than simply as sharers of His rule with the "rod of iron." For "unto you that fear My Name," says the Word by Malachi to Israel, "shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings." Who bears that name, we know; and how it speaks of earth's nighttime passed away. But "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." So, as the Sun, shall the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of their Father.

With Christ, like Him, they shine; themselves subject in one sphere, if rulers in another; but subject with all the heart's deep devotion, where service is fullest liberty, serving as sons Him whom they call, at the same time, God and Father.

8. Secular Power and "the Voice of the Church."

Thus we have compassed the whole history of the kingdom of the absent One, up to its solemn close in judgment at His coming. The two parables now before us take us back from this, to look at the same scenes in other aspects.

And the two parables, however dissimilar in other respects, have this in common (wherein they differ from the former two), that they speak, not of individuals, but of the mass, as such. They give us the outward form as well as the inward spiritual reality of what Christendom as a whole becomes — of what it has become, we may very simply say, for the facts are plain enough to all, whether men question or not the application of the parables to those facts.

Parable of the Mustard Seed

"Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof'" (Matt. 13: 31, 32).

Of this parable the Lord gives us no direct interpretation. It is stated, however, to be another similitude of the same kingdom spoken of by the former ones. And as Scripture must ever be its own interpreter, and we are certainly intended to understand the Lord's words here, we may be confident the key to the understanding of it is not far off. Let any one read the following passage from the book of Daniel, and say if it does not furnish that key at once (the words are the words of the king of Babylon)

"Thus were the visions of mine head upon my bed: I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth. The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it" (Dan. 4: 10-12).

This is interpreted of the king himself (v. 22): "It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong." The figure, therefore, — which we have elsewhere, and always with the same meaning, (as Ezek. 17: 5; Ezek. 31: 3-6) — is that of worldly power and greatness. But the strange thing in Matt. 13 is, that "the least of all seeds" should grow into such a tree. For the seed, here as elsewhere, is "the Word of the kingdom" (v. 19). And we have seen already how men treated that Word. The kingdom of the Crucified could have but little attraction for the children of the men who crucified Him. Human hearts are sadly too much alike for that. How could, then, a great worldly power come of the sowing of the gospel in the world?

Granted that it has become this, is this a sign for good, or the reverse? How could "My kingdom is not of this world" shape with this? And what proper mastery of this world could there be, — what overcoming of its evil with divine good, where three parts of the professed disciples were, according to the first parable, unfruitful hearers merely, and (according to the second,) Satan's tares had been sown broadcast among the wheat?

But if we want plain words as to all this, we may find them in abundance; and if, on the one hand, we know by what is round us that professing Christianity has become a power in the world, we may know on the other, both by practical experience and the sure Word of God, that it has become such by making its terms of accommodation with the world. It has bought off the old, inherent enmity of the world at the cost of its Lord's dishonor, by the sacrifice of its own divine, unworldly principles. He who runs may read the "perilous times" of the latter days written upon the forefront of the present days (2 Tim. 3: 1-5).

Yes, the little seed has become indeed a tree, but the "birds of the air" are in its branches. Satan himself (cp. verses 4, 9.) has got lodgment and shelter in the very midst of the "tree" of Christendom. The "Christian world" is the "world" still; and the "whole world lieth in the wicked one"* (1 John 5: 19). The opposition to Christ and His truth is from within now, instead of from without; none the less on that account, but all the more deadly.

{*Not "in wickedness." Comp. ver. 18; it is the same word.}

Rome is the loudest assertor of this claim of power in the world, and what has Rome not done to maintain her claim? Her photograph is in Rev. 17, 18. Successor to the "tree"-like power of old Babel, she is called "Babylon the Great." And she is judged as having, while professing to be the spouse of Christ, made guilty alliance with the nations of the world; "for all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies" (Rev. 18: 2). And alas! with the power of Israel's enemy, she has inherited also the old antipathy to the people of God: "I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration (Rev. 17: 6).

This is the full ripe result. The beginning of it is already seen at Corinth even in the apostle's day: "Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. . . .We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised" (1 Cor. 4: 8, 10).

Thus early was the little seed developing; thus quickly did the Christianity of even apostolic days diverge from that of the apostles. Paul lived to say of the scene of his earliest and most successful labors, "All that are in Asia have departed from me." Thus widespread was the divergence. Men that quote to us the Christianity of a hundred or two hundred years from that had need to pause and ask themselves what type of it they are following, — whether that of degenerate Asia, or "honorable," worldly Corinth, or what else.

That is the external view, then, which this parable presents, of the state of the kingdom during the King's absence. It had struck its roots down deep into the earth and flourished. Such a power in the world is Christendom this day. Beneath its ample cloak of respectable profession it has gathered in the hypocrite, the formalist, the unfruitful, — in short, the world; and the deadliest foes of Christ and of His cross are those nurtured in its own bosom.

Parable of the Three Measures of Meal and Leaven

But we go on to the other parable for a deeper and more internal view: —

"Another parable spake He unto them: 'The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened'" (Matt. 13: 33).

Leaven. Always Symbolical of Evil

Now what is "leaven"? It is a figure not unfrequently used in Scripture, and it will not be hard to gather up the instances to which it is applied and explained in the New Testament. We surely cannot go wrong in allowing it thus to interpret itself to us, instead of following our own conjectures.

The following, then, are all the New Testament passages: —

Matt.16: 6: "Then Jesus said unto them, 'Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.'" In the twelfth verse this is explained: "Then understood they how that He bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees."

The passages in Mark and Luke are similar (Mark 8: 15 and Luke 12: 1).

In 1 Cor. 5 the apostle is reproving them for their toleration of the "wicked person" there. "Know ye not that a little leaven leaventh the whole lump? Purge out, therefore, the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

There the "leaven" is moral evil, as in the Gospels it was doctrinal evil. In Gal. 5: 9 (the only remaining passage), it is again doctrinal. "Christ is become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are justified by the law . . . Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not from Him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

If we take Scripture, then, as its own interpreter, it must be admitted that "leaven" is always a figure of evil, moral or doctrinal, never of good. But it is possible to define its meaning and that of the parable still more clearly.

It is Lev. 2 that furnishes us in this case with the key. Among the offerings which this book opens with (all of which, I need scarce say, speak of Christ), the meat (or "food") offering is the only one in which no life is taken, no blood shed. It is an offering of "fine flour," — Christ, not in the grace, therefore, of His atoning death, but in His personal perfectness and preciousness as the bread of life, offered to God, no doubt, and first of all satisfying Him, but as that, man's food also, as He declares, "He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me" (John 6: 57).

Now it is with this meat-offering that leaven is positively forbidden to be mixed (v. 11): "No meat offering which ye shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with leaven." True to its constant use in Scripture, as a figure of evil, that which was a type of the Lord Himself was jealously guarded from all mixture with it. Now in the parable, the "three measures of meal" are just this "fine flour" of the offering. The words are identical in meaning. The flour is man's food, plainly, as the offering is, and thus interpreted spiritually can alone apply to Christ. But here, the woman is doing precisely the thing forbidden in the law of the offering, — she is mixing the leaven with the fine flour. She is corrupting the pure "bread of life" with evil and with error.

Babylon the Great — "The Woman"

And who is this "woman" herself? There is meaning, surely, in the figure. And he who only remembers Eph. 5 will want no proof that that figure is often that of the Church, the spouse of Christ, and subject to Himself. It may be also, as we have already seen, the figure of the professing body, as the "woman," Babylon the Great, is. In this sense, the whole parable itself is simple. It is the too fitting climax of what has preceded it: it is she who has drugged the cup in Rev. 17, for the deception of the nations, adulterating here the bread also. The "leaven of the Pharisees" (legality and superstition), the "leaven of the Sadducees" (infidelity and rationalism), the "leaven of Herod" (courtierlike pandering to the world), things not of past merely, but of current history, have been mixed with and corrupted the truth of God. All must own this, whatever his own point of view. The Romanists will say Protestants have done so; the Protestants will in turn accuse Rome; the myriads of jarring sects will tax each other; the heathen will say to one and all, "We know not which of you to believe; each contradicts and disagrees with the other. Go and settle your own differences first, and then come, if you will, to us."

The leaven is leavening the whole lump. The evil is nowise diminishing, but growing worse. No doubt God is working. And no doubt, as long as the Lord has a people in the midst of Christendom, things will not be permitted to reach the extreme point. But the tendency is downward; and once let that restraint be removed, the apostasy (which we have seen Scripture predicts) will then have come.

But men do not like to think of this. And I am prepared for the question (one which people have often put, where these things have been so stated) how can the kingdom of heaven be like "leaven" if leaven be always evil. Must not the figure here have a different meaning from that which you have given it? Must it not be a figure rather of the secret yet powerful influence of the gospel, permeating and transforming the world?

To which I answer:

1. This is contrary to the tenor of Scripture, which assures us that, instead of Christianity working real spiritual transformation of the world at large, the "mystery of iniquity" was already "working" in the apostle's days in it, and that it would work on (though for a certain season under restraint) until the general apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin (2 Thess. 2).

1. 2. It is contrary to the tenor of these parables themselves, which have already shown us (in the very first of them) how little universal would be the reception of the truth: three out of four casts of seed failing to bring forth fruit.

2. 3. The language from which this is argued — "the kingdom of heaven is like unto it" — does not simply mean that it is itself like "leaven," as they put it, but like "leaven leavening three measures of meal." The whole parable is the likeness of the kingdom in a certain state, not the "leaven" merely is its likeness.

Let any one compare the language of the second parable with this, and he cannot fail to see the truth of this.

Verse 24 "The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man, which sowed good seed," etc.

Verse 33 "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took," etc.

Is it not plain that the kingdom is no more simply compared to the "leaven" in verse 33 than to the "man" in verse 24? In each case the whole parable is the likeness. The kingdom, therefore, need not be bad because the leaven is, nor the leaven good because the kingdom is. And into a picture of the kingdom in its present form evil may — and, alas! must — enter, or why judgment to set it right?

There is indeed but too plain consistency in the view of the kingdom which these parables present; and a uniform progression of evil and not of good. First, the ill success of the good seed in the first parable; then, the introduction and growth of bad seed in the second. Then the whole form and fashion of the kingdom changes into the form and fashion of one of the kingdoms of the world. This is the Babylonish captivity of the Church. And lastly, the very food of the children of God is tampered with, and corrupted, until complete apostasy from the faith ensues. Christ is wholly lost, and Antichrist is come.

Here, thank God, the darkness has its bound; and in the last three parables of the chapter, we are to see another side of things, and trace that work of God which never ceases amid all the darkness; His — Whose "every act pure blessing is; His path, unsullied light."

9. The Divine Counsel and Purpose.

The three parables which remain to be considered have found interpretations more various and conflicting than the preceding ones, and require, therefore, an examination proportionately the more careful. The former were all spoken (with the exception of the interpretation of the second one,) in the presence of the whole multitude, and they refer to a condition of things to which the world at large is this day witness. But "Then," we read, these four parables having been delivered, "Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house, and His disciples came unto Him" (v. 36). To these alone He speaks the parables which follow, for they contain, not external history merely, but the divine mind surely fulfilling amid all this outward confusion and ruin, which the former parables have shown Him not ignorant of who foretold it from the beginning.*

{*The very number of the parables tells of this. For as there are seven in all, the number from creation onward the type and symbol of completeness, — so this number seven is divided further into four and three. "Four" is the number of universality, of the world at large, from the four points of the compass, (as I take it) — east, west, north and south. "Three" is the divine number — that of the Persons in the Godhead. Here, then, the first four parables give us the world-aspect of the kingdom of heaven; the last three, the divine mind accomplishing with regard to it.}

It will not be necessary to advert to different views prevailing as to the meaning of the parables before us, but only to seek to show from Scripture itself, as fully as possible, the grounds for that which will here be considered as the true.

Parable of the Treasure in the Field

The first two parables we shall put together, as they invite comparison by their evident resemblance to one another: —

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which, when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

Parable of the Pearl of Great Price

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it" (v. 44-46).

The parables are alike in this, that they both present to us the action of a man who purchases what has value in his eyes at the cost of all he has. The question is, who is presented here? The common voice replies that it is man as the seeker of salvation or of Christ, — that we have here the story of individual effort after the "one thing needful," flinging aside all other things in order to obtain it. But is this consistent with the constant representations of Scripture, or with the facts themselves? Do we thus buy Christ at the cost of all we have? It is true we have in the prophet the exhortation to "buy" (Isa. 55: 1), where the "wine and milk" are no doubt the figure of spiritual sustenance. But there (that there may be no mistake in such a matter), the "buying" is distinctly said to be "without money and without price." Man is never represented as seeking salvation with wealth in his hand to purchase it. The prodigal seeks, but not until perishing with hunger. He comes back beggared, driven by necessity, and only so. And all who have ever come back really to the Father know this to be the truthful representation of the matter.

On the other hand, the real Seeker, Finder, Buyer, everywhere in Scripture, is the Lord Jesus Christ. The figure in both parables is most evidently His. The same Person is represented in each, and the same work too, though under different aspects.

In the first parable, it is treasure hid in a field that is the object of the Buyer. "The field," we are told in the interpretation of the parable of the tares, "is the world." It is an object in the world, then, — an earthly object, — that is sought for and obtained. So in this parable He is represented as buying "that field" — buying the world. He buys the field to get the treasure in it. Most certainly no man ever bought the world to get Christ, so that the believer is not the "man" represented in the parable.

Did Christ, then, buy the world by His sufferings? Turn to the last chapter of this gospel, and hear Him say, as risen from the dead, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth." Strictly, it is "authority," not "power." He has title over all, and that as the risen One. "Ask of Me," is the language of Jehovah to the Son begotten upon earth, "and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Ps. 2). Thus He takes the throne in the day of His appearing and His kingdom. It is because of that wondrous descent of One "in the form of God" down to the fathomless depths of "the death of the cross," that "therefore bath God highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name above every name; that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2). It is that explains, what perplexes some, that Peter can speak of those who, "denying the Lord that bought them, bring upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Peter 2: 1). These are not at all redeemed ones, but they are "bought," for all men and all the world belong to Him as the fruit of His sufferings, — of that cross, where He, for the sake of that which had beauty in His eyes, sold all that He had.

Thus I conceive it unquestionable, that it is Christ Himself who is the central figure in these two parables. We may now compare the two sides of His work presented in them. In that of the treasure, we have seen it is the field of the "world" that is bought for the sake of the treasure in it; while in that of the pearl, no field is bought at all, but simply the pearl itself. Are these two figures, then, the treasure and the pearl, different aspects of the same thing, or different things? — the same object from different points of view, or different objects?

If we look for a moment at what has been already pointed out as to "the kingdom of heaven" of which these parables are both similitudes, we shall see that there are two spheres which it embraces, answering to those words of the Lord we have just quoted, "All authority is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." Christ is now, as a matter of fact, gathering out from the earth those who are to "sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" — not in earthly, but in heavenly blessing. But before "the appearing and kingdom," this purpose having been accomplished, and the heavenly saints caught up to meet the Lord, — He will gather to Himself, for blessing upon the earth, a remnant of Israel and an election of the Gentiles. Take the two purposes of Christ's death as expressed in John 11: 51, 52, you have it as the inspired comment upon Caiaphas' advice to the Jewish council, — "And this spake he, not of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only," adds the inspired writer, "but that also He should gather together in one the children of God which are scattered abroad." Now I ask, is it not significant that we find in the second of these parables the very type of unity, — the one pearl, — as that which the merchant man bought? Is it not, then, permissible and natural to turn to the other with the anticipation of finding in it "that nation" of Israel, for which also Jesus died, under the figure of the "treasure hid in the field"?

Thus would Israel on the one hand and the Church upon the other be the representatives of earthly and of heavenly blessing: the Gentile nations coming in to share with Israel the one as the departed saints of the past dispensations come in to share with the Church the other. The reason why these two alone should be spoken of, and not along with the Church the saints of former times, or along with Israel the Gentiles of the future, will, I think, be plain to those who consider the Scripture mode of putting these same things. Thus to Israel belong the "promises," as Rom. 9: 4 declares. The Gentiles no more come into view there than they do in the parable of the treasure here. Yet many a Scripture promises the blessing of the Gentiles on a future day. But they come in under the skirts of the now despised Jew (Zech. 8: 23). Then again, as to the Church, it is the only company of people gathered openly and avowedly for heavenly blessing. And moreover, it is the company that is being gathered now, and began to be with the sowing of the gospel-seed in the first parable of those before us.

The Treasure in the Field is Israel

Let us look now somewhat closer into the details of the parable of the treasure hid in a field.

Of old it had been said, "The Lord hath chosen Jacob unto Himself, and Israel for His peculiar treasure" (Ps. 135: 4). But at the time when He who had so chosen them came unto His own, there was but little appearance in the condition of the people of the place they had thus in Jehovah's heart. "Lo-Ammi," — "not My people," had long been said of them. They were even then scattered among the Gentiles. The figure of the treasure hid in the field was the true similitude of their condition, watched over as "beloved for the father's sake," and yet trodden down by the foot of the oppressor, to none but Him who yet longed over them known as having preciousness for God.

But there was One who recognized the value of this treasure. One who had in His birth fulfilled to Israel Isaiah's prophecy of Emmanuel, — "God with us." One to whom, so born, Gentiles had brought their homage as "King of the Jews." He found this treasure, presenting Himself among them as One having divine power to meet their condition, and bring them forth out of their hiding-place, and make manifest the object of divine favor and delight. And those who knew best His thoughts were ever expecting the time when He would bring forth this treasure and display it openly. That question which they had proposed to Him after His resurrection shows what had long been in their hearts, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"

And they understood not when they saw the gleam of brightness which had shone out for them when He rode in the meekest of triumphs, amidst the acclamations of the multitude, into Jerusalem, fade and die out in the midday darkness which so shortly after fell on Calvary. They understood not yet how He was in all this but the "man" in His own parable, who, finding treasure in the field, hideth it, and for joy thereof goeth forth and selleth all that He bath, and buyeth that field.

And the treasure is hidden still. Calvary is come and gone, — Joseph's new tomb is emptied of its Guest, — they have stood upon the mount called Olivet, and seen Him whom they have owned King of the Jews go up to take another throne than that of David. Then they are found charging the people with their denial of the Holy One and the Just, bidding them still repent and be converted, and even now, He who had left them would be sent back to them, and the times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord. Scenes before the council follow; one at last in which a man, whose face shines with the glory of heaven, stands and charges the leaders of the nation with the accumulated guilt of ages, — "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do alway resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye." And they cast him out of the city and stone him. Those that were bidden have been called to the marriage, and they will not come.

The city is destroyed, and the people scattered. Israel are still a treasure hid. The parable gives no bringing forth. Simply the field is bought. It is now but "Ask, and I will give Thee." All waits upon the will of Him to whom now everything belongs.

But He waits, and has waited for nearly twenty centuries, as if the treasure were nothing to Him now and He had forgotten His purpose.

The Pearl of Great Price is the Church

Then the second parable comes in as what is needed by way of explanation of the long delay. The "one pearl of great price" speaks of the preciousness to Him of another object upon which He has set His heart. "Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it" — "went went and sold all that He had and bought it." Not now the field of the world, for the Church is heavenly. Israel has still the earthly "promises." We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

This Church is one — one pearl. Brought up out of the depth of the sea, and taken out of the rough shell in which it is first incased — taken out at the cost of the life of that to which it owes its being, the pearl is a fitting type of that which has been drawn out of the sea of Gentile waters, and out of the roughness of its natural condition, at the cost of the life of Him in whom it was seen and chosen before the foundation of the world. Of how "great price" to Him, that death of His may witness. The title which the Christian heart so commonly and naturally takes to be His alone, it is sweet to see that His heart can give His people. We, dear fellow believers, are His precious pearl. Nor is there any "hiding again" here, or suspension of this purpose. This is the second meaning of the cross, "who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it."

