CHURCH LAXITY

CHURCH LAXITY

The church testimony is so entirely new, so distinct from and unconnected with any of God’s previous dealings with man, that there can be no departure from its principles without a surrender of it, either from ignorance or from unbelief. The testimony, which embodies the completion of the word of God, and is consequent on the rejection of the Son of God, must be so unique that only the Spirit of God can lead or keep one in accordance with it. Hence any independent action must hinder or subvert it. In all previous testimonies there was a trial of man in some measure, without law, or under law. But man has condemned himself in rejecting Christ. The Jews said, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours”. They said, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God”. God’s rule and claim on them they turned against His Son. The gentiles crucified Him. The power God gave into man’s hand to repress evil, they turned against the Son of God. They had no cloak for their sin. Man sinned in the garden of Eden, doing his own will, and thus death came upon all men; but in rejecting God’s Son, another guilt attaches to man. So when God was pleased to have a testimony here among men, it must necessarily be entirely outside of and apart from man. Man cannot be allowed to have any recognised part in the present ^[p. 84] testimony. Where man utterly failed and convicted himself of worthlessness was in not accepting and magnifying God’s Son come into the world, He with wicked hands having been crucified and slain. In glorious contrast to all this God declares the secret, kept secret from the foundation of the world, that Christ’s body is on the earth. Here, where He was rejected, “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body ... and have been all made to drink into one Spirit”, so that Christ’s name should be maintained here in a scene where He is not. It is a wondrous testimony, exceeding in divine beauty and power any that preceded it. The heavenly Man, the Head of His body the church, was to be maintained here on the earth by a body composed of many members, all bound together by a greater and more perfect bond than that ever known to a natural body and its members.

As we see from John’s gospel, His name was to determine, command, and characterise everything. The Holy Spirit was sent by the Father in His name. Peter and John begin by asserting the greatness of His name where He was not. Paul connects all power with His name: “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ”, 1 Corinthians 5: 4. So in Colossians 3: 17: “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him”. Again, it is said of the church in Philadelphia, “thou hast ... kept my word, and hast not denied my name”. I need not add more. I have sought to place in true prominence the testimony for the present time, in order that each one, being enlightened as to the true character of it, may refuse and reject any course of action which would at all weaken it.

Now in John 17 we are taught the resources we have in Christ through all time to enable us to maintain His name here in His absence, to be His representative; not that one or two could be His representative, but that if ^[p. 85] all were according to His mind here, they would present Him to the world; for already we are presented as He is to the Father, and when love is perfected in us we know that as He is, so are we in this world. In this wonderful chapter, John 17, there are three great parts — what He has given us, what He has done or is doing for us, and what He desires. The first two, as we appropriate and enter into them by faith, enable us to answer to the last, namely, to be kept from the evil in the world, to be sanctified, and to be in unity. They are given in their moral order. You could not have the third but according to the measure in which the two preceding ones were practised. The nature of sanctification cannot be possessed unless one understands the truth that we are children of the Father, born of God, and that our Lord has severed Himself entirely from this scene. It is the attempt to answer to the desire of our Lord that we should be one, that has often led the well-intentioned into a laxity subversive of the testimony, because thereby they fail to set forth Christ’s name truly here. The observance of the same creed, the maintenance of a fraternity, or anything short of His name — what in truth is a representation of Him — is not only not the testimony, but falsifies it. This is the real evil of church laxity. Timothy, while at Ephesus (see 1 Timothy 4), is warned by the apostle of the rise of Romanism, when a carnal sanctity would be introduced to supersede the only true one derived from God manifest in flesh. Now when the sanctity is compromised and perverted, the laxity is fatal. Thus in Romanism there has been a despotic unity, a common creed, a common language, and a common rule; yet any one with the truth, or even a correct knowledge of the Scriptures, discovers the gross laxity there, and the utter surrender of the testimony. But in our own day there has been an attempt to bring all christians together, of every creed and denomination, each waiving his particular sentiments for a few days, in order that they might be in manifest unity. To any spiritual mind it must be ^[p. 86] plain that the convulsive effort to reach a desired end for a limited period only the more distinctly declares the lack of the Spirit’s leading, and of faith in the truth which they had thus initiated. How could they have dropped their conscientious differences for an hour, without incurring a laxity or looseness which they must honestly have condemned?

