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The doctrine of the
Church's heavenly character was developed in all its power and beauty by the Holy Spirit
in the Apostle Paul. Up to his time, and even during the early stages of his [Paul's]
ministry, the divine purpose was to deal with Israel. There had been all along a chain of
witnesses, the object of whose mission was exclusively the house of Israel. The prophets
bore witness to Israel, not only concerning their complete failure, but also the future
establishment of the kingdom agreeably to the covenant made with Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, and David. They spoke not of the Church as the Body of Christ. How could
they, when it was still a profound mystery, "not revealed to the sons of men"?
The thought of a Church composed of Jew
and Gentile, "seated together in the heavenlies," lay far
beyond the range of prophetic testimony. Isaiah speaks in very elevated strains of
Jerusalem's glory in the latter [Millennial] day; he speaks of Gentiles coming to her
light, and kings to the brightness of her rising; but he never ascends higher than the
earthly kingdom. We may range through the inspired pages of the law and the prophets, from
one end to the other, and we will find nothing concerning "the great mystery" of
the Church.
In the ministry of John the Baptist we
find the same thing. The sum and substance of his testimony was, "Repent, for the
kingdom is at hand." Nothing of the Church--the [Millennial] kingdom is the
highest thought. The Lord Jesus Himself then took up the chain of testimony. The prophets
had been stoned; John had been beheaded; and now "the Faithful Witness" entered
the scene, and not only declared that the kingdom was at hand, but presented Himself to
the daughter of Zion as her King. He too was rejected, and, like previous witnesses,
sealed His testimony with His Blood. Israel would not have God's King, and God would not then
give Israel the kingdom.
Next came the Apostles. Immediately after
the resurrection they inquired of the Lord Jesus, "Wilt Thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to Israel?" Their minds were filled with the
thought of the kingdom. "We trusted," said the two disciples going to Emmaus,
"that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel." The Lord does not
rebuke the disciples for entertaining the thought of the kingdom: He simply tells them,
"It is not for you to know the times or the seasons..."
Peter, in his address to Israel in Acts 3,
offers them the kingdom. "Repent ye therefore, and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out, and the times of refreshing shall come from the
presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you;
whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath
spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." It had always
been the kingdom, and never the Church.
The Church, as seen in the opening of
Acts, exhibits but a sample of lovely grace and order, exquisite indeed in its way, but
not anything beyond what man could take cognizance of and value. In a word, it was still
the kingdom, and not the great mystery of the Church. Those who think that the
opening chapter of Acts presents the Church in its essential aspect have by no means
reached the divine thought on the subject.
Peter's vision in Acts 10 is decidedly a
step in advance of his preaching in chapter 3. Still, however, the grand truth of the
heavenly mystery was not yet unfolded. In the council held at Jerusalem (Acts 15) for the
purpose of considering the question that had arisen in reference to the Gentiles, we find
the apostles all agreeing with James [his letter written 45-49 A.D] in the following
conclusion:
"Simon (Peter) hath declared how God
at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And to
this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, 'After this I will return, and
will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the
ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of men might seek after the Lord,
and all the Gentiles, upon whom My name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these
things" (Acts 15:14-17). Here we are taught that the Gentiles, as such, are to have a
place with the Jews in the kingdom. But did the council at Jerusalem apprehend the truth
of the Church, of Jews and Gentiles so truly formed in "one body" that they are
no more Jew or Gentile? A few members might have heard it from Paul (see Gal. 2:12), but
as a whole they do not seem to have understood it.
The preaching of the Gospel [of the
circumcision] to the Gentiles by the mouth of Peter was not the development of the
great mystery, the Church, but simply the opening of the kingdom, agreeable to the words
of the prophets, and also to his commission in Matt. 16: "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." Peter received and used those keys, first to open the kingdom
to the Jew, and then to the Gentile. But he never received a commission to unfold the
mystery of the Church. Even in his Epistles we find no word of it. He views believers on
earth; having their hope in heaven and being on their way thither, but never as the Body
of Christ seated there in Him.
It was reserved for Paul, the great
Apostle of the Gentiles, to bring out, in the energy of the Holy Spirit, the mystery of
the Church, the heavenly Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. To him was committed what he
emphatically styles his Gospel (2 Tim. 2: 8). But he could not, even in
the midst of the Church at Jerusalem, speak openly on this grand subject; not wanting to
develop it prematurely, few having sufficient spiritual intelligence or largeness of mind
to enter into it. His fears, as we know, were well grounded. There were few in Jerusalem
who were at all prepared for Paul's Gospel. Even some years later we find James, prominent
in the leadership of the Church of Jerusalem, inducing Paul to purify himself and shave
his head according to the law. And what was this for? Just to prevent a break-up of the
earthly Jewish religion.
"Thou seest, brother," said
James, "how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous
of the law. And they are informed of thee that thou teachest all the Jews which are among
the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children,
neither walk after the customs. What is it therefore? The multitude must needs come
together; for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that WE
say to thee: we have four men which have a vow on them, and be at charges with them, that
they may shave their heads; and all may know that those things whereof they were informed
concerning thee are nothing, but that thou thyself walkest orderly, and keepest the
law" (Acts 21:20-24). Here, then, we have abundant proof of the fact that the great
mystery was not understood and would not be received by the Church at Jerusalem.