10. The "Everlasting Gospel"

Parable of the Net Cast into the Sea

In the last chapter of this final three, we find, as I believe, not another aspect of the divine dealings with the mingled crop in the field of Christendom, but a new acting, whether in grace or judgment, after the merchant man has possessed himself of his pearl, or in other words, after the saints of the past and present time are caught up to Christ. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, and cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world (or age): the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just; and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (v. 47-51).

The parable closes thus (in so far, just as the parable of the tares of the field,) with the judgment executed at the appearing of the Lord. The common application of it is to the going forth of the gospel during the present time, and the final separation of bad and good when the Lord comes. That is, the meaning is considered to be almost identical with the tare-parable. I believe there are some plain reasons against such an interpretation.

For, in the first place, the parallelism of the two parables in that case is certainly against it. There would be little in the picture of the net cast into the sea that was not simply repetition of what had already been given. And this, at first sight, would not seem natural Or likely.

But beside this, it is to be considered that Scripture plainly gives us another going forth of the gospel of the kingdom, and as the result of it a discriminative judgment when the Son of Man comes, apart altogether from the present going forth of the gospel, and the judgment of the tares of Christendom. The company of sheep and goats in Matt. 25 is an instance of this. For there will be no such separation as is there depicted between these sheep and goats, of the true and false among Christian professors, "when the Son of Man shall" have "come in His glory." The true among Christian professors, on the contrary, will come with Him to judgment on that day, as we have seen both Col. 3: 4 and Jude bear witness. The judgment of Christendom will not then be discriminative at all: the wheat having been already removed from the field, tares alone will remain in it. Thus in Matt. 25, neither tares nor wheat can be at all in question.

But after the saints of the present time have been caught up to the Lord, and Christendom has become a tare-field simply, a new work of the Lord will begin in Israel and among the surrounding nations, to gather out a people for earthly blessing. It is when God's judgments are upon the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. And this will be a time of "great tribulation," such as for Israel Matt. 24 depicts. Antichrist is there, and the "abomination of desolation" stands in the holy place; yet amid all the evil and sorrow of the time, the "everlasting gospel" goes forth (Rev. 14: 6, 7) with its call, so opposite to the proclamation of this day of grace now being made. "Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come."

Plainly, one could not say that yet. We say it is "the accepted time, the day of salvation," not of judgment. Only after the present day is closed could the everlasting gospel be preached after that fashion, — the old "gospel of the kingdom" indeed, but with the new addition to it of the hour of God's judgment being come.

It is this proclamation of the everlasting gospel that is the key to that company of sheep and goats standing before the throne of the Son of Man when He is come.

Everlasting Gospel Going out to the Gentiles

Now, if we look a little closely, it is just such a state of things as that amid which the everlasting gospel goes forth, that this parable brings before us. A "net cast into the sea" is the picture of the gospel going forth in the midst of unquiet and commotion, the lawless will of man at work every where, the wicked "like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isa. 57: 20).

Moreover, if we turn to the very earliest of Scripture types — to Genesis 1 — we shall find confirmation of this view, which is exceedingly striking. In those creative days we find, day by day, the successive steps by which God brought out of ruin the beauty of a scene where at length He could rest, because all was "very good." There need be little wonder to find this but the picture and type of how He, step by step, after the misery and ruin of Adam's fall, is proceeding toward the final production of a scene in which once again, and never more to be disturbed, because of its goodness He can rest. These days in their respective meaning it is not the place here to point out. The third day, however, speaks of the separation of Israel from among the Gentiles. The waters of the salt and barren sea are the representative of man left to the lusts and passions of his own heart (according to the figure in Isaiah just referred to), or in other words, the Gentiles.* Israel is the "earth," taken up and cultivated of God, to get, if it might be, fruit. The third day speaks of this separation of Israel from the Gentiles, as the first parable of the three we are now looking at speaks of her as God's earthly treasure.

{*Compare also Rev. 17: 15.}

This is a scene all on earth. The next creative day gives us however, the furnishing of the heavens, as we have already seen the second parable of the "pearl" does. And if the sun be a type of Christ (as it surely is), that which brings in and rules the day, — the moon is no less a type of the Church, the reflection, however feeble and unstable, of Christ to the world in the night of His absence. The present time, then, is here figured, — the time of the revelation, in testimony, both of Christ and of the Church.

And now, if we pass on to the sixth day, we have as plainly in figure the kingdom of Christ come. The rule of the man and woman over the earth, — not rule over the clay or night, not the light of testimony, but rule over the earth itself, — is a picture of what we call millennial blessing.

Finally, in this series comes the Sabbath, God's own rest: He sanctifies the whole day, and blesses it; no other day succeeds.

Now between the fourth and the sixth days, the Church and the millennial dispensations, what intervenes? A period, short indeed in duration, but important enough to occupy thirteen out of the twenty-two chapters of the book of Revelation: the very time to which, as I believe, the parable of the net refers. And then, what is its type, if the fifth day represents it? Once again, the "sea," but the waters now supernaturally productive, teeming with life through the fiat of the Almighty. And so it will be in the day of Rev. 7 as the hundred and forty-four thousand of the tribes of Israel, and the in numerable multitude of Gentiles who have come out of "the great tribulation," bear abundant witness. These are the gathering out of the people for earthly blessing, as the fruit of the everlasting gospel.

These passages, then, mutually confirm each other as applying to a time characterized by Gentile lawlessness, Israel fully partaking of this character, and not yet owned of God, though He be working in her midst. Into this "sea" the net is cast, and, gathering of every kind, when it is full, is drawn to shore.

It is not till after this that the sorting begins: "which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, and cast the bad away." This shows us that the sorting cannot apply to any thing which goes on during the time of the preaching of the gospel at all events, for the net is no longer in the waters when it takes place. And it is thus the same thing evidently as that which the interpretation speaks of: "So shall it be at the end of the age; the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just." This is the clearance of the earth for millennial blessing. When the saints are removed, at the coming of the Lord for His own which 1 Thess. 4 sets before us, the wicked will not be severed from the just, but the just from the wicked. The righteous will be taken, and the wicked left. Here it is the reverse of this — the wicked taken and the righteous left. Thus, with the divine accuracy of the inspired Word, which invites scrutiny and rewards attention to its minutest details, it is said in the judgment of the tare-field of Christendom, "They shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity," but not, "they shall sever the wicked from among the just," for the just have been before removed. Here, on the contrary, the righteous are those not taken away to inherit heavenly blessing, but left behind to inherit earthly.*

{*Parallel passages will be found in Matt. 24: 37-42 and Luke 17: 24, 37. In the Old Testament, the Psalms especially are full of this severing of the wicked from among the just: e.g. Ps. 1: 4, 5; Ps. 37: 9-11. See also Malachi 4: 1-3.}

With this glance at things which belong to that short but most momentous season — the season of the earth's travail before her final great deliverance, the sevenfold sketch of the kingdom of the absent King necessarily ends. The blessing of earth, as of Israel, necessitates His presence, and with that the close of the "kingdom and patience," the beginning of that "kingdom and glory" which will never end. Well will it be for us if we keep in mind the sure connection between the "patience" and the "glory."

"The Gospel of Healing."

"The Gospel of Healing."

F. W. Grant.

"Healing by faith," as it is commonly called, is growing into credit with many in the present day. It is no wonder if, in a world so full of the suffering which sin has caused, and where, even by Christians, what sin is is so little realized, it should be so. Neither what Scripture calls the "flesh" is known, nor the new creation. Christ's work is thought to be but to restore what Adam's destroyed and Christ's obedience only to put us where, if we had not sinned, we should have been without it. Then it is easy to imagine that for the Christian the world should become pretty much what the garden of Eden was to Adam, — that thorns and thistles are not to exist for him; although they have still to confess that death remains, that the present body is to be dissolved, (or changed, if the Lord comes first,) and that our paradise is in heaven.

This would seem indeed an effectual contradiction of the thought; but what cannot man's desire for it make appear reasonable? Mr. Simpson's pamphlet, "The Gospel of Healing," will show us how possible it is for even a believer, with the open Word and the facts of nature right before his eyes, to set aside both, and to see only what he thinks ought to be. No one is perhaps in higher esteem among those who accept his views than Mr. Simpson; he states clearly what he holds, and with no lack of boldness, and will be the last, surely, to complain if we inquire a little into the scriptural foundations of his faith, which he proposes to us for our own, and which he believes nothing but unbelief and rationalism can oppose.

His "gospel" may be stated in few words. Man has a twofold nature; he is both a moral and spiritual being; and both natures have been equally affected by the fall; we would therefore expect that any complete scheme of redemption would include both natures, and provide for the restoration of his physical as well as the renovation of his spiritual life. Nor are we disappointed. The Redeemer offers Himself to us as a complete Saviour: His indwelling Spirit the life of our spirit, His resurrection-body the life of our mortal flesh. In the same full sense as He has borne our sins, Jesus Christ has surely borne away and carried off our sicknesses, — yes, and even our pains; so that, abiding in Him, we need not, and we should not, bear either sickness or pain. We are members of His body, His flesh, and His bones. These words recognize a union between our body and the resurrection-body of the Lord Jesus Christ, which gives us the right to claim for our mortal frame all the vital energy of His perfect life.

This is the doctrine — stated in Mr. Simpson's own words. Of course, with this, there is the usual pressing of Mark 16: 17 and kindred texts long pressed in a similar way by Romanists, Irvingites, Mormons, and such like; who have been always ready to produce the same host of living witnesses to the truth of their claims.

From doctrine of the kind just stated, we should expect, however, miracles mightier than ever Rome claimed or apostles actually wrought; for if we may "claim for our mortal frame all the vital energy of Christ's perfect life," the resurrection of the dead itself — and we do not know that Mr. Simpson's faith reaches as far as this — should not be the limit of the power displayed. Those so gifted ought, plainly, not to die at all. "His body is ours; His life is ours; and it is all-sufficient:" for what? to heal a few sick folk? How paltry indeed such a conclusion! "His resurrection-body the life of our mortal flesh"! But how, then, can it possibly be any longer mortal? The believers in Mr. S.'s creed ought to be nothing less than a company of unsuffering immortals, or their faith has no proper fruit.

Some of his school have, indeed, boldly accepted this conclusion, and maintain that it is only through unbelief that any Christian dies at all: even, it is to be supposed, the whole "noble army of martyrs," with Stephen and James the apostle at their head! Mr. Simpson does not go as far as this indeed, but why not? If Christ bore sickness for us, did He not also die for us? If the result of the former should be to free us from sickness, should not the result of the latter be to free us from death?

It is not true, however, that in this sense Christ bore our sicknesses; for Matthew applies this text from the prophet (Isa. 53: 4) to the Lord's ministry of grace among men, and not to the cross, or to atonement (Matt. 8: 16, 17), He "took" and "bare," in loving sympathy, not in atonement, all the sorrows and the sufferings which His hand relieved. The atonement for sickness, of which people speak, could not, indeed, be needed. If sin be atoned for, mercy can come in any where to relieve and heal the body: that which meets the cause can of course meet its effects also.

Is not Christ, then, a "complete Saviour"? and is He not the Redeemer of both natures — the mortal as well as the spiritual, the body as well as the soul? Assuredly; but "we wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body." The passage which Mr. S. so little understands as to quote it in his favor contains, indeed, the very refutation of his doctrine: "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness; but if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Mr. Simpson actually says of this that it "cannot refer to the future resurrection; that will be by the voice of the Son of God, not the Holy Spirit; this is a present dwelling and a present quickening by the Spirit; and it is a quickening of the mortal body, not soul; what can this be but physical restoration?" Painful it is to pursue such things, more painful to think that Christians can be deceived by them. Does not Mr. Simpson know that our Lord's own resurrection is referred, in Scripture, to Himself, the Father, and the Spirit of God as well (John 2: 19; Rom. 8: 11; 1 Peter 3: 18)? How could he who had just said, "If Christ be in you, the body is dead," in the same breath declare that it was quickened by the Spirit? whereas, in plain contrast with the present condition, the apostle says, not "hath quickened," or "does quicken," but "shall," — "shall also quicken your mortal body by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." (Rom. 8: 11.)

So, again, when Paul says, "For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal body," Mr. S. sees in this nothing but "physical experience;" "His life was a constant miracle" "this life, he tells us (v. 16), was 'renewed day by day'"! Paul says it was his "inward man;" and he contrasts it with the "outward man," which was at the same time perishing. What was that outward man according to Mr. Simpson?

He quotes also the apostle's prayer for Gaius, with the same entire unconsciousness of how his witness testifies against him. For why should there be need to pray that a man might "prosper and be in health, even as his soul prospered," if that was the constant rule in divine government for the Christian?

Again, he connects 1 Cor. 10: 11 with Ex. 15: 25, 26, to make the promise apply to Christians that God will put none of the diseases of the Egyptians upon them not heeding or knowing that the Greek says "types," and that the apostle is speaking of such things as the passage of the Red Sea, the manna, and the water from the rock, which assuredly are not things literally made good to us. The essential contrast between an earthly people, such as Israel, and those who are "blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 1: 3) is ignored altogether.

With most of the above texts it is hoped that few of our readers will have much difficulty. There remain some others, as to which many may not be so clear; yet as to such passages as John 14: 12 — "The works that I do shall he do also," and the signs which should follow them that believe (Mark 16: 17, 18), it is plain enough that while for a time these things did follow, it would be totally false to say that they follow now. There is no hint of unbelief making this void, as it is contended. Are such things as these true of Mr. Simpson or his disciples: "They shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them"? or that he or they do the works that Christ did, which would include the raising of the dead, at any rate? If not, what folly to bring forward such cures of sick people as Romanists, Mormons, and spiritualists can boast of just as confidently, and with as much apparent truth, and make a fancied fulfillment of a small portion of what the Lord said pass muster for the whole!*

{*It is plain that in the times of the apostles there was no counterfeit of divine healing which could really be compared with it. Its power as evidence would be lost if this were possible. Why do not Mr. Simpson and his people raise the dead? Have we not good reason to press for serious answer to this question?}

But what, then, it will be asked, makes such a difference between the pentecostal times and ours? Oh if men would only inquire into the causes, and judge honest judgment. instead of claiming by the power of their faith alone to bring back that Pentecost so long passed away! Where today is that Church with the great multitude of it "of one heart and of one soul," "continuing steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers"? Surely the sights and sounds of the day are those of the predicted Babylon rather. And which of us will wash his hands and dare to say, "In this I have no part"? Is it the time for putting on the ornaments of the day of espousal, when God is saying, as to Israel of old, "Ye are a stiff-necked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume thee; therefore now put off thine ornaments tromp thee, that I may know what to do unto thee"?

Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were among us, they should but deliver their own souls by their righteousness. Who has shoulders to lift off from us the weight of eighteen centuries of failure? Let us own it, and take humbly what is our common shame. If this is the harder thing, it is still the more blessed, for with him who does this really God will be.

But what are we to think of Mr. Simpson's wonderful discovery of the narrow channel in which it seems since the apostolic days the water of (physical) life has been flowing? "But now the apostolic age is closing; is this to be continued? and if so, by whom? By what limitation is it to be preserved from fanaticism and presumption? by what commission is it to be perpetuated to the end of time, and placed within the reach of all God's suffering saints?" What is the answer? James 5: 14 and the elders of the Church! Read the apostle's closing address to some of these very elders (Acts 20: 29, 30), beloved reader, and ask yourself what sort of preservation would be thus guaranteed, and if rather the apostle's warning does not find a fulfillment in such a pretension.

I do not want, however, to dismiss the subject without adding a word as to what remains for us in these days. For this, we must first of all distinguish between cases which Mr. S. necessarily mixes up in confusion. Elihu, in the book of Job, shows us the chastening of a soul under God's hand, for which his flesh is consumed until he dies, or else humbles himself and confesses his sin and finds mercy. The apostle speaks in this way of a sin unto death, for which he does not say that any one should pray. In James, this case of chastening is supposed, though not exclusively. Here, the remedy is clearly not in doctors, and it is of the very greatest importance to remember it. Here still the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and "confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed" abides ever as the resource. The prayer of faith surely remains to

All sickness does not come under the head of chastening, though discipline we may find in it, and find it needful, therefore, to that end. The apostle's thorn in the flesh had this character, and was not removed, nor could be; God taught him to acquiesce in and to profit by it. For Timothy's weak "stomach's sake and often infirmities" he prescribes, not the prayer of faith, but "a little wine." Trophimus he leaves at Miletum sick; Epaphroditus too is sick, nigh unto death, right under the apostle's eye; but God has mercy on him, and on Paul too thus, and raises him up. Even in apostles' days, and with such as he, the gifts of healing were used, not indiscriminately, or for the personal ease of Christians, but for the glory of God as with Lazarus' resurrection, or that healing of the sick of the palsy, "that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins."

Thus stands the matter, simply taking Scripture. That we need still the admonition, "Have faith in God," — that men may still die, because they seek not to God, but the physician, as Asa did, — that many an one may lie unhealed for whom a simpler and therefore more discerning faith would find in God the power to heal, — all this need not be doubted. On the other hand, Christians cannot be too earnestly warned against a view of things, coming up in many quarters in the present day, which ignores the sorrowful realities of the flesh and the world. It is but another fig-leaf apron, — another human invention to cover man's nakedness; a fruit of wisdom acquired by the fall, and not divine. F. W. Grant.

Our Path and our Associations

Our Path and our Associations.

2 Timothy 2: 20-22.

F. W. Grant.

It is a very simple, and yet a very important thing, to realise that the path for each of us must be an individual one. Many may, in fact, be in company with us, but to be right it must be the identity of the path that brings us together, not in any wise the desire of companionship, save with One alone. If others walk with Him, then we shall be together; but this is not, and must not be, ever what makes the path for us; this must be before God, and with God alone.

It should be needless to insist upon it, but doctrine and practice, alas! may be widely asunder; and conscience may be at a much lower level than the theory (for it is then really that) of which we have got hold.

And there will be a great many delicate points to consider, which nothing but real nearness to God will enable us to have settled; for are we not members of Christ's body together, and not mere individuals? and does not this impose limits on the individuality of the path? Here we must answer, No; in no wise. It is by the careful preservation of our individuality alone that the church's welfare can be realised and maintained.

But our dissociations and associations are both prescribed for us in the text which heads this paper; and that in full view of the disorder which so soon came in and disfigured, and has never ceased to disfigure, the church of God on earth, while it has made the path of the true saint only more manifestly individual, as this scripture (speaks it. For if "in a great house" such as Christendom has now become) "there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour;" it results that only "if a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work." Thus our associations, of which it is the fashion of the day to think so lightly, are put in the forefront here, as affecting our own spiritual condition and fitness for being used of God. There may be, and are, vessels to honour, which are mixed up with the vessels to dishonour, as we know, but you cannot say, according to this scripture (and "scripture cannot be broken"), that they are "sanctified and meet for the Master's use" while in such a condition. Sovereignly he may of course use them, as He can use a vessel to dishonour even, if He will; but that is a totally different thing.