Again, almost every one interested in the church has heard of the laxity which is known by the name of Bethesda. This is the most subtle; for while as a rule the truth of the church as the body of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, will be owned, there is a general laxity, only one thing being insisted on, and that without almost any limitation — that there should be unity; and almost everything is tolerated to preserve it. An apparent unity is the great desideratum. The name of Christ is not the one standard. If a visible unity be acknowledged, if there be the works and conduct to gain commendation outside, almost any measure of worldliness will be suffered or overlooked. The divine gradation or steps to unity are not enjoined and enforced. I admit there is separation from the open evil of the world. The Pharisee would have had no weight if he were not reputable in the eyes of the religious; but with all that he neglected the “weightier matters”. And so it is now; there is reputation with the religious world, but under the cloak of approved usefulness and interest in the welfare of souls, there is an indifference to the weightier matters of sanctification and devotedness; at least the former usefulness seems to be more earnestly sought after and prized than the latter. No laxity can be more pernicious than that which, with the adoption and profession of the fullest truth, permits and sanctions practical indifference to the name of Christ. While credit is sought and obtained for singular devotedness to the cause, because of an acknowledged usefulness, unity is the aim, and usefulness the certificate of commendation. Will any one say that there is not laxity as to the world and sanctification?

^[p. 87] If this is confessed and mourned over, I must own my share in it; but if it is glossed over and un-condemned, in order that the unity which is its aim may not be impugned, is it to be accepted as a sort of set-off for the other desires of the Lord for His people on the earth? I can fully sympathise with the earnest servant who presses that believers should be all together, to worship God after the one manner, and to seek the wealth of one another, that there may be a growth in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In plain words, as has been often said, get them in, that is, to a common ground first, and then teach them their calling and responsibility. This, as formally stated, could not be objected to, if there was a purpose, expressed in word and practice, to lead them on to the full truth. If they were like trees in a nursery, in the stages of growth from the seedling to the matured tree, then the newcomer would at least see and be apprised of the maturity that would be expected of him, and to which he was called. But if, on the other hand, there be not a full and plain intimation, either verbally or morally, the person is committed to a thing in which unity is everything, and this is hardly fair or creditable. When a seedling enters the nursery, there is no need to tell it what is expected of it, there are plenty of examples to testify of that; but if the seedling come to a nursery where they are all seedlings, or dwarfs, then its calling is limited to a common ground of unity, and not Christ.

I wish to put the question plainly: Is unity possible without unworldliness and sanctification? I see there are distinct steps leading up to unity. I believe we should desire unity above all things, as the only effectual way to maintain His name, but I do not believe any spiritual person would support a unity which overlooked sanctification, or which required of me only to accept a common ground, without presenting, in word or practice, the holy nature of the fellowship. Why make unity the one aim, if it be not to ensure a greater company? And ^[p. 88] this greater company exists because they can accept being together on a ground not morally high, and yet commendatory; but a ground which they would in conscience and heart hesitate to take were the holy, unworldly path necessary to unity presented to them. Under this laxity, too, the testimony is entirely lost sight of. If unity be made the aim, without insisting on the holy nature of it, all divine practice is overlooked, and as the moral power is not in the foreground, the name of Christ is not maintained. A further and deeper consequence of this laxity is that men are accepted and sanctioned as leaders or guides because they are earnest promoters of this unity, men who are not distinguished for unworldliness and sanctification. Of course they are men of repute, or they would have no weight at all. But as the apostle always gave himself as the model of what he taught, these recognised guides cannot lead souls beyond their own practical ways; and thus, unintentionally at times, worldliness is promoted.

The way to obviate the effects of this laxity is, by deed and ways, to insist on the only true testimony, namely, that the one united company of believers, the body of Christ, is called to maintain His name here. And His name cannot be maintained except as one walks in His Spirit, the greatest of bonds, but yet the one most easily disturbed. If I am in any way worldly and unsanctified, I am a hindrance to the unity in which each member of His body should be found here, in divine co-operation, to represent Him where He is not. Hence the great characteristics of the faithful company to the end are, “thou hast ... kept my word, and hast not denied my name”. Let there be every encouragement for the Lord’s people to be on the same ground, with a view to unity, for they are united; but let not laxity or grieving of the Spirit of God be sheltered under the plea of unity; that would be to make it an engine wherewith to destroy itself, and really to prevent the very thing which is proposed to be attained.