THE CORPORATE POSITION

^[p. 112] THE CORPORATE POSITION

If I do not comprehend the mystery, I cannot understand the corporate position of the saints now on the earth. If I do not see that the church is the body of Christ — that He is “the head, from whom all the body, ministered to and united together by the joints and bands, increases with the increase of God” (Colossians 2: 19) — I do not see, and cannot act up to, the true and divine relationship which subsists between one and the other members of His body. If I grasp in faith this great truth, I can never assume an isolated position. I am never a unit again. I am a member of the body of Christ. I can never detach myself from this great structure. True, I may be gifted of the Lord, and called to act in my individual responsibility, but this is never antagonistic to my corporate position; on the contrary, as it is by the direction of the Head, it must be for the help and benefit of His body, the church. This, however, refers peculiarly to service; but ordinarily I can never see a step good for myself that is not equally good for every believer who has not taken it. If I judge that I should take an isolated position, then I do not understand the mystery, for each believer should take it also, and my teaching and my example, to be effective, should conduce to this. I might rightly be alone in taking a step which had been disregarded and unseen by the saints, but it cannot be one which would place me in an entirely new position. To adopt a course neglected or forgotten would be of the Lord; and if through divine grace I have been led to see it, and I take it, it is to be like one sheep crossing over a fence, only to encourage all the rest. The true servant can always say we are “an ensample unto you to follow us”. It is impossible for one who is under the power of the truth of the mystery to say that while separation becomes him, so absolute that he can have no fellowship at the Lord’s table with any one in the place, yet he can still have meetings with them for edification and the like. If I ^[p. 113] consider my brethren so defiled that I must stand apart from them in calling to mind the death of my Lord, how can I be on terms of intimacy and communion with them in service? Certainly not if I consider that they are members of the same body as myself, for what is defiling to me is defiling to them, and I must refuse to go to them, though ready to receive all who would come to me. For a man to separate from a company of christians, and yet be found, by sufferance or acceptance, their accepted teacher, is the worst form of church laxity. For it is evident that if the company which holds the truth and is on right ground connives at error, or allies itself with that which is morally unsound, it is more to be avoided, and more to be separated from, than a system with no light and no assertion of being on the right ground. The most dangerous falsity is that which comes nearest to the truth, because it deceives by its approximation to the truth. Better not to have known the way of righteousness than to deviate from it. The ten unfaithful spies were more to be dreaded and avoided than any other in Israel.

If I understand the mystery, and if I have been connected with a company of christians who professed to see the truth of the church in its relationship to Christ, and if they would ally themselves with others who would compromise the testimony, and defile them, and thus hinder the Spirit of God, I should, after long and patiently expostulating with them, retire and stand alone, and look for the grace which had led me into a solitary place to lead them. But I could not, as understanding the nature of the bond which subsisted between me and them, return to them in any way except to give each of them separately help to renounce his defiled position, so morally bad and grieving to the Spirit that I could not stay there. And therefore the more I care for them, and apprehend the holiness and sensibility of the bond of the Holy Spirit, the more I must insist on total and absolute separation. It is incongruous, it is unholy,

^[p. 114] if I separate myself from a leprous house, at the same time to offer or attempt to promote the health of the inmates who remain in it. In so doing I take care of my own conscience by separating, but I foster laxity and indifference to evil, because I do not see that what is good and necessary for myself as one member, is so for every member. I act like one of a nation like Joshua, and not as one of a body like Paul. Joshua can return into the small circle of his own family when he loses hope in Israel. Paul never separates himself from the church, and he counts on God’s faithfulness to the last, that the body of Christ will be maintained on earth till He come.