Who can say, then, that a man's own condition may be godly, while in open-eyed association with ungodliness around? The second Epistle of John is no plainer than the second Epistle to Timothy is here. Both say we are responsible for, and partakers of, the sins of others, with whom we knowingly associate ourselves. Concord between Christ and Belial there cannot be — this will be granted. Then for half-hearted following, which would in effect unite them, toleration there cannot be. The fiftieth link with evil is as real an one as the first; and to maintain our link of fellowship with Christ, we must refuse the fiftieth as we would refuse the first. Dissociation is the first thing here enjoined, that we may be free to walk in that individual path with God to which the Apostle is here exhorting.

Now as to association on the other side, "Follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart." How are we to find these? How are we to test the heart? Why, by their ways. And I find my companions as I walk myself in the path of righteousness, and faith, and love, and peace, to which I am called. Suppose I wanted to find the people going by a certain train to the next town, what more simple than to put myself in the train? Ourselves upon the road, we find the people that are upon the road, and it is the only practical way. The individuality of my path is preserved with distinctness, and that path it is which governs my associations, not my associations the path.

Now what am I to follow, if I may not follow people? I am to "follow righteousness, faith, love, peace." Leaders I may own, and rightly if, and only as, they can show me that the path they lead in has these marks. But I must be shown the marks or refuse the path, no matter what else may commend it to me. Nor will it do to take counsel with humility, and walk by the judgment of others, when God is bidding us hearken to His Word.

Now for the marks: the first is "righteousness." Here, as it is our own path that is in question, we cannot be too rigorously exact. We are under grace, blessed be God, is to our relationship with Him, and to be witnesses of that grace to others, but wherever our own path is in question it is no matter of grace at all; the first and peremptory demand we must make upon ourselves is, is it righteous? This will be as far as possible from leading to hardness as to others; for even from this side of righteousness we must take them into account. Exaction is not this, but its opposite. On the other hand, no real love to others will ever lead me to put my foot down there where I cannot be sure it is of God, or according to Him. "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments." It must not even be doubtful if we are keeping His commandments; to doubt and do is to make light at least of disobedience; and if we should thus stumble, even in the right path, we should not ourselves be rightly on it.

We are to judge our own ways. If in this the judgment of others becomes necessary, the necessity is its sufficient justification. "Do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth; wherefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

He was among themselves, and being among them their association with him gave sanction to his wickedness. Toleration was thus unrighteousness in them, and even to eat a common meal with such was this.

Righteousness is then the first requisite here, and the severity we have to exercise is upon ourselves rather than others. If it be really upon others we are sitting in judgment, we are not really righteous according to the standard of the kingdom of heaven I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?"

Righteousness being secured, there is still further question. Not every righteous way is a way of "faith." Here then the path becomes still further narrowed. "Faith" supposes a having to do with God as a living God; with Christ the Shepherd of the sheep as a living Guide. It supposes, not a "king's highway," such as Israel might have had in passing through the land of Edom (Num. 20), but that trackless desert path which was God's choice rather for them; there where the pillar led, fire by night and cloud by day, that they might go, independent of nature, by day or by night.

A righteous path merely may, after all, be of the nature of the "fold," a hemming between certain limits, outside of which I may not be, but within which I may do my own will. A path of faith is a path which I recognise as God's for me, not my will any longer, save as following His. This makes it, looking from one point of view, as narrow as it can be. For as there can be but one step at any time, which He really has for me to take — one and no other — there is no permission for self-acting for a single moment. This for the legalist would be intolerable legality. Only grace can make it as broad a way as it is safe; for it is always broad enough for another to walk with us, whose presence is all for strength, for comfort, for satisfaction; and our own will means sorrow, defilement, and the ditch. Think of a way which eternal Wisdom has taken counsel of, eternal Love to mark out for us! Think of the eye of love never withdrawing its tender interest in the path we take! Would we desire it? Are we wiser, better, or more careful for ourselves, than He who counts every hair of our heads?

Yet a path of faith is just the one for plenty of exercise and searching of heart. It is one as to which more seldom than we think can one pronounce for another, and when the need for spirituality is absolute and necessary. "The spiritual man discerneth all things." He "discerns." It is not internal feeling or blind impulse which controls, but the knowledge of one whose mind and ways of thought are formed by the word, and who is in the presence of God, so as to be guided by His eye. This guidance infers present nearness and knowledge of Himself — the instruction of the word; but where the soul waits upon God, and occupies itself with Him, so as to see and interpret every look of His.

Faith then requires God's word to justify it, in a path whence self-will is absolutely excluded. It thus guards the "love," of which the Apostle next speaks, from being taken for the "liberality," so miscalled such on every hand. True love finds within the sphere which the word thus marks out for it, its amply sufficient field of exercise. "Seeking not its own," it teaches no soul to do its own will, or to show large-heartedness by setting aside, even for a moment, its Master's constant claim. It supposes no possible accomplishment of good to others by swerving from the good and the right way oneself; and this whether it be in one line of things or in another; "faith" having taught it, there is, and can be, no matter of "ecclesiastical policy," if you will, or anything else which affects His people in any way which He, who his thought of the covering of a woman's head, has not thought of and provided for. To swerve from His mind by way of accommodation to others, or for whatever purpose, would be but the unseemly "liberality" of a servant in things that appertain to his master — not liberality, but carelessness or worse.

Righteousness and faith however being maintained as to our course personally, "love" is next surely to be followed — safely under these conditions. Our hearts are to embrace not only the brethren, still less only those whom we find walking on the path with ourselves, but, as in "fellowship with the gospel," all men. There is nothing however in which we are so apt to make mistake as we are with regard to "love:" there are so many and subtle imitations. We like people who please us — who minister to our selfish gratification, and we call that "love." And if these are the people of God, this may help still more effectually to deceive us. How often does this kind of feeling betray itself by fermenting, on occasion given, into the most thorough animosity! True love, seeking not its is own, holds fast its objects with a pertinacity of grasp which never falls: "having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." We may be forced to separation, forced to walk alone, forced to judge and condemn the ways of those whom nevertheless we cling to before God with desire which will not admit of giving them up even for a moment. Thus if judgment be passed, it will be expressed as the Apostle, "even weeping:" truest and most solemn judgment, where it is not that of an enemy but of a friend; and blessed they, who in the spirit of mourners find themselves thus in company with the "Man of sorrows."

We must be content here to point out the order, and the meaning of the order, in which "love" occurs in connection with our path. It does not form this (divine love has formed it for us, not our own): it is the spirit which is to animate us rather in the path — not the rails, but the motive power — and here, of course, love to God first, as that from which all other springs.

"Peace" closes the catalogue. It is the necessary issue to which all this tends. "The fruit of righteousness is peace." While love seeks the peace of the objects of it, and satisfies itself with what it finds in blessing for them. Every way peace is reached; and only here as the end of the rest — guarded and defined by what precedes it — can it be true or safe as an object to be sought after. Here it comes in seemly order and due place. May God grant us more attainment of it, such as it is here presented.

A Divine Movement

A Divine Movement

and our path with God today.

by Frederick W. Grant

(edited)

The “Christian Update” series

Volume One

(A discussion, defense, reproof and exhortation concerning the principles and practices of so-called “brethren”)

ISBN 0-88172-138-7

Published 1990 by BELIEVERS BOOKSHELF INC.

P. O. Box 261, Sunbury, Pennsylvania 17801

The Christian Update series consists of outstanding religious writings of 19th century authors, which writings have been edited to make them easier to read and understand. We have a gold mine of truth from these God-gifted writers who opened up for us the Scriptures in a way not known for 1500 years. Unfortunately, today, many of these writings are not being read, or when read, are not easily understood, because the style of writing has changed in the last century from a strong emphasis on literary beauty (with long and involved sentence structure), to emphasis on simplicity and readability. Also, words have changed meaning or are no longer in common usage. Therefore, believing it to be the Lord's leading, I am editing some of these writings to make them easier to understand, while maintaining the writer's exactness of meaning and as much of his style as possible. Some footnotes have been added, and references to papers no longer in print and to events no longer well known, have been omitted. I pray that this "Christian Update Series” will help those who read it, to grow in the truth and give them a greater appreciation of their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Roger P. Daniel

Table of Contents

Introduction (By the Editor)

Chapter 1 Philadelphia: What is it?

Chapter 2 The Overcomer in Philadelphia

Chapter 3 “You Have Kept My Word”

Chapter 4 Holy and True

Chapter 5 “You Have Not Denied My Name”

Chapter 6 The Question of Association

Chapter 7 A Circle of Fellowship or Independency

Chapter 8 Clerisy and Ecclesiasticism

Chapter 9 Heresy

Chapter 10 The Assembly in its Practical Working

Introduction

Mr. Grant's “A Divine Movement” has been selected for Volume One of the Christian Update series because of the unique, practical and important truths it presents, not because it is an easy book to read even in its edited form.

These truths generally are not taught to Christians today, first because these truths are not popular — they do not agree with the position taken by most Christian leaders. Secondly, I fear that many of us who know (in differing degrees) and should be teaching these truths as a practical reality, have so let them slip that we shy away from presenting to others what we ourselves fail to practice. Thirdly, some may feel that the finer details of the truth about God's Church are too difficult for, or beyond the need for particularly the young Christian to know.

However, the most complete knowledge about God's Church and our practical relationship to it, is one of the most important doctrines (truths or teachings) that any Christian can learn. The Church is Christ's special object for this present dispensation. He is its heavenly Head, and each believer, simply by being saved, is a member of the body of Christ which is the Church. “Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word; that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish … For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones … This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church” (Eph. 5: 22-33).

I pray that the thoughts that Mr. Grant presents in what follows, concerning our practical relationship to the true Church, will cause each of us to carefully search both Scripture and our own hearts — two things that we often don't like to do, perhaps because we are afraid of what we might find. The subjects which Mr. Grant discusses definitely are the 'meat,' not the 'milk' of the Bible, but I believe that the words and thoughts of this book will be understandable to any Christian of at least high school age who desires — purposes — to chew up and digest the meat of Scripture, instead of simply being content with the easy, surface truth — the milk of God's holy Word.

The Bible quotations are from the New Scofield Bible except when wording is critical. Then, the very accurate “New Translation” by J. N. Darby or Mr. Grant's own translation, have been used. Also, the old-English words such as 'hath' and 'thou' have been updated to the 20th Century 'has' and 'you.' However, when reference is to God, the old English words “Thee, Thou, Thine” have been retained. Although I don't see any Scriptural reason for retaining these words, I have found that many Christians feel very strongly that the older words are more respectful to God than “You.” R. P. Daniel

Chapter 1

Philadelphia: What is it?

My purpose in this book is to follow a gracious movement of God and to show the Scriptural principles that characterize it. I also will discuss the difficulties and oppositions to this movement. My aim will be to exercise people with relation to it and to help those already exercised to settle questions that may disturb them. (The people involved in this movement commonly are called “brethren” or “Plymouth Brethren” although they do not accept any such name, Ed.)

I do not propose to discuss any history of this movement, for a history would prejudice minds in opposite ways by the introduction of names. We tend to make men commend the truth rather than making the truth approve the men who follow it. Therefore, I will look only at principles, with their necessary results on our conduct, only referring to history when necessary to explain their importance to us.

Each person then must apply the principles for himself. But with divine light and an unprejudiced soul truly before God, the application should be reasonably easy. It will test us, of course, as to whether we really are following God's path. Let us not seek to escape the test but find the blessing which God has for us in it.

When special times of sifting come, the sense of spiritual weakness and the love we have for one another would make us gladly seek escape. But, escape would be unwise and unbelieving. Satan is the sifter of God's wheat, and it is a serious thing to let him win, because sifting is God's method for purification. Take Simon Peter in the Gospels: he is in special danger, foreknown by the Lord as specially likely to fail, and yet Peter cannot be spared the sifting. “I have prayed for you,” says the Lord, not that you won't be sifted, not even that you may not fail, but “that your faith fail not; and when you are restored, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22: 32). Here, good was to come from Satan's sifting, even for one who might seem to have failed completely under it.

What comfort there is in this for us! If the Lord is ready to put into our hands any work for Himself, what wonder if, first of all, He is pleased to let us, like Peter, find in sorrow and suffering the value of Satan's sieve in breaking down our carelessness and self-confidence.

Going on to the question at the head of this chapter, I propose to look briefly at the Lord's addresses to the seven 'churches' in Revelation 2 and 3, which addresses are prophetic of seven successive conditions of the Church at large, covering the entire period of time from the apostles' day until the Rapture. A great proof of this is the exacting correspondence between the prophecy and its historical fulfillment. Let's briefly look at the first five churches.

EPHESUS, to which, in its fresh eagerness, Paul gave the doctrine of the Church, here heads a history of decline. Outwardly, things still look good. The departure is realized only by God. First love is no longer there. This is the beginning of the end, a root upon which many evil fruits will develop if there is not recovery.

SMYRNA shows us the double attack of Satan on the Church in this weakened condition. Outwardly, there is persecution by the Roman Empire. Internally, there is the introduction of Judaism into Christianity which develops as the enemy's seed, the “synagogue of Satan” — the mixing together of true and false in a legal and ritualistic system claiming earthly possession and promise, and already slandering (blaspheming) the faithful remnant.

PERGAMOS shows us the lost pilgrim character of the Church. They are “dwelling where Satan's throne is.” The Nicolaitans, religious subjectors of the laity, now act as such, while Balaam-teachers seduce God's people into idolatry and evil alliances with the world.

In THYATIRA, we see the above fully developed in Romanism. That which Balaam-teachers did before as individuals, a woman (type or picture of the professing church) does now, speaking as a prophetess with the claim of divine authority. But God brands her with the terrible name of 'Jezebel,' the idolatrous persecutor of the true prophets in Ahab's day. However, development of this evil line ends here. A remnant begins to be marked out again (“the rest in Thyatira”) which prepares us for a different condition of things in the next address.

Accordingly, in SARDIS, we don't see Jezebel or her corruption. Things have been received and heard, but they are ready to die. The general state is death, but with a “name to live” and “a few names that have not defiled their garments” in this place of the dead. We have here the national (government-controlled) churches of the Reformation, with their more-Scriptural doctrine, but which is difficult to maintain in the midst of what (the world claiming to be the true Church) is spiritually dead, with only a name to live.

This brings us to PHILADELPHIA. If the previous interpretations are correct, Philadelphia must be something that has developed in the years since the Reformation, outside of the spiritually-dead state churches.

Philadelphia has the Lord's approval in a way that no other of the seven churches has, except Smyrna, with which, in another way also, Philadelphia is linked. Here the synagogue of Satan once more appears, as in Smyrna. There seems to be some revival of the Judaistic-principles typified by this, or at least something brings these principles to the front of the Lord's address.

It is understandable why Christians would shrink from appropriating to themselves the Lord's commendation found here, although that very approval must cause every Christian to desire the character which our Lord can thus commend. But, since no circumstance can make it impossible to fulfill the conditions necessary for His approval, there surely must have been Philadelphians (people with a Philadelphian-character) in every generation since these words of Scripture were written.

It is blessed to see that what the Lord approves in Philadelphia is given in such plain words: keeping His Word, not denying His Name, keeping the word of His patience. All this seems simple, and it is to one who is simply leaning on the Lord! Yet, if we apply it carefully, not letting ourselves off easily, these words will search us out to the very bottom.

Although there always have been individual Philadelphians, a Philadelphian-movement is another matter, and this is what we should look for as occurring sometime after the Reformation. Although we shouldn't flatter ourselves with being what we are not, we must consider that, if there is such a movement, what is our personal relationship to it? This may cause us anxious inquiry, and it would be very disappointing if a satisfactory answer was not available.

If the Lord has given me in these addresses, clues to His relationship to the successive phases of the Church on earth, then I must ask myself where I fit into this. If I do not belong to that line of development that ends in Thyatira (Papal Rome) and I do not belong to the state-churches of the Reformation, or those churches similarly constituted, then I must find my place either in Philadelphia or in Laodicea (the seventh church).

Now, if the Holy Spirit is at work in the midst of such a state of things as Sardis implies, not merely to sustain a remnant, but in testimony against evil, in what direction will He work? It will be to separate the spiritually living from the spiritually dead. He will lead Christians to seek out their own company, giving expression to the 'love of the brethren' — the meaning of the word Philadelphia.

This work of the Holy Spirit has characterized, in varying degrees, many movements that have arisen since the Reformation, which movements taught and practiced, more or less, the separation of Christians from the world and the communion (fellowship) of Christians as a visible reality. Every protest against the misery of an unsaved church-membership and every attempt to maintain the difference between the Church and the world has proclaimed the related truth of the Church's practical unity. Philadelphia — brotherly love — is a word that covers all this seeking to make visible the true Church, so long thought to be invisible because of being hidden in the world and in the religions of men.

Thus, 'Philadelphia' stands for a well-defined movement in the history of the professing church, which movement has assumed many different characters. These differences may be used to deny the nature of Philadelphia as defining any distinct path for God's people today, but this is only a superficial view of the matter. Other considerations will make us modify this first conception and make us realize that the Word of God, here as elsewhere, requires complete honesty in our obedience to it, to get His blessings. Let's now consider the first warning that the Lord gives us in the address to the church of Philadelphia (Rev. 3: 7-13).

Chapter 2

The Overcomer in Philadelphia

If the desire of the Philadelphian is the separation of the Church from the world and its restoration to visible unity on earth, how the Lord's words “you have a little power” appeal to us. Power for such work plainly is not man's, although God graciously acknowledges what is there. The ideal is not attainable, but this is to be distinguished from an impractical aim. Infidels have rightly declared that the Christian standard is not completely attainable, but every Christian knows that to “walk as Christ walked” is very far from an impractical aim.

If we are acquainted at all with the feeble efforts of Christians to walk with God, we must realize that, in the path in which Christ would lead us, we must have the deepest humility to escape the deepest humiliation. The warning given to the Philadelphian speaks volumes here, for all depends on his heeding it: “Hold fast that which you have, that no man take your crown.” It is by holding fast that 'overcoming' is accomplished for the Philadelphian, since this verse (Rev. 3: 11) gives the only evil that is in view in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia's “little power” makes the above warning more impressive. The unattainableness of the ideal, the little progress that we make towards it, the weakness manifest in others as in ourselves, all combine to dishearten us. But, that which often seems to be the failure of principles is only our failure to act on the principles, but this is bad enough. If the principles have failed by not being carried out; if they are too heavenly, would it not be wise to 'materialize' them somewhat? If a lower (more earthly) path is more practical, is it not better? Don't you realize that to give up a single point of the Lord's will is to give up 'obedience' as a principle! How many points we then give up is only a question of detail.

It is not difficult to find the wrecks of failed Philadelphias littering the centuries since Luther. Every genuine revival, being the work of the Holy Spirit, has tended in the Philadelphian direction. It has brought Christians together, it has separated them from the world, it has proved afresh the power of Christ's Word, it has revived the sweetness of His Name. The sense of evils in the professing church, intolerable to the aroused conscience, has forced many, in obedience to God's command, to “depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2: 19).

Is it not the constant reproach of such movements that, in a generation or two, they sink to nearly the common level of things around? They have not been able to retain the blessing. If gathered to some principle that the natural conscience owns, or some assertion of right that men value as their possession, such movements may still grow while the old men weep at the remembrance of past blessing, now lost, and realize their temple to be in (spiritual) ruin.