Sad to say, Paul acceded to James' Jewish
wishes. Later, when Paul returned again to Jerusalem, after being warned of the Spirit to
refrain, the very thing that James dreaded and sought to avoid came upon them: an uproar
was raised, and Paul was delivered over into the hands of the Gentiles. The Lord would
send Paul to the Gentiles, and if he would not go as a free man, he must go as "an
ambassador in bonds." He could say, however, that it was for "the hope of Israel
that he was bound with this chain." If his heart had not longed so after Israel, he
might have escaped the bonds. He left Israel without excuse, but he himself became a
prisoner and a martyr.
Both as free, and in bonds, Paul insisted
upon seeking out "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," persistently offering
them, in the first place, "the salvation of God." But, consistently, "they
agreed not among themselves," and at last Paul was constrained to say, "Well
spake the Holy Spirit by Isaiah, the prophet, unto our fathers, saying, 'Go unto this
people and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and
not perceive; for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of
hearing, and their eyes have they closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear
with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted and I should
heal them.' Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the
Gentiles, and that they will hear it" (Acts 28:25-28).
Thus closes the Acts of the Apostles,
which, like the Gospels is predominantly connected with the testimony of Israel. So long
as Israel could be regarded as the object of testimony, so long the testimony continued;
but when they were shut up to judicial blindness, they ceased to come within the range of
testimony, wherefore the testimony ceased and was offered to the Gentiles. Enter Romans.
And now let us see what this
"mystery," this "Gospel," this "salvation," really was, and
where its peculiarity consisted. It was not so much in reference to God's way of dealing
with the sinner as with the saint; it was not so much
how God justified a sinner as what He did with him when justified. It was the position
into which Paul's Gospel conducted the saint that marked its peculiarity:
into the Body of the glorified Lord Jesus Christ, rather than into His earthly kingdom. As
regards the justification of a sinner, there could be but one way, namely, [by grace]
through faith in the one offering of the Lord Jesus on the Cross.
A saint in the opening of Acts had higher
privileges than a saint under the law. Moses, the prophets, John the Baptist, our Lord in
His personal ministry, and the Twelve, all brought out various aspects of the believer's
position before God. But Paul's Gospel went far beyond them all. It was not the kingdom
offered to Israel on the ground of repentance, as by the Baptist and our Lord; nor was it
the kingdom opened to the Jew and Gentile by Peter in Acts 3 and 10; but it was the
heavenly calling of the Church of God composed of Jew and Gentile, in one Body, united to
a glorified Lord Jesus Christ by the presence of the Holy Spirit!
The Epistle to the Ephesians fully
develops the mystery of the will of God concerning this. There we find ample instruction
as to our heavenly position. Paul does not contemplate the believer as a pilgrim on
earth (which, we might say, is most true), but as sitting in heaven:
not as toiling here, but as resting there. "He hath
raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus." This, in the counsel of God, is to be actualized in the process of
time by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.
But it may be asked, How can believers be
said to be seated in heavenly places when they are yet in the world, experiencing its
difficulties, its sorrows and temptations? The same question may be asked in reference to
the vital doctrine of Romans Six: How can believers be represented as dead to sin when
they find sin working in them continually? The answer to both is one and the same.
The Father sees the believer as having
died unto sin with the Lord Jesus, and He also sees him as raised with and seated in the
Lord Jesus in glory; but it is the province of faith in those truths to lead the believer
into the reality of both. "Reckon yourselves to be" what the Father says you
are. The believer's freedom from the reign of indwelling sin consists in his reckoning
himself dead to it, coupled with his reckoning himself to be raised and seated with the
Lord Jesus before the Father.
We must never forget that every tendency
of the human mind not only falls short of, but stands actually opposed to all this divine
truth about the Church. We have seen how long it was ere man could take hold of it--how it
was forced out, as it were, and pressed upon him; and we have only to glance at the
history of the Church for the last nineteen centuries to see how feebly it was held and
how speedily it was let go. The heart naturally clings to earth, and the thought of an
earthly corporation is attractive to it.
It is not to be supposed that the
Protestant Reformers exercised their thoughts on this momentous subject. They were made
instrumental in bringing out the priceless doctrine of justification by [grace through]
faith from amid the rubbish of Romish superstition, and also in letting in upon the human
conscience the light of inspiration in opposition to the false and ensnaring dogmas of
human tradition. This was doing not a little; yet it must be admitted that the position
and hopes of the Church engaged not their attention.
It would have been a bold step from the
church of Rome to the Church of God; and yet it will be found in the end that there is not
distinct neutral ground between the two; for every church, or, to speak more accurately,
every religious denomination, reared up and carried on by the wisdom and resources of man,
be its principle ever so pure and ever so hostile to Catholicism, will be found, when
judged by the Word of God, to partake more or less of the element of the Romish
system--the usurper of Judaism.
Hence those who will maintain Paul's
Gospel will find themselves, like Him, deserted and despised amid the splendid pomp and
glitter of the world. The clashing of ecclesiastical systems, jarring of sects, and the
din of religious controversy, will surely drown the feeble voices of those who would speak
of the heavenly calling and rapture of the Church.
But let the spiritual believer who finds
himself in the midst of all this heart-sickening confusion remember the following simple
principle: Every system of ecclesiastical discipline, and every system of prophetic
interpretation, which would connect the Church, in any one way, with the world, or things
of the world, must be contrary to the spirit and principles of the great mystery developed
by the Holy Spirit in the Apostle to the Gentiles. "The foundation of God standeth
sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His" (2 Tim. 2:19). |
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