All this must take place unless God prevents it. The first generation had to break through natural surroundings at the call of God, and they willingly followed Him in suffering and self-denial. Then their children came into the heritage their fathers had obtained for them, but without the exercise that their fathers had. Nature attracts them to the path by force of habit. They accept easily and easily can let go. They don't know the joy of sacrifice. They don't have the vigor gained by painful work. So, it is easy to predict what will follow, not necessarily from anything wrong with what they hold as truth, but from the incapable, unexercised hands that hold the truth.

The argument of success resulting from such failure, deserves consideration. Does success, as men count it, imply that the success is good in God's eyes? Or conversely, does failure and break-up prove that the wrecked thing was evil? Carry out honestly such a supposition and see where it will lead you. Take, for instance, the Church in the days of the Apostles, as seen in Scripture, and the blessed truth given it at the beginning. Where will I find this Church or the truth possessed by her when I come to the beginning of uninspired history?

The answer is plain and terrible; God even prepared us for it. It was needful even 1900 years ago that Jude (v. 3) should exhort us to “contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.” Paul speaks of “the mystery of iniquity already at work” (2 Thess. 2: 7), and he and Peter, of the special evils of the last days. John found the signs of the 'last time' in there being already “many antichrists” (1 John 2: 18).

Outside of Scripture, the historical church, in the words of J. N. Darby, “never was as a system the institution of God or what God had established, but at all times, from its first appearance in ecclesiastical history, the departure as a system from what God established, and nothing else.” And as to doctrines, “it is quite certain that neither a full redemption nor a complete, possessed justification by faith as Paul teaches it, a perfecting forever by Christ's one offering, a known personal acceptance in Christ, is ever found in any ecclesiastical writings after the Scriptures, for long centuries.”

So, what about this apostolic church which seems to have vanished? Were its principles at fault in its quick failure? What principles of Scripture secure us from failure? Scripture exhorts us, if we are Philadelphians, to “hold fast,” and this recognizes the danger of not holding fast!

No one should be surprised, then, that the wrecks of Philadelphia are strewn along the road, while Rome retains her boasted unity and power over people. It is accounted for by the simple Scriptural fact that error roots itself in the world easier than truth. So the Lord asks by Jeremiah (2: 11), “Has a nation changed their gods, which yet are no gods? But My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.” May we not argue the reverse way, that in an adverse world with Satan's power rampant, if a people could find a way of steady Scriptural increase and prosperity, this exceptional vigor would have to be accounted for, and not the fact of reverses and discouragements.

We clearly should understand what the Lord's warning words mean: “Hold fast that which you have, that no man take your crown.” What are we to “hold fast”? It is not a certain deposit of doctrines. I do not deny such a deposit or that it should be held securely, but this is not what the Lord speaks of here, as it is in the message to Sardis.

The comparison between the two is important. It is said to Sardis, “Remember therefore how you have received and heard, and hold fast and repent.” There, a measured amount, a clearly-defined deposit of truth is indicated. This is instructive when we recall what Sardis stands for. A wonderful blessing was given in those Reformation days. They had received and heard many important truths and they knew the value of it all. But, in their eagerness to secure it for the generations to come, they put it into creeds and confessions. They weren't wrong in this, for they had a right to say for themselves and to declare to others what they believed they had received from God. Those confessions, when read by the light of the fires of martyrdom for the signers, are blessed witnesses of the truth for which, when felt in power, men willingly could give their bodies to the flame.

But the wrong was that they took those creeds and forced them, with all the emphasis that penalties enforced by a State-church could give, upon the generations following. Their measure of knowledge only, was to be that of their children. If there was error in the creed, that error must be continued. Finally, all this was placed for maintenance into the hands, not of spiritual men, but of the world church they had started!

The Holy Spirit thus was grieved and quenched. He was leading them far beyond where they actually stopped and was ready to lead them into “all truth” (John 16: 13). But they wrote their creeds, not just to show how far the Lord had led them, but as the ultimate degree of knowledge. Henceforth, it was to what they had received and heard in the 16th century, that they looked back. The word was no longer, as with the Reformers themselves, “On with the Holy Spirit, our Teacher,” but rather, “Back to the Reformation.”

The words of the Lord to Sardis are, therefore, marvelously accurate, saying literally, “You have taken the measure of truth you have, as if it were all the truth. Well, you have limited yourselves very much, but at least be true to what you have: be watchful and strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die.”

Philadelphia is also called to hold fast, but hold what? What she has, of course; and that is a little power and Christ's Word kept and His Name not denied. Notice that there is no longer a measured quantity. Nor is it His commandments or His words, but His Word that is to be held securely. The distinction is drawn in John 14: 21-24. Love is not measured by profession or emotion, but by obedience. The Lord says, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.” The response to this is, “and he who loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.”

But there is a deeper love than that shown by keeping commandments. It is a love which takes account of all God's Word, whether positive command or not. And here, God's response is correspondingly greater, “If a man love Me, he will keep My Word (not Words) and My Father will love him and We will come to him and make our abode with him.” Here is a full and permanent communion not found in the previous case.

Philadelphia has kept — is keeping, as long as she remains Philadelphia — not His commandments but His Word as a whole. She doesn't know it all; that is impossible. Just for that reason, she doesn't have a certain amount of truth to which she is faithful. She is like Mary at the Lord's feet, to listen and be subject to whatever He communicates. His Word as a whole is before her. Not limiting the Holy Spirit, she is willing to be led on. Her ear is open. She has the blessedness of the man “who hears Me, watching daily at My gates, waiting at the posts of My doors” (Prov. 8: 34).

Of course, this is not unique to any special time, for it is always God's way to lead on one who is ready for His leading. But since the mid-1800s, Scripture has been opened to us more as a whole than at any former time since the apostles. Further, this has been in connection with a movement that has all the features of Philadelphia. Certain great truths, having been recovered to the Church, have helped to open up in a new way both the Old and New Testaments. The dispensations have been distinguished; the Gospel cleared from Galatian error (law-keeping); our place in Christ learned in connection with our participation in His death and resurrection; the real nature of eternal life and the present seal and baptism of the Holy Spirit in contrast with all former or other Spiritual operations and gifts, has been learned; and the Rapture has been distinguished from His Appearing. We owe it to the Lord to fully acknowledge what He has done. Must we not connect it to the fulfillment of Christ's word to Philadelphia in contrast with the “received and heard” of Sardis?

So we must ask ourselves the solemn question. Is the previously discussed attitude still maintained and is it to be maintained? Are we to go on, still learning from the Lord, or are we now to be content with no more than these blessed truths? A large measure is still a measure, and once we get back to what we have received, we accept the bucket in place of the flowing well. At the feet of Jesus, who will presume to say that we have all of His blessed Word?

Chapter 3

You Have Kept My Word

The more we understand what is implied in the keeping of Christ's Word, the more we will realize its importance. To really keep Christ's Word implies going on with Him in steady progress, not wilfully permitting any part of it to be dark, unfruitful or in vain for us; not allowing ourselves to be robbed of difficult books or chapters. We often permit this to happen without a thought about it, as if God had given us too large a Bible and we were confused rather than served by the largeness of His gift. Do we really believe that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3: 16)? Are we sure that this is true of prophecy, history, type, parable, even of the long genealogies, of the lists of David's officers, of the cities of Israel, etc.? Are we personally seeking to make all of it profitable to us?

Let us be absolutely honest with ourselves and with God. If we do not accept the profitableness of all Scripture, are we not denying in some measure the doctrine of God's inspiration of Scripture? If so, then we are not “men of God” for whom all Scripture is fruitful (2 Tim. 3: 17).

Is this not a serious matter? Take the admonition from the typical history of Israel. Was it not evil that Israel, brought into the promised land by God's power, failed to possess it all? Is it not a serious matter that for us also, “there remains very much land to be possessed?”

Two things — apart from unbelief as to the inspiration of God's Word — are used to argue against the above, but they are both evil, unbelieving arguments. However, since they sound reasonable, they need exposure.

The first is an old argument of Isaiah's day (Isa. 29: 9-11) against the divine vision. Delivered to the learned with the request to read it, the answer of the 'learned' is, “The book is sealed.” So today, man's argument is, “The language can't be understood: history, type, parable, are strange speech. People everywhere disagree as to the interpretation. How can we succeed where so many have failed? What good is guessing?”

Of course, no good can come from guessing, for uncertainty as to truth makes it dangerous to proceed or even to stand still. The plain duty of every Christian is to keep on the firm ground of known truth. Scripture has been used so carelessly as to make it the mere plaything of the mind, hardly to be taken seriously. However, there is certainty at every point for anyone who, in faith, will seek it. “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God … and it shall be given him” (James 1: 5). “If any man wills to do His (God's) will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God…” (John 7: 17). If we believe that God deals truthfully with us, the above verses must be true. So, let us use the greatest care as to the interpretations that we accept. Otherwise, free license is given to the imagination.

The second argument, which also is as old as Isaiah, is the most widespread and the most dangerous. It is the language of the people, not of their leaders. It appears as the language of humility: “I am not learned, so I can't understand.” This denies the all-sufficiency of the Holy Spirit as the Teacher of Christians, or it denies His presence with His people. It makes the understanding of God's things to depend on a man's education or on his I.Q., instead of on the Holy Spirit. It makes Christ, who dwelt among the poor and the needy, now to only reveal Himself to the educated, intelligent and wealthy. It makes the Lord's disciples, those unlearned Galileans, an anomaly for all future times. It gives the intellect a huge practical advantage over the heart and conscience — the moral being. It makes the learned the judges of truth for the unlearned. It makes Scripture filter through the minds of the learned before it is fit to be the living ministry of God to others. Thus, it subjects the many to the few, and fulfilling its own argument, makes Scripture inaccessible and impracticable for the mass of mankind. What wonder if, under the influence of such a belief, people find what they expect to find — a closed instead of an open Bible. What wonder if the Holy Spirit, grieved and limited by the unfaithfulness of Christians, will not “lead us into all truth” (John 16: 13).

The above isn't intended to discredit learning or to deny the right place of intellect in the things of God. In spite of sin, one who believes God must believe that God has made his understanding, reason, imagination, conscience and heart all for Himself. Consequently, when one receives the gospel and is in real nearness to God, all these things are made alive and greatly enlarged. Let a man really desire to know this God who has revealed Himself to him; let this desire be his top priority in learning, and then every bit of truth that he learns will be the means of daily strength and growth — not monstrous as when only the head develops, but the growth of the mind, heart, conscience, all alike and together, on towards the perfect, always proportionate man.

This learning from God is the privilege of every Christian, regardless of his social-economic-educational position. Christ said, “Labour not for the food which perishes, but for that food which endures to everlasting life” (John 6: 27). This food is spiritual knowledge — knowledge of the highest kind, which is needful for the proper control of every other kind of knowledge. Since “all things were created by Christ and for Him” (Col. 1: 16), it is not possible to see things aright until we connect them with Him for whom they were created.

Then, all natural science will become spiritual science; all -ologies will work into theology. What value will the world be to me if it is not God's world? Since the world and even the universe were made to manifest Him, how great should my interest be in them! Christians are partly guilty for the neglect which has allowed the natural sciences to become the possession of unbelieving men. So, instead of Christianity standing firm on the two feet of Nature and Scripture which both testify of God, it limps along with one useless foot a burden on the other.

Knowledge? Yes, labor for knowledge, but first get Christ who is the key to it, and then the whole field lies open to you. Take possession for Him of all things. Labor, be loyal, be in earnest: “every spot that the sole of your feet shall stand on shall be your own.” Labor more earnestly for spiritual food than for what you call your 'necessary' food. Every instinct of your spiritual nature desires spiritual food and if these are denied, starved, neglected, you will dwarf yourself spiritually and become satisfied with what is almost starvation. Only eternity will reveal to you the extent of your loss, but then, it is too late.

As I have said, I believe that God has since the mid-1800s opened up the Bible to us in a remarkable way, and now He is testing us with it. Alas if we turn away! Are not these newly-revealed truths for us? Do we have faith in Him who has given them to us, that He has not mocked us with His gift? Shall we be bewildered and oppressed by the greatness of these riches? The field is boundless, but its green pastures and glorious distances invite us to explore them. Where are the people who find in the labor needed for this exploration, the necessary exercise for spiritual health and vigor? Here are endless beauties and glories, so little realized, which can be the possession of all of us because they belong to all of us! Do you say that your measure only can be small? Beloved, have you earnestly tried to find your measure?

Are you positive that you have reached your God-given boundary line? Could you tell God that you are honestly and with your whole heart working hard to learn with Him all that He has for you? If so, God's rule, given in several places including Mark 4: 25, will apply: “To him who has, shall more be given.” Where, then, will your limit be found?

Think of what God has done for us in giving us these things! Here is continuous occupation for us. Is that a loss or a gain? With the necessity of much occupation with the things of the world just to get daily food and clothing, is it loss or gain that we should have, at the same time, an equal necessity for spiritual things?

It is a necessity. “Labor not for the food which perishes but for that food which endures unto everlasting life” (John 6: 27) was spoken by lips that cannot lie, and here, the spiritual labor is said to be the more necessary. Who will disagree with the Lord? Who will say that this rule applied only to the Galilean peasants who could follow Him, not because of the miracles, but because they ate of the (spiritual) loaves and were filled, and does not apply to the hard-worked masses of today!

The necessity for this spiritual labor is inherent to the spiritual life itself, and has its corresponding reward and blessing. Among other things, it balances and relieves the natural labor. The weight of the earth's atmosphere presses on the average-sized man with a force of about 14 tons, yet we are not conscious of it because, as the air penetrates the body, there is an equal force acting outward. In like manner, the pressure of natural things can be met by the opposing pressure of spiritual things so that we may walk at ease and in freedom. I'm sure that you will find this true, for spiritual occupation increases our faith and spiritual energy, enabling us with divine power to meet life's demands.

Our spiritual land is good, but it must be cultivated for its value to be realized. Then, the profits from it will make it impossible for us to be spiritually poor. Unworked, however, our heavenly inheritance still will leave us in spiritual poverty on earth. Since we need so much occupation with our own things to meet the constant demands on us in the world, God in His faithfulness to us has not put the truth into creeds which we might easily learn by heart and lay aside, nor has He written everything out so plainly that there is no difficulty in understanding it. Bitter arguments have raged about even basic fundamentals. It is better in God's thought, that we should have constant need for reference to, and the most careful study of our Lesson Book, caused by exercises of the most painful nature, than be allowed to sink into spiritual laziness.

Most truth is not in the plain language of the epistles. The Lord taught much in parables. The book of Revelation uses symbols almost entirely. The Christian truths in the Old Testament are taught in types and history, which we are taught to allegorize. The man of understanding in Proverbs is expected “to understand a proverb and its interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings” (Prov. 1: 6). So, “if you cry after knowledge and lift up your voice for understanding; if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then shall you understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Prov. 2: 3-5). We even are told that “it is the glory of God to conceal a thing” (Prov. 25: 2) — hiding it where a diligent person can find it as a reward.

All this implies a personal labor that cannot be delegated to another, although we all are to help one another in it. God does not recognize a laity to be spoon fed once or twice a week, taking with little question what is given them. God does not recognize a division of labor — worldly things for the common people and spiritual things for a special class. No, we personally are to “be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height” (Eph. 3: 18). Indeed, we need every Christian to help us understand the Scriptures.

Of course, there are God-given teachers. No one with Scripture before him could deny that. But Scripture does not restrict teaching to the teachers, any more than it confines evangelizing to the evangelist. It is the intended glory of all these special 'gifts' to enable those whom they (the teachers, etc.) speak to, to do without them — to send men from themselves to Christ. Sitting at His feet, then, we hear Him say, without reference to any special gift, “one is your Master (Teacher), even Christ, and all you are brethren” (Matt. 23: 8).

Teachers are special helps given to the entire Church by the ascended Lord, and he who undervalues the help given, dishonors the Lord from whom the teachers have their mission and qualification. But men often turn special help into special hindrances and this often has been done with teachers. The moment the teacher is allowed to give authority to the truth — making it true because he says so — instead of the truth he teaches giving him authority; the moment the teacher is allowed to come between men and the Word, instead of bringing them to the Word; the moment the teacher is made the substitute for personal labor in the divine Word instead of a help and encouragement towards personal labor, then there is perversion of the gift and disaster follows! The whole evil of the Church teaching — man's rule usurping God's rule — has come in this way. Clergy and laity are thus formed.

The message to Philadelphia presses on us that Christ's Word, which all Scripture is, is given to His people, and those who keep (obey) it are commended by Him. What I have been urging is that, for this, they must know for themselves what it is that they are to keep. All Scripture is before them, and they cannot have the spirit of a Philadelphian if they willingly allow any of it to be taken from them; if their Bibles are willingly permitted to lack, as it were, whole pages, perhaps whole books of what is inspired of God for our profitable use. Further, the need for earnest, untiring labor in the Word is what is insisted on as necessary for all progress, for the maintenance of spirituality and for a right state with God on the part of all of God's people, not of just a special class.

Let me further press the last part of this theme. What a new state would begin for us if we would find that between our necessary work in the world and our still more necessary and fruitful occupation with Scripture, our time was so fully taken up that we would have little or none remaining for anything that was not absolutely productive and profitable; if all that was idle, vain and frivolous, disappeared out of our lives; if the newspaper (radio, TV, etc.) were supplanted by fresh discoveries in the things of God.* Peter exhorts us that “laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speaking, [we should] as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word that we should grow thereby” (1 Pet. 2: 1). God does not desire us to remain babes. The milk is to make us grow up spiritually. Peter conveys to us in these words some of that energy which, under God, had helped to make him, the unlearned Galilean fisherman, a leader in divine things. We are to be, he says, as ardent after the Word as a newborn babe is for milk! The one business of a newborn babe is to get milk. Is the Word of God sought and longed for like that in your life?

Then notice the exhortation concerning the incompatibility of spiritual occupation with “all malice and guile and hypocrisies and envies, and all evil speaking.” If the Word of God is feeding our souls, all evil things will pass away just as the dying leaf falls, crowded out by the new bud. Psalms 1: 1 gives us a delightful picture: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.” This is the negative side, but the positive side follows, and the power is in this: “But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law does he meditate day and night” (v. 2).

This is a sweet and glowing picture. Look at the result: “And he is like a tree planted by the rivers of water, which brings forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he does shall prosper” (v. 3). It would be a blessed thing if that picture was true of each one of us.

Chapter 4

Holy and True

“You have kept My Word” is the first commendation to Philadelphia. The people thus commended are first of all Philadelphians, so what God commends in them is all the more important. Let's emphasize that, while God is speaking to a company of people who are characterized by love of the brethren, His praise is not that “you have loved the brethren.” This does not even form a part of the commendation, which is, rather, “You have kept My Word and not denied My Name … you have kept the word of My patience.” Yet, in the promise to the overcomer, God does refer to their Philadelphian name, for inscribed on the pillar which he who has only “a little strength” finally becomes, is not only “the name of my God” and “my new name,” but also, “the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem.” This city is the eternal home of the brethren (believers in Christ) and has, I believe, distinct reference to Philadelphian-character. However, in His approval of them, He says nothing of this character. Why?

The title under which the Lord addresses them fully accounts for it. He is addressing Philadelphians. Thus, if people don't have this character, He isn't talking to them. He is speaking to those who seek the recovery of the true Church which should have been like “a city set on a hill (or) a light on a candlestick,” but which has dropped almost into the invisibility that men ascribe to it. God's first words remind these seekers of Church-visibility of His holiness and truth: “These things says He who is holy, He who is true.” How much they will need to remember this!

Think of the Church that is so scattered and which we would so desire to see restored. What are we to do for its restoration? Shall we proclaim to all that it is God's will that His people should be together? Shall we spread the Lord's table, free from all denominational names and terms for communion, and invite all who love the Lord to come together? The one loaf on the table does witness that we are one bread, one body, and there is no body that faith can own, except the body of Christ. Why then should we not do this?

I answer, “Tell them that the Lord welcomes all His own, but also tell them that it is 'the Holy and True' who welcomes them, and that He cannot give up His nature.” How has the true Church become the invisible Church? Is it her misfortune or her fault? Take these seven epistles of Revelation 2 and 3 and trace the Church's descent (as we did in Chapter one) from the loss of first love in Ephesus to the allowance of the woman Jezebel in Thyatira, and on through dead Sardis to the present time. Can we just ignore the past and simply, as if nothing had happened, begin again?

Suppose all Christians accepted your invitation and you were really able to assemble all the members of Christ at the Lord's table with their jarring views, their various states of soul, their entanglements with the world and with their evil associations. Would the Lord's table answer to the character implied in it being His table? Would He really be owned and honored as Lord (Master) in that coming together? With the causes of all the scattering not judged, your 'gathering' would be a defiance of the holy discipline. It would be another Babel (confusion). Do you think that outward unity is so dear to Christ that He would desire it apart from true confession, cleansing and fellowship in the truth

This address to Philadelphia intentionally opposes all such thoughts. Why doesn't the Lord present Himself here, as He did to Sardis, as the One who “has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars” — fullness of spiritual power, with His people in His keeping? It may seem strange that dead Sardis is thus reminded but not Philadelphia. However, such a statement to Philadelphia would indicate the recovery of the Church by their own means. To Sardis, the statement is exhortation instead of assurance. Rather, Philadelphia needs the warning that they are living in the last days — days of apostasy (falling away) — and thus must guard against an outward unity that would set aside all the godly value of unity. How perfect, in its place, is every word of God!

Let's notice again what the Lord commends. “You have a little power … have kept My word and not denied My Name, and … have kept the word of My patience.” Mark these 'My's' which occur eight times in this address. They show that the true Philadelphian clings to Christ, to His Word, to His Person, to His strangership in the present time, and to His certainty of the future. The work of a Philadelphia is to obey Christ, to hold fast the truth as to Him and to be waiting for His coming. The work of gathering will look after itself if the above is done. The Lord will see to that! Christ the Center is to unite us, not something that is external to Him. Thus alone will there be fruit for God and commendation from Him who here speaks to His people.

It is easy to see how the Philadelphian character may be lost by a false idea of it. Real true brotherly love is a precious thing, but see where the apostle Peter puts it: “Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly love” (2 Peter 1: 5-7). In God's order, many things need to come before brotherly love. No doubt, all of the above things are true of all Christians to some degree, but there is a relationship of these things one to another, shown in the order of appearance in this verse, and that is what is important here. There is no true love of the brethren — no Philadelphia — unless all these things are found in it. For it all, Christ must have the first place in our lives.

Philadelphian-gathering is to Christ, and it is Christ who gathers. A common faith, a common joy, a common occupation find their source in the outward sign of the spiritual bond that unites us. Those who know what gathering at the Lord's table means, know that communion there can only be hindered by the presence of what is not communion. Harmony cannot be increased by discord. I'm not speaking of lack of understanding. Rather, I'm speaking of an unexercised conscience and of a heart not receptive to divine things (which means it is receptive to worldly, fleshly things). How must the power of the Holy Spirit be hindered by such! The Scriptural rule for times of decline is to gather “with those who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2: 22) and the way to find those is not to advertise for them, but to “follow righteousness, faith, love, peace,” walking on the same road that they are on. The Lord will bring you together.

If we really seek the blessing of souls, we will guard carefully the entrance into fellowship (the breaking of bread). We are responsible to see that such an entrance (reception) is “holy and true.” Careless reception is the cause of much trouble and is part of the cause of the general decline in spiritual things. “Evil company corrupts good morals” (1 Cor. 15: 33). Men cannot walk together unless they are agreed. When trial comes, as it will, those who have never been firmly convinced of the divine reason for the position they have taken, will scatter and flee from it with reckless haste, carrying with them an evil report of what they have turned their backs on. Such persons usually are beyond recovery and often develop into bitter enemies of the truth.

We are taking a great responsibility on ourselves if we press people to take a position for which they are not ready; in which, therefore, they act without faith. The apostle Paul warns us of the danger of leading people who do not have an exercised conscience, to follow a faith that is not their own: “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom. 14: 23). No wonder that there are wrecks all along the road of a 'divine movement' for which real, exercised, personal faith is so constantly required, and in which so many are trying to walk without it. We should remember that it is the Holy and the True who is seeking fellowship with us, and only that which answers to this holy and true character can survive the tests that surely will come.

Chapter 5

You Have Not Denied My Name

Philadelphia is produced in practice only by understanding and obeying Christ's Word and by a new sense of relationship to Him and of what He is to His people. Every genuine revival has something of this character. I am here speaking of the revival of saints, although the effect will be seen in a new power for the saving of sinners. When genuine interest in the Word of God is revived and the love of Christ is felt in new power, increased communion with Him will cause the 'communion of saints' to be more valued and sought after; and the desire to be obedient will cause any yoke with unsaved to be an intolerable bondage.

If such a revival were felt in the whole Church, every unequal yoke (2 Cor. 6: 14-18) would be broken by the energy of the Holy Spirit and the whole Church would be brought together! But such a complete revival has never taken place, so the consequence of partial revivals has been more or less to separate Christians from Christians — those who want to go on with the world from those who do not. Hence, every such godly movement has to bear the reproach on the part of both the world and of many Christians of causing divisions, as the Lord's words declare that He came to do: “not to send peace but a sword” and to make a man's enemies to be “those of his own household” (Matt. 10: 24-39).

In such a situation, compromise and expediency soon begin their fatal work. That which the Holy Spirit alone can accomplish, is taken in hand by the wisdom of man. Scripture is perverted for their 'causes,' for they cannot do without Scripture. Truth is partly suppressed or ignored; the cry of 'love' is invoked; and liberal tolerance with the promise of wider and speedy results, becomes the method of operation. From such activities of men, the religious confederacies of today have arisen with their large followings, which seem so triumphantly to justify them, but in which the truth of God tends to be watered down or ignored so that men may keep peaceful company with one another.

The uncompromising truth does arouse men and set them at opposition. The jarring sects of Protestantism have arisen from those 'private interpretations' of an open Bible, which 'wiser' Romanism has condemned in favor of what is strangely called 'catholic' (universal). Rome's word is not compromise but authority. Protestantism also dislikes the word compromise, preferring the word tolerance. They say that you must be liberal in divine things — the very thing in which you have no rights, for the Word of God claims to have the highest authority. Scripture is not tolerant! “If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14: 37).

Therefore, the sharp-edged teaching of 'all Scripture' tends to be in disrepute today. As men did with Jesus in His day, so now, they bow it out. They seldom allow Scripture to dictate to them where obedience will cost them much. There seems to be only a few people who are ready to receive and welcome all the truth of God. There can be no other reason why all Christians are not of one mind today, than that they do not desire at all costs to follow the truth. The Lord Himself says, “he who wills to do God's will, shall know of the doctrine” (John 7: 17). How could it be otherwise? What then does the confusion in Christendom tell of the condition of God's people?

In general, the problem is not strife about doctrines, but laziness and indifference to them. Some, very active in evangelism, almost have given up doctrine as only hindering their work. However, if they pause to realize the meaning of this, they must admit that either God or they are mistaken, because God's Word is full of doctrine (teachings) which we are told to obey. On the other hand, how many simply have received what they have heard without exercise about it, without following Paul's rule to “prove all things, hold fast that which is good” (1 Thess. 5: 21).

As a consequence of carelessly receiving many things, Scripture seems inconsistent and unintelligible. The searching of Scripture brings only perplexity. People who hold Scripture in a general way but give up its 'minor' details, would be astonished if they really knew how much of what they think that God has given them, is not the living Word of God at all.

This carelessness and laziness affects even the most fundamental truths about the Person and work of Christ. There are many conflicting views about atonement in the so-called orthodox denominations. What is the remedy? Many answer, “Leave out the views; do not define.” But suppose Scripture defines. Then they will say, “Don't go too deep into Scripture.” But Satan is the one who suggests this. He says to one person, “Be humble, don't imagine that your opinion is better than anyone else's,” and to another, “Be charitable: good men differ about these things,” and to another, “Don't contend for this: you will make enemies, you will lose your friends,” and to another, “You are not learned: don't occupy yourself with what requires a theologian to decide,” and to another, “The 'church' has settled this.” Getting more the dragon's voice, he says to another, “Surely there are mistakes in the Bible: you do not mean to contend for verbal inspiration?”

The form of the argument varies, but the voice is that of the liar, the one who “abode not in the truth” (John 8: 44). Satan's constant aim is to discredit the truth. “Don't go too far; Don't be too sure; Don't be dogmatic; Don't be uncharitable.” The Devil knows exactly what approach to use that will make each of us most responsive to his touch. Further, he can mix his poisons so well, that there is little taste or smell of the main ingredient, but it will do its evil work.

The easy-going apathy of Christians is amazing, that will allow their best blessings to be stolen from under their eyes. In other matters, they quickly fight for what is theirs. “The children of this world are, in their generation, wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16: 8). Many Christians have all the wisdom of the world in worldly matters, but the most childish incapacity in the things that should be theirs as Christians.

What is the meaning of this word to Philadelphia, “You have not denied My Name”? Perhaps you think of such denial as gross apostasy or as the lapse under pressure of past days of persecution when a little incense offered to some heathen god would save a Christian's life. Since few are tested that way now, you may believe that you have no need to look closely at this matter. But if Philadelphia specially applies to professedly-Christian times as today, then it is strange that not having done what few believers today have any strong temptation to do, should form a special commendation of Philadelphia! If the above were all that is meant by our subject phrase, we don't need to put much emphasis on the warning to hold fast that which you have, and overcoming won't be difficult or even possible since there is, for most, no problem to overcome.

Have we possibly, then, misinterpreted? Must not there be something special in both the commendation and warning that indicates a special liability just on the part of Philadelphians to this specific sin — some special trial to which they would be exposed, which would make them deny His Name?

What does it mean to deny His Name? What is His Name? All names are significant in Scripture, but the names of God are significant above all! If God acts “for His Name's sake,” He declares what He is. If we are gathered to Christ's Name (the true form of the words in Matthew 18: 20), it is because of what we realize Him to be, that draws us unto Him. Thus, His Name is the revealed truth of what He is. He is away from the earth, so we do not have Himself, visibly, to come to. But the truth of what He is, draws us together, and as drawn, we confess what He is to us. Also, in so coming, we have the promise of His presence with us (Matt. 18: 20). We are united together like a wheel. First, we are united by the circumference — ourselves one to another — but if that were all or even the main thing, the wheel would have no strength. Its strength primarily depends on the center. Likewise, our union is formed and maintained by the Center, Christ. In direct proportion to the strength of attachment to the Center, the circumferential union — that to one another — is defined and made secure.

Carry this thought back to our subject. Think of what Philadelphia stands for. If the true gathering of Christians is expressed in it, and it is to a true Christ (to the truth of what Christ is) that they are gathered, then what is more central for the Philadelphian than not to deny the truth of what Christ is — this all-essential, all-sufficient Name!

Now, another question, and let no one who values Christ treat it lightly. How would the devil, the enemy of God and man, the constant and subtle opposer of all good, and with angelic knowledge of what he is opposing, seek to corrupt and destroy a Philadelphian-movement? The answer is obvious. He would attack the central point on which all depended, the truth of Christ, His Person and His work. Thus, a main test for a Philadelphian movement would be the CONFESSION OR DENIAL OF THE NAME OF CHRIST as the Center of gathering!

Have I strained the argument? If not, let us take one more step. These addresses in Revelation 2 and 3 are prophetic, so this address to Philadelphia is a prophecy. So, we see implied here, in connection with this Philadelphian movement to recover (on principle) the Church of God, an attack of Satan on the Lord Jesus Christ as the Center of gathering. Has it occurred? I ask you who have knowledge of the history of the last 160 years in relation to this movement, to bear witness of this before God. Have there been questions affecting the Person of Christ and the gathering to His Name? Has not history fulfilled this prophecy? Then, how does this prophecy affect our position? Are we, by our position, denying His Name?

Let us remember that Satan is well versed in this terrible warfare. He has skill acquired in 6000 years of experience with man. “He is a liar and the father of it” (John 8: 44). Nothing is more common than to see him in the clothing of religion, and he is familiar with the speech of 'love.' He can appear as an angel of light and his ministers can appear as ministers of righteousness. Well may we look to our armor; well may we cling to the Word of God; well may we be praying with all prayer; well may we be “not ignorant of his (Satan's) devices” (2 Cor. 2: 11). All the world is on his side. The flesh (the old nature), even in a Christian, pleads for him. We cannot defeat him by using his own weapons and tactics. In the battle with him, we should always keep in mind what Proverbs 5: 6 says of the strange woman; “lest you should ponder the path of life, her ways are changeable that you should not know them.”

Let us fix in our minds that the Lord, in commending Philadelphia for not denying His Name, shows that the great danger in such controversies as have arisen is that the Philadelphian, in his desire that the people of God be together, will forget in some way the gathering Center and link himself with the denial of the Name of Christ. We will look at links later, but let us anticipate the apostle's warning words that one who receives or even greets the man who brings not this doctrine (of Christ) is a partaker of his evil deeds (2 John 7-11).* Therefore, one who knowingly greets the denier of Christ's Name, is part of that denial. The history of Satan's first attack on this divine movement in the mid 1800s clearly began with a practical denial of Christ's Name. Only on one side was there even any suspicion of such denial or of greeting the deniers. Even those who were separated from (now known as open brethren, Ed.) could not and did not charge the other side with such a denial or with any compromising adherence to those persons who were denying the Lord's Name. There, if anywhere (and the attack of the enemy is sure), the danger signals of this prophecy display themselves!

In this so called open-exclusive division,** God allowed Satan to sift God's wheat and he did his job well. Plenty of failure could be pointed to on both sides. Godliness, too, could be urged on both sides. In a sieve, things get well mixed. Thus, it is important to clearly stand on the ground given by this prophecy and see that, while on the one side of this division, men were pleading for the Center, the other side was thinking mainly of the circumference. Both need to be maintained, and it is quite possible to err on all sides, but the one who holds fast to Christ will find that He is the attractive power for His people. In drawing a circle with a compass, the circumference only can be drawn from the center. Philadelphia is neither praised nor blamed for her conduct in relation to Christ's people. It is “My Word, My Name, My patience” that are spoken of. To get His point of view is all-important!

If Christ is honored, the Holy Spirit is free to work, so truth finds its place in relation to Him, and there is progress. People can be led on. All who will, can judge the above case. The Holy Spirit cannot be mistaken or turned aside into other channels than those connected to the Rock from whom the water flows. And here is a distinct and precious evidence of Christ's approval. Apart from this connection, the stream grows sluggish and dries up. People may be blessed and ministered to, because God is gracious, but the supply is elsewhere.

Chapter 6

The Question of Association

In this section, I will turn from the question of the doctrine of Christ, since in connection with the division discussed in chapter five, there are counter-charges and later developments that cannot be ignored.

We must look at association in the light of Scripture to settle how far reaching is the guilt of denying Christ's Name. Its importance demands a close examination. The question of association closely relates to the whole character of things today and should deeply concern us all. Scripture is strictly against principles that weave the Christian into the texture of 'society,' making it difficult to gain his attention as to what is spiritually harmful to him. Yet “the world passes away … but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2: 17).

The association of man with man is a divine necessity. The institution of the family recognized it from the beginning. The differences in capacity of men bring them together; the lack in one is met by the other's efficiency. Union means ministry of each to each; the need of it being a most helpful discipline; the supply of it, an appeal to affection and gratitude. The Church of God is an organism in which this principle is fully owned — a union founded on both difference and unity, a body built up by that which “every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part” (Eph. 4: 16).

Sin, however, transforms all good into evil; the greater the good, the worse the evil. The religious unions of today often are mere 'confederacy' or even 'conspiracy.' In it, the individual, which God's union always provides for and maintains, is interfered with. Conscience is suppressed, evil is tolerated for supposed final good, and morality is superseded by permissiveness.

Whatever motivates people to unite, the true fear of God is the only remedy for wrong union. This fear effectively will purge evil from all our unions, or else it will set God's free-man loose from a desire for a wrong union. If we want to walk with God, we cannot hold the hand of one who refuses His will as sovereign. Our goal must be His goal, and the way to it, His way. To seek to unite God with evil is profanity. (One meaning of profanity is “to pollute, to make common,” i.e., to mix evil with good. Ed.)

Thus, our associations are of great importance. They witness to the path on which (whatever our profession) we are really walking. Scripturally, we can only “follow righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2: 22).

In the true Church of God, where our relationship to one another is of His establishment and not of our own will, it is inevitable that reconciling holiness in our ways with the eternal bond that unites us with one another, will cause serious perplexity. The world in which the Church is, is the Church's complete opposite, and the evil in the world constantly is appealing to the evil, old nature in the Christian. We should fear the world's friendship much more than its hostility. Not even a truce is possible between its prince (Satan) and our God.

Already in the apostles' time, the wisdom of the world, the lust of the flesh and the power of Satan were invading the sacred enclosure. Paul again had to define its boundary lines and repel the intruder. The foundation doctrine of the resurrection was being denied. The Corinthians' whole profession of Christianity was being brought into question. If such things could come in so soon in Corinth, in the very presence of an apostle, how can we expect better times and be permitted to escape necessary warfare? It is in Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians that he insists so earnestly that any yoke with unbelievers forfeits the enjoyment of our relationship to the Father. We must come out from among unbelievers and be separate and not even touch the unclean thing. Only then will we have the assurance, “I will receive you and be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord almighty” (2 Cor. 6: 14-18). The peril of evil association could not be more emphatically affirmed.

Some say that the unequal yoke has only to do with unbelievers and thus does not define our attitude towards Christians. Before looking at specific Scriptures, I want to deal with an argument that connects itself with such an objection. It is urged that we must have direct Scripture, not inference, to guide us in all these matters.

But, Scriptures gives us principles and not a complete code of divine law. This necessitates inference at every step. Inference can't be separated from a rational life, and God condescends to reason with His creatures, “Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isa. 1: 18). The argument against reason in God's things has been carried to lengths that are as unscriptural as they are irrational. Scripture nowhere discredits any God-given faculty that man has. In speaking against what God has given, we necessarily speak against the Giver. God is honored as Creator when His creation is honored.

Sin has come in and perverted every faculty, but the work of God is to purify and not destroy. When one begins to realize his relation to God, reason becomes most reasonable in accepting the creature-limit, and rationality fills the life and character of the new man in Christ. One might as well say that, if we have light, we don't need our eyes, as to discredit reason in the things of God. It is only in the light that the eyes are of any use!

Moreover, God tests us by our use of reason. He holds us responsible to have our eyes open and to use them honestly. The apostle speaks of this exercise as being what he found necessary to have “a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man” (Acts 24: 16). Exercise shows that a man is morally and spiritually awake; and by it, he is kept in spiritual health and vigor. Therefore, God insists on the necessity of this and acts with a view to it being maintained. Scripture is so written “that the man of God may be perfect” (2 Tim. 3: 17) — not all the world, and not even the drowsy and sleep-loving among Christians.

Now, let us apply these things to the unequal yoke and we shall see that the refusal of such texts as having an application to fellowship among Christians is unspiritual and immoral. Does the principle involved in the question, “what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion has light with darkness?” apply only to a yoke with unbelievers? Suppose we are all believers. Are we free to yoke ourselves with a believer who is walking in unrighteousness?

God's personal holiness and the requirements of His holiness are the same for the saint and sinner alike, except that the sin of the saint is worse than that of the sinner in proportion to the difference in light and grace between the two. Thus, the unequal yoke fully applies to a yoke between Christians if one of these Christians is allowing in himself the unrighteousness which cannot be gone on with in the unbeliever.

Because men will not infer, in no way hinders the just judgment of God as to the matter. The consequences of our acts will as surely follow as if we swallowed poison in the belief that it was good food. Many have found the disastrous effects of alliances, whether social, commercial or religious, made under the pacifying illusion that the alliances were OK because they only involved Christians! How many, so deluded, have wakened up to find that after all, the question in Amos 3: 3 was much deeper than they had thought: “Can two walk together except they be agreed?”

The various ways that these principles affect our lives are easily seen. Wives go with their husbands in things they believe wrong before God because the verse “wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Eph. 5: 22; Col. 3: 18) is supposed to release them from all moral responsibility. Likewise, “Children obey your parents in all things” (Col. 3: 20, Eph. 6: 1) is used to reverse the moral nature of things, placing the earthly tie above the divine one. We are also told that we have no Scriptural authority for judging assemblies. If this is true, then we can't treat the sins of assemblies as we treat sin elsewhere. All the above are the fruit of an immoral principle. How can those who preach and practice such things escape the woe of the prophet on “those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5: 20)? The eternal principles of God's government and the changeless holiness of the divine nature are against them.

Returning to the Scripture teaching on association, 2 Timothy gives us Paul's last words when the Church already was far gone into failure. The Church is no longer called the house of God, as in 1 Timothy. Although it was still that, Paul rather compares it to both a great house with its vessels even for dishonorable uses, and to a house in ruins, except for its foundation. Notice the inscription on its foundation stone: “Nevertheless, the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows those who are His” (2 Tim. 2: 19). Precious assurance, but what does it indicate? It indicates that the Church was becoming invisible except to God who knows every person who has come to Him for salvation. But there is more to the inscription. Just when all the difficulties of the path are being shown, just when the evil might seem to have won, and laxity to be thus unavoidable, the directions — God's road map for the path through all the tangle — are found, simple, straight and stable: “And let him who names the name of the Lord, depart from iniquity” (v. 19).

Thank God. Here is the answer! Here alone is absolute safety. Commit yourself unhesitatingly to this, no matter what is the question to be decided, individual, social, religious; no matter what the issue may be; no matter what may threaten you. Here alone will you find the path through the desert, up over the most rugged mountain, down in the valley of death, yet “the path of the just is like the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4: 18), because the light of heaven is upon it.

Notice how the Lord's sacred name is here. If one only names “the Name of the Lord” (the correct word) — the Name of Him to whom, in the face of man's opposition, one is to be subject — then he must depart from iniquity (unrighteousness). What is unrighteousness? Righteousness is all that is right in God's eyes, and you can only measure this correctly as you think of the place that the blood of Christ has put you, of the grace shown to you and which you are to show, and of the blessed path in which you are called to follow Him. Unrighteousness is the opposite of all this. In all this, you will find plenty of daily exercise.

The next verses (2 Tim. 2: 20-22) say, “but 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. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and fit for the Master's use and prepared unto every good work. Flee also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”

These verses show us the disorder and the directions to follow in a time of disorder, regarding both separation from the evil (the negative) and association with what is good (the positive). “Those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” are the same as those who, “naming the name of the Lord, depart from unrighteousness.” Thus, the man who purges himself from the vessels to dishonor, finds his own class. But, are the vessels to honor and the vessels to dishonor the only two classes found here? If only those who purge themselves from the vessels to dishonor are vessels to honor, then all who are unpurged must be classed either as vessels to dishonor, or there must be a third class, simply left aside as not fit (not prepared) for the Master's use — a solemn condition in either case!

Are we to apply this to fellowship in the assembly? There are no exceptions made to these words. The following of righteousness, faith, love, peace with those purged from evil associations, implies that the unpurged cannot be righteously breaking bread in the assembly. If these are unfit for the Master's use, they cannot have their part in that place of responsibility and privilege where God uses each and all as He sees fit. The members of the body are, by the fact of being such, responsible to edify (build up) one another. If they are unfit for this, they are disqualified for the responsibility and privilege of being part of the outward expression of that one body — the local assembly. If they cannot call on the Lord out of a pure heart, they cannot really call upon Him at all. The local assembly, if of one mind with the Lord, has to approve His judgment.

This principle again is shown by the question, “What fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness?” (2 Cor. 6: 14). By being put as a question, a clear and positive answer is implied. Every conscience is expected to respond.

Assembly fellowship must be based on righteousness. The voice of the Holy and True is heard there. Permit evil to be allowed in one person or many, and full practical fellowship with Christ must cease. We cannot walk with God and go on with sin!

Thus, the entire Corinthian assembly, with the immoral person in its midst, was leavened (made part of the evil) by their allowance of it. They had to purge out the leaven (evil) by self-judgment and separation from it, that they might be a new lump (1 Cor. 5). As long as the sin was allowed, they were not a new lump because the leaven was in the lump, not just in the individual. In Christ, they were unleavened, but they were to represent in their practical condition what grace had made them, positionally, to be.

However, some people say that even though Corinth allowed evil in its midst, it was unleavened. Even if it was leavened, some add, it would be too late to purge out the leaven. The last assertion denies the power of divine grace for every condition that can be found among God's people. Yet, there was something exceptional in the state of things at Corinth which cannot be pleaded for in any other assembly since. They may not have known what to do since such a case had not been provided for. They might have mourned over it to God. God then tells them what to do, that none might again be able to say that they didn't know what to do.

They were to “put away from among themselves that wicked person” (1 Cor. 5: 13). Some object to saying “from the Lord's table,” but, in fact, the command goes even further, saying, “from among yourselves.” To only put someone away from the table might, for the careless, be perfectly consistent with treating the person as one of themselves in other respects. But the apostle Paul shows how much farther this 'putting away' is to go, by adding, “with such an one, no, not to eat” (1 Cor. 5: 11). There was to be the refusal of all association, even to an ordinary meal!

A leavened lump means that every part of it is capable of spreading leaven. That is the idea in old leaven — a piece of the old lump that could be introduced into the new so that the new lump would become leavened too. It shows that every one who approves the retention of evil, is really a partaker of the evil. He, in practice, denies the holiness of God and thus cannot himself be holy. I'm not speaking of physical contact. One might work in the same factory or office with the evil person, without defilement. Rather, I'm speaking of a corrupt and corrupting principle that associates the Name of Christ with that which dishonors Him, and in that sense, denies His Name. Thus, the Philadelphian is reminded that God is “the Holy and the True,” but holiness is lost in communion (association) with evil.

Purging out the evil means separation from it. Here in 1 Corinthians, the assembly acts. In Timothy, one who would be a vessel to honor must purge himself from the vessels to dishonor: that is, he must, at all costs, personally act. If the local assembly stands in the way of this, then, to keep a good conscience, he must separate from the assembly. In this, there is the judgment of an assembly. If one rightly has separated himself (and the rules are well-defined; not just some whim or something we don't like), we too must separate ourselves and thus judge the assembly. If we do not, we are not with God. Thus, we are forced to judge every individual in this leavened lump. To go on with those who deny the holiness of God is to be, ourselves, unholy. To deny the Name of Christ as the Holy and the True is to cease to be Philadelphian!

Chapter 7

A Circle of Fellowship or Independency

We now must consider another question which closely connects to what we have just considered. Independency is the most successful way yet found to evade Scriptural discipline and also the most successful snare to cause the children of God to resist His will, while often honestly believing themselves to be standing only for the principles of the Word: against confederacy, for purity and for unsectarian maintenance of the body of Christ. Therefore, we must look carefully into, first, what independency really is, and then at its fruits.

In its simplest and boldest form, independency denies any Scriptural authority for a circle of fellowship outside of the individual (local) gathering. This denial is made in the interests, they reason, of unsectarian recognization of the one Church only, the body of Christ. They claim that to form and maintain a circle is sectarian and that the adoption by such a circle of a common discipline is absolute sectarianism because it makes the whole a 'party' that may take the Name of Christ, as some did at Corinth (1 Cor. 1: 11-13), and make that precious Name an instrument of division.

This charge may not be one of denying the Name of Christ, but it comes so close as to make it most serious. Those who hold to a circle of fellowship and yet refuse to adopt a sectarian name (a name that sets them apart from other Christians), can neither afford to give up their claim of gathering simply to Christ's Name, nor accept what is charged against them. Let us examine, then, what is meant by these assertions and bring all to the test of Scripture. The truth will become clearer by every fresh examination, and the only danger is in our examination being done carelessly.

What is meant by the expression “circle of fellowship”? (The expression itself is not found in Scripture, as neither are other words like trinity or rapture, but the truth expressed by each is found there, Ed.) The thought must be partly believed even by the objector himself if he has others gathered with himself in any local assembly, for these few obviously do not make up the entire Assembly of God in that city. So, there must be a within and a without, a being, in some sense, of us or not of us; a something that is kept from being a part — a sect — by it having no arbitrary, no merely human terms of admission. If there are no terms, then it is a mere rabble of lawless men, to be refused by every Christian.

If you say, “We are to be subject to Scripture only,” that implies that it is Scripture as you see it, not as your fellow Christians see it, and you take your place as before the Lord, to be judged by Him regarding this. Your being separate from others makes a circle of fellowship, but it does not make you a sect. You own Christians everywhere as members of the body of Christ and receive them wherever a Scriptural hindrance to their reception does not exist, and you speak of being gathered simply to Christ's Name, without any thought of making the Name of Christ an instrument of division.

Well, then, at least in the city of our above example, there is a gathering of Christians that I can and should recognize, apart from the whole body of Christians in that place. I say should because I am responsible to God as to whom I can assemble with. So, here alone, I find those with whom I can assemble, no unscriptural condition being imposed on me. Now, were there another assembly in the same city, of the same character, then I would have to ask why they were not together, for the sin of division is a serious one (1 Cor. 1: 10), and I would have to refuse this.

If then, in this city, there is a gathering that I can and must acknowledge, suppose now, I move to another city and find a gathering that I equally can own as gathered to Christ's Name only, would it be right for me, in the new locality, to now refuse to own as a separated company those in the old city, whom, when I was there, I owned, and if I were there now, I would still have to own? Is it possible that my going from New York to Boston would make that wrong for me at New York which at Boston, would be right, and if I went back to New York, would be right again? If so, that is either complete independency or the most curious shifting of right and wrong that one can imagine — morality shifting every few miles of the road. However, if not, then we are connected, in principle, to a circle of fellowship — a grouping of local assemblies, meeting on common, Scriptural ground and discipline, wherever they may be located.

The recognition of each other by such gatherings throughout the world is thus right and everything opposed to it, is wrong. However, Scripture and history have shown us that it is impossible to maintain this in practice for the entire Assembly (Church) of God, if God's principles are of any value to us. For, were I taking the trip spoken of above, must I not ask for those in Boston who are of one mind with us? Would those in Boston expect anything else of me. A circle of fellowship may be refused in theory, but the facts disprove the theory. The only alternative is grossest independency — associating wherever one wills and recognizing obligations nowhere but where the individual wills. This would be the most complete sectarianism that could exist.

We are to recognize the whole body of Christ, but not their unscriptural associations. In the interests of the righteousness demanded by God for the body of Christ, I refuse denominations, but in the same interests, I must accept the circle of righteous, unsectarian fellowship. The gracious words of Matthew 18: 20, which provide for a day of failure and confusion and approve the two or three gathered to the Lord's blessed Name, obviously approve such gatherings in every place. Therefore, a circle — a grouping — of such gatherings exist. It would be as sectarian to refuse identification with these as to take our place with the various denominations. Nor would it save us from this, to say that we were acting for the good of the whole Church of God when the disproof is so easy from Scripture itself.

Further, to accept these Scriptural gatherings is to accept their Scriptural discipline, for the Lord's approval of the gathering is His approval of their discipline. Of course, I do not mean that they can add to Scripture or invent an unscriptural form of discipline, or that the Lord approves what might be a mistaken judgment. He always is the Holy and True, the Lord and Master of His people. But, these “two or three” of Matthew 18: 20 have authority for discipline, and woe to him who resists its rightful use: “If he hear not the church (assembly), let him be to you as a heathen man and a publican (tax collector)” (Matt. 18: 17) refers to just such feeble gatherings as we have been discussing.

The same things are true for the discipline as for the gathering itself. If the discipline is righteous and respected at “A” where it is applied, it must be respected at “B” and at “C.” If the decision is a local matter, then the Lord plainly has put it into the hands of those who are in circumstances to judge it aright, although protest and appeal are surely to be listened to and those who judged the matter are required to satisfy those elsewhere who are honestly exercised about it.

Questions about truth as opposed to conduct affect all, and can be put before all. No local gathering has authority in any such matter, for that would be making a creed for others to obey. Further, the truth as to Christ is an especially deep and vital matter, for we are gathered to His Name. Where truth of this kind is subverted, the 'gathering' ceases to exist except as an instrument in Satan's hand and we must refuse both it and all who continue with it.

If the question is about facts, then those who have the facts are required to make them known to their brethren. Here, a circular letter could have its place, not to establish a rule or principle of action, but as a witness, which, of course, is open to question as all 'facts' are, if there is contrary evidence or that given is insufficient. No letter has authority in itself: it can only present facts and all must judge the credibility of the testimony.

With these limitations resulting from the fallibility common to us all, we must acknowledge both a circle of fellowship and the discipline connected with it, if we would be free from independency.

Independency always acts against God. It makes the members of the one body say to each other, “we have no need for you.” It denies the unity of the Spirit which should be recognized throughout the body. The more we lament and refuse the sectarianism* that exists all around us, the more we are compelled to and shall rejoice to own simply the body of Christ wherever possible. This circle of fellowship, while it is not the body, provides us the means of owning, in practice as well as in theory, the body of Christ in a truthful and holy way, so far as the Church's state of ruin permits it to be done. With love to all Christ's own and with an open door to all, on the conditions of truth and holiness, such a circle is not sectarian, but a protest against it.

Gathering on the ground of the one body is completely different from any claim to be the one body, and it does not imply any man-made (sectarian) condition of intelligence for communion. The maintenance of a common discipline is not sectarian, but it is an essential part of that communion itself: absolutely necessary because the holiness of God is the same everywhere and is not a thing for the “two or three” here or there to play with as they desire.

Independency, in setting aside the practical unity of the Church, also sets aside a main guard of holiness. Holiness is no longer the object of common care, nor is there common exercise about it. Independency releases one from a sense of personal responsibility to the house of God. Rather, it makes one feel that it is only his own house that he is to keep clean, in his own way. This laxity towards the people of God at large (but which is so consoling to an unexercised conscience, that it is a great charm of independency to multitudes today), naturally has the effect of lowering one's estimate of holiness, thus preventing one's own house from being kept really clean!

Where a circle of fellowship and a common discipline are not maintained (perhaps as a natural fruit of independency), the unholy principle is contended for, that an assembly cannot be judged for the same sin that would compel the judgment of an individual. Thus, almost any local discipline can be evaded by a little dexterity. If the gathering at “B” will not receive you from “A,” it will receive you from “C,” and “C” will receive you from “A.” So, by a little juggling of which assembly you attend, no one is safe anywhere from the violation of a discipline which you recognize as a Scriptural one. Any person, if not too well known, becomes lost in the maze of bewildering inter-communions between independent local gatherings. One who has a conscience and would be clear from unrighteousness, soon has to resign himself to a general hope that what looks so confusing, will in the end, uphold the interests of holiness; or in despair, wash his hands of what he can't avoid.

Independency is an ensnaring system because both pessimism and optimism can find excuses for it and thus go on with it. One gets free of an amazing amount of trouble without seeming to give up all the Scriptural principles of gathering as many others have, and yet be almost as free as these others from the wearying responsibility of being one's brother's keeper. Why should we be our brother's keeper, they ask, when we only get trouble for our efforts? Find a narrow path instead of a broad, open one that is so pleasant to all of us; and for all this we have only to shut our eyes at the proper time and ignore what we can't help.

The countless small divisions of independency make less show than the terrible rents which we are exposed to otherwise. Why not let this sad-faced Merarite go, with his pins and cords of the tabernacle always getting tangled, and be content with Kohath and Gershom? But, if the Lord's tabernacle is to be set up in the wilderness, we must have the pins and cords.

In result, the truth of God suffers and tends to be lost. But what should we expect when we choose what we will have of it and what we will discard? Fellowship becomes of uncertain quality, with obedience to the Word having little to do with it. Worship is largely displaced by service, for we have lost the necessary pins and cords. One may still go on with the help of what little truth he can still find room for, but the full truth tends to slip away in the jangle of the many opinions of men.

One's voice may be little heard in a day like this, but I would press upon the Lord's people, first, their Master's claim. I press that independency, little as one may imagine it or care to think of it, means ultimate shipwreck of the truth of Christ because it means independency of Him. One will find plenty of associates in independency, for it gives the kind of liberty and freedom so coveted today, but Christ's authority is not in it. Thus, it cannot have the approval which Philadelphia, in spite of its “little power,” finds from her gracious Lord: “You have kept My Word and not denied My Name.”

Chapter 8

Clerisy and Ecclesiasticism

There is no position that we can take, however right it may be, that will free us from the dangers of Satan's snares. We have no sooner escaped them in one direction, than we realize that we have come nearer to them in another direction. The Church truly is militant. To have learned our proper, God-given place in the ranks is a very different thing from withdrawing from the battle. In fact, Satan specially attacks those who are walking with God, God permits us to learn spiritual warfare so that every spiritual sense will be forced into activity, that we may “by reason of use, have our senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Heb. 5: 14) and also to make us learn thereby, the value of what is our own, as men realize the value of what they are in danger of losing.

In Israel's wilderness journey, all the people were in the camp. The dangers that surrounded them were dangers for all alike. Further, in Christianity, the warfare comes nearer to us in proportion to how spiritual we are. And there is no non-combatant class. There are none, by sex or any other way, exempted from the drill, discipline and actual encounter. Just as every Christian is both a priest and a minister of Christ, so every Christian is a soldier of Christ, and to be a good one, he must have the knowledge of his spiritual weapons, the nerve and dexterity (only acquired by practice) to use them, and an understanding of the tactics of the enemy he faces.

There are leaders in this warfare. In Israel, every person was ranked under his captain. But, there is a great difference between fleshly and spiritual warfare. In man's warfare, the responsibility assumed by the leader removes responsibility from those who follow him, and one may admire those who go at the will of another, knowing that, perhaps, someone has made a mistake.

However, in spiritual warfare, we may pity but not admire such followers. The responsibility of the leader removes none of the responsibility from the follower. If the follower is misled, he is guilty of being misled and has not only compromised himself, but the whole cause with which he is identified. He is guilty because there is only one infallible Leader for His people, whose voice is to be heard everywhere amid all the din of the battlefield. The responsibility of every lesser leader is to make men listen to that Voice: every one of these leaders has to say, “Be you followers (imitators) of me, even as I also follow Christ” (1 Cor. 11: 1).

If we value the welfare of God's people we must press on them their personal responsibility to God, and that no one can save them from it in any part of Christian practice. Yet, the great mass of Christian men and women seek to escape from their responsibility. They believe in the practice of substitution — letting someone else do it — in almost every line of Christian activity. Specially in that which concerns the assembly, this principle of substitution so blinds the eyes and so leads God's people astray that it calls for the strongest repudiation by each person to whom the Lord has given any ability to influence the minds of his fellows. This form of substitution proceeds from that state of spiritual sluggishness like that of Proverbs 6: 10-11, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; so shall your poverty come as one who travels (a tramp) and your want as an armed man.”

My Christian friend, allow no one to stand between you and Christ! Christ alone is your Master. You must give account to Him alone. The vigor, brightness and faithfulness of your life depends on how you abide (remain) in dependence on Him alone. Of course, you don't refuse the help that He gives you through another: that would be pride and self-sufficiency. God has given us to each other for all the mutual help we can give. Don't let that truth be weakened in the least. But we fall into one of Satan's most subtle and successful traps when we allow the esteem (respect) we have for one another, the rightful confidence in someone's genuineness, wisdom, godliness, etc., to make him the director of our consciences in the things of God. Such would be Romanism in principle, for Romanism gives Christ a human vicar (substitute) — the Pope — to whom people give Christ's place, as if Christ was far away from His people.

We must seek no substitute for ourselves and have no substitute for Christ. We must not falsify our blessed relationship with Him, into which He has brought us. We must be completely with and for Him. We must have nothing worldly in our lives. Finally, we must not approve another to fill the offices that we have vacated.

Clerisy means the official taking up by a class (specialized group) among Christians of what the rest — the masses — have given up to them. It means the unspiritualizing of the masses, the laity, who resign the duties for which they are 'unfitted,' into more capable hands. Of course, they are unfitted only because they give up so much of their relationship to Christ so they can be correspondingly freer for the demands and pleasures of the world. However, people don't think of it in this way. Most Christians have grown up in a clergy-laity atmosphere and therefore don't realize its sinfulness or how it cleaves to them. Even if we have escaped from clerisy to some degree, let our spiritual warmth be chilled a little, and almost insensibly and quite informally, we fall into it again.*

As an example, doesn't a person's sex have something to do with our degree of conscience? Isn't conscience considered more a masculine than a feminine characteristic? For instance, as to discipline in the assembly, are the women as much exercised about it as the men? Is it even admitted that they have as much right to be exercised? Yet the women are responsible for every act of discipline and if they take part in it with a bad conscience, it will affect their whole spiritual life. In fact, if they are unexercised, they make it a small matter whether they are pleasing God or not, and thus must have either a dull or bad conscience. Some women even have been taught that matters of this nature are outside their realm because they are not part of the assembly or that they are not moral beings.

Many women are inclined to take the place that is so often assigned to them. Whatever the motives, it is a serious mistake. It begins a habit that will cling to them in other things and spread among the men too, until a large part of the assembly simply confirm the judgment of their 'leaders' and the reign of clerisy is, in practice, established. If serious questions now come before the assembly, the incapacity of the majority will become more apparent. Their habitually unexercised, now-dull consciences won't have the ability for judgment. The merely human motives which always have swayed them, will sway them still. They will be swayed by arguments that derive their force mainly from the people who use them, or they will drift and perhaps break up under the influence of family and social ties.

Drifting is a serious matter: it always tends towards stranding and breaking up because there is no intelligent guidance of the vessel. This is truer in spiritual things than in natural things because divine wisdom does not govern. This wisdom is only given when formally sought after. In the divisions among the Lord's people, drifting and the use of human wisdom have always intensified the evil. Christian men and women, really exercised before God, will necessarily walk and act together, but the unintelligent followers of leaders will fall apart with these leaders or break up into smaller fragments (groups) when God permits the inevitable collision to test their spiritual condition. A right spiritual state of the mass of Christians would, to a large extent, hold the leaders in check, who as leaders, naturally lead the divisions; who knowingly or not, have in fact formed divisions.

The masses of Christians are responsible for that helpless leaning on their leaders, which leaning has helped the leaders to fall. The masses have lost the One Voice (which never can divide or contradict itself) amid the many, often-discordant voices of men. Thus clerisy — a state of spiritual decline away from Christ — can be remedied only by returning to the One who must be Master in every detail of individual and collective life. We must allow no substitute — no vicar.

We must look beyond the actors in the various divisions among the Lord's people, for there was a state of things that necessitated the divisions. Wherever you find an unspiritual, unexercised mass that can be wheeled into line at the bidding of some trusted man or men, with at best, only slight knowledge of both the facts and the Scriptural principles connected with the problem, you have the state of things that is at the bottom of the trouble. It is clerisy and ecclesiasticism (devotion to a certain man-made church order). These two things are the complement of one another and they exist among even those who have a horror of them elsewhere, while they don't realize that they are cherishing the very things that have produced them!

You will hear intelligent Christians say something like this, regarding things in which they have taken definite sides with their party: “Well, we personally didn't know much about these things, but Mr. X looked into them and we all have confidence in him,” etc. (I leave the word party stand, offensive as it rightly is, because for those who can say the above, they have acted only with a party). Sometimes, even when widespread division has taken place among the Lord's people, many who divided from each other have never known what was in question, and everything that would have enlightened them was kept from them! How can the commendation “You have kept My Word” apply to such, when they neither knew nor cared enough to find out, to what and how God's Word applied?

Most assembly decisions involve practical local matters and must be reached on the spot and shouldn't be spread around. I don't speak of such things. These are not the matters that usually cause division. What does cause division is usually some question of truth or principle as to which the local assembly has no binding authority at all for others. Of course, if a teacher of error is in their midst and they are satisfied that he subverts the foundations of Christianity, their duty is simple: they must clear themselves. But their decision may be appealed to the Word of God and Christians everywhere are required to consider the appeal. The judgment by an assembly, in this case, has no force whatever unless the assembly can show the evidence of the evil that has necessitated their action. If the doctrine taught was Scriptural, such a decision has no power at all. The Word of God is the charter under which the assembly acts and thus is above all its actions. The Church does not teach or define doctrine! The very semblance of power in the hands of an assembly to set forth what Christians are to receive is to be refused by everyone who would be loyal to Christ. Thus, individual exercise is an absolute must. We cannot hide behind one another. “You have kept My Word” rings in our ears.

The truth committed to Christians is the most important trust that they can have. If it could be said of Israel, “What advantage, then, has the Jew? … chiefly, because unto them were committed the oracles of God” (Rom. 3: 1-2), what then must be the value of our inheritance? God has allowed a few believers to return to something like the simplicity that prevailed at the beginning of the Church and to recognize the common relationship of Christians to one another. He has freed us in measure from the traditions of men and from human inventions in the things of God. He has done all this so we can enjoy and profit by the unadulterated Word of Christ! It is all that we have for blessing. The Holy Spirit, who has taught us both His presence with us and His authority in the Assembly, is the “Spirit of truth” (John 16: 13). His great work on earth is to show us the things of Christ. He is the Holy Spirit — holiness is the holiness of truth, sanctification (being set apart to God) is by the truth. We are taught by God to love one another, and this Philadelphian spirit is shown us by the apostle of love (John) to be “love in the truth” and “for the truth's sake” (2 John 1-2).

Today, men are talking of the unity of Christendom (professing Christianity) and they are proving the practicality of bringing masses of Christians together for many good purposes. But who can expect anything beyond good ends when truth as a whole must be set aside to maintain good fellowship? Differences must be avoided, even gross error condoned, and since “evil company corrupts good morals” (1 Cor. 15: 33), what must be the end of such associations without even the guard imposed by discipline maintained in the churches?

The Church can maintain the truth only by allowing full liberty for the truth to maintain itself, without sectarian (man-made) restriction of any kind. Where the “doctrine of Christ” is upheld, and thus the gathering to His Name is guarded, Scripture allows for no further restriction on the part of the assembly. The assembly may, of course, always refuse to listen to what is unprofitable and vain, but the truth only gains by being trusted as having full power to speak with its own authority to the believer. “Let the prophets speak … and let the others judge” (1 Cor. 14: 29). “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thess. 5: 21). Thus, the exercise of conscience is for the blessing of all. Those who can go to sleep under a not-to-be-disputed creed, are wakened up by a lively (but godly) discussion of the Word. The relationship and consequences of truth are, in this manner, searched out and made known. Haven't we been too afraid of such discussion which, while reverent and brotherly in character, tends to make the truth a present and living issue and therefore to give it power? If God had seen the creed to be the better way to maintain this, He would have given it.

Chapter 9

Heresy

We now come to the formidable word heresy. There is not much difficulty in what Scripture says about it; the difficulty is in the meaning that men have given it. The Greek word for heresy often is translated 'sect' in the King James Version of the Bible: the sect of the Pharisees, Sadducees (Acts 5: 17; 15: 5) gives the general thought. These were not divisions in the sense of separations from Judaism, but were doctrinal parties in Judaism. When Paul speaks of having “after the strictest sect of our religion, lived a Pharisee“ (Acts 26: 5), he acknowledges other sects of his religion and certainly would not have used the word in an offensive way. The impossibility of using the word in these cases as something offensive, shows how little our modern idea of it can be taken as the idea of the New Testament. Christianity was looked at, in its beginning, as a similar sect — the “sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24: 5). At that time, Christians were not as yet fully separated from the Jewish worship.

Thus, when the apostle Paul before Felix confesses that “after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers” (Acts 24: 14), we must not put unscriptural thoughts into it. The Jews would have used the same word for the parties to which they themselves belonged, and that was the force of the word — literally a choice or an adherence. Those who used the word did not mean to decide by it as to right or wrong, but simply to classify as different the existing schools of thought or doctrine. The apostle resented the term heresy as applying to Christianity because it ignored the divine revelation given in Christianity and characterized it as a mere human choice — an opinion.

On the other hand, Paul could not resent the implication that Christianity was a system of doctrines, which it is and is intended to be, claiming men's adherence and gathering disciples. The apostle asserted this claim (which always is the claim of truth) in the very presence of those who called him before their tribunals for it. He even sought to proselytize — win over — King Agrippa before their eyes (Acts 24-26).

Yet Paul refused to allow Christianity to be called a sect because God had spoken in it, and all men were to hear. It was no opinion but revealed truth, and this is the key to the condemnation of heresy in the apostolic writings. There is to be no opinion, no mere human choice among Christians. The one truth claims the allegiance of all. The Word of God has been given to us, and the one Holy Spirit is given to bring us all to one mind about it. All departure from this is to be utterly condemned.

Heresies are spoken of in only three passages in the Epistles. In 2 Peter 2: 1, the “damnable heresies” of the King James translation has hidden the true meaning. The phrase is literally “heresies of destruction” — heresies that destroy men. These are doctrines brought in by false teachers — doctrines that even deny the Lord who bought them. Here, the teaching obviously is fundamental error, but this does not prove that all heresy is fundamental error. The term is a much wider one than this.

Notice that these false teachers bring in these doctrines “secretly” — not necessarily just whispering them about, for the word means “by the side”: thus in an indirect or not straightforward way. Satan, in attacking the Lord among Christians, naturally takes his own subtle, sneaky way. To expect straightforwardness in the teaching of error is not to know or understand Satan.

In view of the divisions that Paul had heard of in Corinth, he adds, “and I partly believe it, for there must also be heresies among you, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor. 11: 18-19). Here, the differences among them were openly showing themselves when they came together at the Lord's table. These differences came from following different and discordant teachers (1 Cor. 1: 10-13). Therefore, Paul calls these differences the fruit of heresies. Also, in speaking to the Galatians, Paul calls these heresies the “works of the flesh” (Gal. 5: 19-20). This is all we have in Scripture as to heresies themselves.

There is one mention of a heretic: “A man who is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he who is such, is subverted and sins, being condemned of himself” (Titus 3: 10-11).

For reject, the Revised Version has refuse, with avoid in the margin. The Alford and Ellicott Greek text uses the word shun. J. N. Darby uses have done with. Literally, the word means ask off, or in familiar talk, ask him to excuse you. Thus, “have done with” seems to be the best rendering among the above. The discipline of the assembly is not implied here and the assembly is not in question. This verse deals with a man determined to have and maintain his own opinion. When this is clear, the instruction is to leave him to himself — refuse to listen to him.

The reason given is, “for he who is such, is subverted [turned aside, gone out of the way, can't be helped], and sins, being self-condemned.” The truth bears its own testimony to the conscience, but such a person hardens himself against it. Therefore, there is no use going on with him.

We must find elsewhere the principles that regulate assembly discipline in such cases. The whole question as to whether it is a matter for assembly discipline, is whether the doctrine taught is fundamental or not. For this, every Christian has the means for judgment — the Bible — and the responsibility for making that judgment. As to what is not fundamental, one could not expect all to have the same competency.

So, we should treat party-making as the apostle treats it, by appeal to the conscience and heart. The assembly also has the right to refuse to listen to what doesn't build it up. For the rest, God must be trusted and we must learn patience with each other. The truth can be trusted to prevail with the true-hearted and authority (short of divine authority) can never help it. All manner of creeds and laws have failed to maintain the truth; and an unwritten creed of conduct in the assembly concerning non-fundamental heresy will be worse in this respect, not better. Such a creed would subject all to the will of the few, which will vary with their character and temperaments, with their knowledge or ignorance of the matter in question and with the many influences that may work on them.

Nothing must stand between the Word of God and the believer, and the Holy Spirit must be the only authoritative Teacher! “You need not that any man teach you” (1 John 2: 27) should be engraved on our hearts. Only where the Holy Spirit is honored and relied on, and only where the Word of God is received as God's Word, can there be any assurance for anything. If God's Word is doubtful, where shall we find anything that is less so?

On the other hand, nothing must stand between the teacher's conscience and his Lord as to what he teaches. The Lord says, “He who has My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully” (Jer. 23: 28). Who shall dictate to a teacher what he is or is not to say? Who is to dictate what the Lord's people shall receive or not receive? Who is able to be the substitute for the Holy Spirit among God's people and to do for them what He refuses to do — to keep them from the need of “proving all things” by keeping them from ministry that needs proving, and giving them only what has been decided previously to be good food?

Even if the above sifting of ministry could be done, it would be bad, because it would keep the children of God as babes, unexercised and unaccustomed to decide for themselves between truth and error. Were their teachers not as competent as they believed them to be — possibly in error in some things — it would insure that those accustomed to receiving ministry without exercise would receive the error with no more question than when they were receiving the truth. Such principles, when received and acted on, introduce more than all the evils of an ordinary clergy: they introduce a practical Romanism which prepares the way for a large departure from the truth.

Such infantile Christianity is advocated today in many ways and places as the proper condition of the saint. For instance, I have some letters of two brethren with a third brother, and one of these letters refers to a book by a rationalistic, high-church Episcopalian. The other answers with a remark as to “his allusion to an infidel's book, which he should know nothing about!” There is no qualification whatsoever, although he knows nothing of the motives that might have led the brother to read such a book. He is not suggesting caution. His words are a statement that no motive could justify a Christian to read such a book.

Others go farther. They refuse even to read the defense of those whom they know to be Christians, and who they themselves have charged with heresy. One gave his reason for not reading a reply to his own pamphlet as “those who read it, fall under the power of it!”

Such Christianity is suited only for some paradise where evil carefully has been fenced out. Such ideas condemn every book that has been written in defense of Christianity, for such books suppose a knowledge of what is said against Christianity. Actually, such thoughts are as well suited to keeping in error as keeping in truth, or to keeping out truth as keeping out error. For such persons, the apostle's command to “prove all things” either must be too lax, too dangerous, or it must be intended for some special safe class who are to be the custodians of others, but who, unfortunately, are not indicated by Scripture. These rules would, with slight alterations, allow every kind of heresy, while Christianity would become a mere hot house plant to which a breath of cold outside air would almost be fatal.

God forbid that I should cause people to be careless as to how they expose themselves to the attacks of Satan, but carelessness is the very thing caused by such ideas of men for shutting Satan out. In proportion to how much we think we have shut Satan out, we shall be less on our guard. Where does the soldier stand most at ease? Not in the battlefield! Shall we prosper most by being ignorant, or “not ignorant of his (Satan's) devices” (2 Cor. 2: 11)?

The trouble everywhere is caused by light, loose, careless dealing with Scripture. Scripture is the pilgrim's guidebook, the soldier's manual, the fitting of the man of God for every good work. But, for Scripture to be all these things for us, we must be pilgrims, soldiers, men of God! There is no hope except in this. Further, Scripture, as interpreted by the Holy Spirit to the honest heart, is sufficient for all demands on it. Let us trust it and not be afraid of, or for it.

The unreasoning cry of heresy has been used for years to terrorize those who, if any, should have been God's freemen. They have been made afraid to look at the Word of God for themselves, apart from the guidance of some recognized interpreter. People have been cut off as heretics for putting forth that which, in a “believer knowing no more,” would not have excluded him from fellowship. Others have been put away because they wrote what they might have held privately or talked about here and there to others without such action following. To publish what they held, was to form a party by it, it was said, and a man became a heretic by this.

I want you to see that this human view and treatment of heresy both hinders and limits the Holy Spirit and, therefore, stops progress in the knowledge of divine truth. The only safe thing becomes to reiterate the old truths in the old formula; or if there is development, it must be justified as a development of human standards, not fresh truth from God. Thus, the Christian gathering becomes a sect or heresy — a school of doctrine. The spring of living water is exchanged for the more or less stagnant, reused waters of the cistern, which may become in the end a marsh.

Again, the Lord's commendation to Philadelphia must be heard here. “You have kept My Word” implies, for all who will receive it, that they allow nothing or no one to rob them of their right and responsibility of knowing for themselves what Christ's Word is. Paul's “prove all things” applies to us all individually, and we cannot commit this proving into the hands of others! No assembly, whatever its Christian character, can be permitted to decide for us between heresy and Christian truth. “My sheep hear My voice” is too precious a privilege, too absolute a characteristic of God's people, to permit it to be taken from us under any conditions!

If I have any truth that I believe in my heart to be truth, God's people have a right to claim it from me, and I have it in trust to give it to others. That done, it is for each one of them to decide whether they can receive it as truth; and here comes the opportunity for all the help that we can give each other by brotherly conference and free discussion, which these ready charges of heresy tend to make impracticable. If there is nothing being taught that subverts fundamental truth, there is nothing to hinder the freest and widest circulation of all that can be said about it. The more fully this is done, the sooner will that which is of God be sifted from any error and the honest person will find what God has in it for him. Exercise as to the Word will accomplish for us the more intelligent possession of what we had before, even if no fresh truth resulted from the sifting.

Chapter 10

The Assembly in its Practical Working

We will now consider the local assembly itself in its living operation as filling (in the Holy Spirit's power) the place for which God designed it. It must fill this place to satisfy and be owned by God, and the ruined spiritual condition of the Church as a whole has not lowered His standard for it. He is gracious or who could stand before Him, but this does not imply that He tolerates even the least departure from His Word. If He did He would give up His holiness, truth and love.

The Church has failed miserably, and this failure has changed the circumstances in which we are placed today. It has made our path more difficult and has deprived us of much of the help that we should have gained from one another. But this failure does not force anyone to be disobedient to anything that God has spoken, nor does it deprive us of either the wisdom or power to “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God” (Col. 4: 12). Difficulties only help us realize more of what He is for us: as Joshua and Caleb said of the giants that Israel would have to fight in possessing the promised land, “They shall be bread to us” (Num. 14: 9), for faith is strengthened by those demands on it that expose the weakness of unbelief.

Thus, we are to look at the assembly in the character which the Word of God has given it, unhindered by any reasonings derived from the changed conditions of today. The assembly of which we are speaking is not the whole church of God, but the local assembly which in God's thoughts, however, represents the whole Church in the locality, being those alone who can actually assemble — the practical Scriptural gathering together of the members of Christ, simply as such.

If all the members of Christ were gathered together, we would see the entire Assembly as the body of Christ. Thus, each local assembly is the body of Christ in the place in which it is (that is, each assembly is the body of Christ in practical operation. If there are other Christians in the locality, they are part of the body of Christ, but they do not gather together on Scriptural ground, and thus, in practice, do not represent that wonderful body. Ed.) The assembly is a divinely-constructed organization* and the only organization that God ever owns as of Him — all-sufficient to give us all that can be rightly expected or desired.

Let's look first at the members of the body of Christ. They are spoken of individually in the same terms as the whole body is, because each individual is a picture of the whole body of Christ. The whole body is joined together and united to the Head by the Holy Spirit who indwells it all. The Holy Spirit likewise brings every member into a living and practical relationship with every other and with Christ. Indwelt by the Holy Spirit, “he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit,” so that “your bodies are the members of Christ” (1 Cor. 6: 17, 15). The whole of each individual belongs to Christ, and there is no one and no part of anyone permitted to be worldly or self-controlled. Thus, not only is the white garment of practical righteousness to cover us completely, but the “cord of blue,” the heavenly color, is to be seen on the hem of it, just where it comes in contact with the earth (Num. 15: 38).

The moral basis for all right fellowship with God and with one another is lacking unless we “purpose in our hearts” to live our whole lives — our every faculty of mind and body — for God. We must allow ourselves to be (spiritually) taken out of this world by being set apart to Himself, and then to be sent back into it again as His representatives (John 17: 15-18). If we won't do this, we do not and cannot fill our place in the assembly regardless of how much we physically take part in the meetings, because our place essentially is a spiritual one and can only be spiritually filled!

Our Lord's words, “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Matt. 12: 30) are true in particular matters as well as in a general way. If we are not with Him in any habit or practice, in that respect we are against Him and are in the miserable condition of being divided against ourselves. As a consequence we lose spiritual vigor and lack ability to make progress in God's things or even to stand firm in Satan's presence. Paul says that things that are “lawful” to him — not specifically unscriptural — are not all “expedient” (wise) and he immediately adds, regarding these things, “All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any” (1 Cor. 6: 12). Lawful things might develop a power or influence to which even Paul feared becoming captive.

Now, the question of fellowship with one another begins here. Are we personally in true and whole-hearted fellowship with Christ, with no fence to keep Him from certain portions of our lives? Has obedience to Him no secret limitations? Do we divide between what is ours and His? Do we know that to have Him own everything that is ours, is the only way we can enjoy and find satisfying sweetness in those things?

Only thus will our bodies, in practice, be the members of Christ. Then, our hands will be for His work, our feet for His errands, our lips for His communications and His praise. Our entire lives will express communion with Him.

Whatever shortcomings we have to confess in actual attainment, nothing less than the above must be our honest desire and aim, or how can there be a walk with God? How can He agree to other terms than these? Would it be for His glory or our good if He did so?

Think of what is implied in the expression “body of Christ” where the Holy Spirit links all together in harmonious subjection to the will of the Head and gives in each, a living unity with one another. This living unity plainly is the practical “unity of the Spirit” which Paul tells us to “endeavor to keep” (Eph. 4: 3). Paul doesn't mean the unity of the body (which God keeps), but the unity of that which makes it in practice the body fitted to Christ, the Head. This is what should be seen in the assembly of God if it is fulfilling its proper character — a living, speaking, working unity of obedience inspired by devoted love. What a testimony to Him of even “two or three” gathered together in this spirit! It was this way at the beginning of the Church when “the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said any of them that any of the things which he possessed was his own” (Acts 4: 32). This is the true spirit at all times, whatever may be the difference as to how it is expressed.

Where the above is not true, men “seek their own [things, and] not the things of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 2: 21). Various interests lead in various ways, the wisdom of the world comes in to secure these ways and the door is opened to every kind of departure. It is only the sense of what is ours in Christ, where all have all in common, and joy is increased by sharing with others, that keeps the heart from evil and produces much fruit for Him. Thus, we see again why Philadelphians are those who keep Christ's Word. Communion only exists where the heart is held by the revelations of God's grace and we are kept in communion by the fresh manna (spiritual food), gathered every day.

The reading (Bible study) meeting thus is a great test of the state of an assembly, for it is there, if things are right, that the knowledge gathered during the week by the individual brethren is tested and made sure by discussion and comparison, which helps to make truth the realized possession of the soul. Here we may learn too, if there is the frankness of brotherly love, the individual needs for the truth so that the truth can be used for real edification (help, building up, strengthening). In these ways, we can test how completely we have got hold of the truth, while what has been learned by each is thrown into the common fund to enrich the whole. It would surprise even those who know the least, to know how much their questions, suggested by their own need, help the very people who answer them. This is one of the many ways in which the minister is ministered to.

Thus, the Bible study meeting is never made needless by more detailed and connected teaching. In fact, such added teaching only creates a special need for the Bible study meeting so that the food laid before the whole may be individually digested.

Indeed, “the sons of this world are wiser, in their generation, than the sons of light” (Luke 16: 8). Someone who inherits a large worldly possession soon realizes the need to become acquainted with what he has so much personal interest in, but in the case of spiritual wealth, given us by God, how few of us earnestly lay hold of it. When, in the early 1800s, the Holy Spirit moved to recover His people to one another and to revive the almost lost idea of the Assembly of God, the Bible study meetings were a prominent sign of the awakened interest in His Word, and that God's people were claiming for themselves their portion in it. No class of men, however gifted, educated or accredited, were allowed to stand between them and their possession. So, any decay in the Bible study meetings means the lessening of that eager enthusiasm for the truth and a lessened consciousness of the Holy Spirit as the One who gives the power needed to personally possess the truth.

God never intended theology to be for a class of men called theologians. Rather, all treasures of His Word are for all His people. Nothing is hidden except from the careless and indifferent — those who willingly exchange their heavenly birthright for a serving of the world's pottage. Teachers are only God's pledge of His eagerness to have all to know His Word. He has not restricted the possession of spiritual knowledge to teachers. Teachers are to show others that, in the living fountain from which they drew, there is the living water for all, as free to others as for themselves. Teachers make God's Word to stand out before the eyes of those who have not as yet found it where God put it for them. A motto of encouragement to those who have faith in a God who cannot lie, is, “Everyone who seeks, finds” (Matt. 7: 8).

The success of teachers is shown by their ability to make others independent of them — to make the Church of God realize its ability for self-edification (self-help). The apostle Paul says that Christ has given gifts to men, “some, apostles; some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto (with the view towards) the work of ministry, unto the edification of the body of Christ, until we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect (complete) man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4: 11-13). The work of ministry is what all the saints are to be perfected unto — made completely skilled in God's Word. Every believer is free to “covet earnestly the best gifts” (1 Cor. 12: 31) and is responsible to use all the ability that he has to enrich others. “The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man for profit” (1 Cor. 12: 7). Although there are special evangelists, all are free and called on, each in his own measure, to evangelize. Although there are special teachers, all are free and responsible to communicate to others what God has given them of His truth. Love of each other and love of souls is to have liberty to be manifested and is to be encouraged everywhere.

How blessed is an assembly in this condition, with every person realizing that the fullness of all spiritual knowledge is open to him (or her) to enjoy; that the best gifts are his to covet; and that he is, by the wonderful fact of his having the Holy Spirit, the ordained minister of Christ to the world and also the ordained servant and helper of his brethren! How intolerable is the thought of class restrictions to limit and hinder the grace of God to His people! Yet, we constantly tend to sink into it. The development of gift is hindered by class distinctions and this is a major reason why so few among us are going forth to labor in the ample fields and why the gatherings have so little strength and stability! We don't need to talk about a laity to have one! 'Gift' is unlikely to develop among God's people if they sink down into careless, silent submission to others regarding their spiritual privileges.

On the other hand, when spiritual life is strongest, we will be most conscious of our needs of one another. Spiritual feebleness always means a strong world element in our lives. The spiritual child of God can have no fellowship in the world's occupations, aims and pleasures. There will be little spiritual help to one another when our occupation is with the world; our spiritual links will become theoretical, formal, sentimental. But where spiritual life is practical and earnest, its needs will be felt and the grace realized which has united us together. Wherever we find life in nature, it is in conflict with death; and the organization (order) that always accompanies life is its defense against death. Nor is organization a sacrifice of individuality, for every part of the body is distinct from the rest and has its own work and responsibility. Only by maintaining this individuality can the welfare of the whole be maintained. Likewise in the body of Christ, everyone has a place to fill; a place that no other can fill. Thus, every person is necessary!

The Church of God is an organization — the body of Christ — the body on earth of an unseen Head in heaven. The body is always looked at as on earth, just as the Head is in heaven; and as governed by that Head, one with Him. Joined by the uniting Holy Spirit, the Church is God's representative in the world, to be the expression of His mind, His will, His nature. Every individual also is this, but that is not enough. It has pleased God to link these individuals together. Thus, individual duty is not pleasing to God if one's God-given place is not filled in the body. There is to be an “epistle of Christ” (one epistle, not epistles) which, as Paul tells the Corinthians, “you are” (2 Cor. 3: 3).

Since we are livingly linked together in such a manner and for such a purpose, how necessary it is that, as gathered together, we constantly seek God's mind to learn what He has for us to do as yoke-fellows together — you and I working together in His service. The value of organization for this, seems least appreciated by those who should know it best — by those who have had recovered to them the knowledge of God's own perfect organization for His work (the Church) which demands the very utmost of our united energies!

Organization is everywhere appreciated among Christian workers today. Nothing can be done without it. Organizations now are so abundant that they are becoming parasites on the bodies from which they sprang, and they often over-burden what they were designed to support. Thus, there are good reasons for the distrust that some of us have of them. These organizations are undisciplined and the destroyers of discipline. All distinctive faith is in danger of being lost in many organizations due to their loose associations with unconverted persons — Christians with the deniers of Christ, in an unequal yoke, forbidden by God under the severest penalties (2 Cor. 6: 14-18).

Further, by their human rules, many of these organizations suppress the conscience and substitute the will of the majority, or of an 'official' for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So, we have learned to link all this with the very thought of organization and thus tend to look on every suggestion of it with suspicion — as being, at best, unspiritual.

But what then shall we do with the body of Christ, which is both a Scriptural and divine organization? Our common relationship to one another causes us to “consider one another to provoke (stir up) to love and to good works” (Heb. 10: 24); with which the apostle connects “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting (encouraging) one another” (v. 25). Don't such words imply that we should assemble together to consider both individual needs and the Lord's work among us, in ways and times more than open meetings, Bible studies, and prayer meetings, as these exist among us, can unitedly supply?

Isn't fellowship with one another sadly limited if there is not fellowship in the Lord's work among us and around us — if there is no gathering together to consider this? Such gatherings should be the rule, not the exception, and should be earnestly entered into as essential to our corporate duties and thus to our right spiritual health.

In many denominations Christians come together to consider the Lord's work, to express their interest in it and to identify themselves with it. Is it necessary that we, as two or three or more gathered to the Lord's Name, are cut off from all gathering together for such purposes? I believe that wherever such a lack of gathering exists, it is a most serious lack. It tends to restrict our interest in one another and deprive us of much of the good that should come from the differences among us, which make mutual help so necessary.

Further, the ministry of that help binds us together. Such lack of gathering together makes our Christian activities to be disconnected and feeble, and deprives us of many doors that would be found open to us; exposing us to the reproach of being, as a whole, not very useful.

Why is it that we who have and can present the gospel as simply as others, even are capable of being attacked with such reproaches? Why have we been left so far behind in the evangelism of the world by others with much less light (truth), but zealous in their cooperation with one another for such purposes? Have we been too weighted down by the truth we have? If our truth is dead truth — head knowledge without the heart-felt practice backing up that knowledge — this probably is the answer, but not if it is living truth. Truth in its living power is weight as wings are to a bird. Had we gone in the same zeal, after the same people that others have sought, no ecclesiastical prejudice could have robbed us of the blessing. The hindrance has been something beside the truth or the position that we hold.

There has developed among us the dangerous tendency to break up on slight occasion over non-fundamental matters, even though Philadelphia is a brotherhood. We often fail to cultivate that spirit of brotherly fellowship, of which the hand-to-hand occupation in the Lord's work is certainly a very important part. We have left room for the development of gift and have been very thankful to see evangelists, teachers and others raised up among us, but we have lacked the seeking, by gathering together in the ways suggested above, to make the Lord's work a matter of common responsibility and widest fellowship!

Business meetings and brothers' meetings will not fill the gap. We need something wide enough to take in all the Lord's interests on earth, free enough to give everyone a place in it and practical enough to concern itself mainly with the places in which we live and in the spheres in which we daily move. We want something that constantly will remind us of our individual duties as the Lord's workers; be suggestive, encouraging and helpful in our fulfillment of them; fit us more together in practice as the co-members of the body of Christ; make us realize His mind for us as a whole, and give us practical wisdom for the days in which we live. We want to be like the men of Issachar who came to Hebron to make David king, “who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chr. 12: 32). We want something that will develop all the truth we have into practical expression for the help of all those around us.

The Church of God plainly is an organization, but we have yet to use it for all the purposes intended by God for His organization — the organization that God has given the responsibility of representing Christ and of being the practical expression of His mind on earth. So, even if we are only two or three in each place, instead of thousands, while sadly acknowledging the broken condition of things, we are just as responsible to show what the Church of God should be — a living, united, working, cooperating membership, a body moving in unison with the mind of its unseen Head, in the energy of the Holy Spirit who formed and inspires it.

No one suggests that since we all can read our Bibles at home, there is no need for our coming together for Bible study; or that, since we can pray at home, there is no need for prayer meetings in the assembly. Why, then, should the work meetings — the means for practical communion — be the only thing thought unnecessary?

Yet, for the lack of such work meetings, the prayer meetings become vague and general because definite individual and corporate needs are not known. Service that is merely personal or shared only by a few, in which general fellowship is not sought, is not prayed for. Then our Bible studies lack the personal application, the freshness of interest that only is supplied by incidents of service, but which often are unknown except to individuals. Instead of a practical working unity, we often are only individuals, touching each other at a few points, but hidden from each other in most, except as personal friendships join us here and there. As a consequence, without the larger interests of the body of Christ to steady them, these friendships tend to form us into parties and in times of pressure, break us up into them!

How little we “consider one another, to provoke (stir up) unto love and good works” (Heb. 10: 24). Exhortations often are pointless due to lack of knowledge. How little in general are we near enough to each other in our inner lives to be able to encourage or exhort! Yet as children of God and members of Christ, we are in a relationship one to another that is nearer and more abiding than any other can be!

Thus, we need in everyday practice to draw nearer together as Christians. With the stress of the world on us, we need to take each other by the hand and strengthen each other in the things of God. In the presence of evil we need to show a strong, united front. In a world away from God, but over which His mercies linger, we need a more practical fellowship in the gospel and we need to encourage everyone to take an earnest part in preaching it. In all that concerns the Church of God, we must have something that will give us better opportunity to know that we are “members one of another.” As partakers of the mind of Christ, we need to give this more united, practical expression.

Membership in the body of Christ automatically means service. Every part of a body is in necessary working relationship with the whole, and there is no independency. Each part needs and serves and is served by the whole. God has acted on this principle throughout nature and nowhere more fully than among men. God said, “it is not good that man should be alone” (Gen. 2: 18), so He made a helper for him — woman, the complement of himself. He united the weaker to the stronger so that by her weakness, his strength is better served. She is given to him to be ministered to, so that she may minister to him also, drawing him out of himself, developing his heart — a blessing that all he gives to her cannot repay. Similarly, society has been built up by men having different interests and jobs; and even the regions of the earth are helpful by the differences of their productions in binding together the nations of the earth. A city is the highest development of this principle among men; all must work together to make it function properly, and God has prepared for His people “a city that has foundations” (Heb. 11: 10) where all will function perfectly together, forever.

Thus, ministry is both God's law of nature and the expression of His nature, which is love. “Love seeks not her own”; “by love [we] serve one another.” Love is freedom, happiness, the opposite of all legality, the spirit of heaven, giving and reflecting blessing. That fullest description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 finds its proper home and means of expression in the body of Christ. Here, the necessity of all parts to one another is just what provides for and makes necessary the constant outgoing of love to one another which binds all together and greatly reduces the chance of unnecessary division. There are some small animal half-organisms that grow by division, but the higher the organism, the more its unity is enforced by the refusal of division! A part lost is not supplied again: the creature is maimed and goes mourning its loss, refusing substitution.

Such is the body of Christ — the highest pattern of fitting together that can be: and if only two or three can, practically, be together, this does not free them from their obligation to all the members. Love abhors the thought of this as freedom to do as we please, to play loose with God's Word. Rather, love holds fast the true local expression (the local assembly) of the greater thing (the whole Church) which has failed, yet love sees that this holding fast does not degenerate into mere sectarian display. True love looks out and beyond as partaking of the divine love towards all, not forgetting the tie that exists between all Christians. It looks out over the whole field of Christ's interests and identifies itself in heart with all, seeking ever to widen the outlook and extend the sphere of practical sympathy. Thus, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings become more definite but larger in scope and more according to the sadly-forgotten apostolic rule, “for all men” (1 Tim. 2: 1).

If such a spirit moved us, we might see other divine movements among Christians elsewhere, even though, mixed in with that which is of God, there are elements too purely human and doctrines and practices too unscriptural to allow us to walk with them in practical fellowship. We also would learn that God has practical and profitable lessons for us from all around, if we were only humble enough to learn from all sorts of teachers, and wise enough to “take forth the precious from the vile” (Jer. 15: 19), the mandatory condition for our being “as God's mouth.” We frequently would find things that would be a rebuke to us in what others said or wrote, and this would test us much. It would show if we proudly desired to believe that all spiritual wisdom was with us, and outside was only darkness.

I do not mean to encourage people to run here and there which in general is only the expression of restlessness and lack of proper occupation with our own things. We are to keep our feet in the known path and not allow them in doubtful ones! The heart is to be enlarged, not the path, which always must be a narrow one — the one clearly outlined for us in Scripture. A wanderer is too little heedful of God's path to be able to guide another into it. “Let him who names the Name of the Lord, depart from iniquity (unrighteousness)” (2 Tim. 2: 19) should keep us from every doubtful thing, which may therefore be evil, as well as from known evil. It also will keep me from that in which I may see the working of the Holy Spirit, as long as it still is mixed up with things that I have to judge as contrary to His mind.

I firmly believe that we scripturally gather together as worshipers and hearers of God's Word, but we almost never have gatherings of the whole as workers under the Lord, our Head, to seek His mind for us, wherever, however expressed, in all the largeness that we must recognize His Mind to have. I believe that such meetings are necessary to maintain the full reality of true Christian fellowship with each other and with the Lord alike; and to help make the assemblies a living, intelligent representation, however feeble, of the body of Christ.

This book has in no way fully covered all that the Lord has for us in the address to Philadelphia in Revelation 3. But if the Lord is pleased to use what we have gleaned to exercise the consciences of His people as to what is surely a special word from Himself for the present day, the object of this book is attained.

F. W. Grant. (edited)