CAN WE MEET NOW ON THE GROUND OF THE ONE BODY?
CAN WE MEET NOW ON THE GROUND OF THE ONE BODY?
Is the body of Christ on the earth? is a question of the greatest interest to every true-hearted christian. I suppose no one would deny the doctrine. That it is in some way on the earth is part of the christian creed. Romanism admits the doctrine by imitating it. The church in some form or other is held to be one whole, part of it militant and part triumphant. The idea that all christians are one company never has been denied by any believer. There have been very erroneous views as to the formation of this one company, and forms for its government; but the idea remains that there is but one church, and that though the saints are not now of one accord and of one mind they will be so hereafter. It is clear Romanism, the consummation of ecclesiastical assumption and failure, insists on universality and indivisibility. Rome in its assumption and imitation, at least transmits to us the human apprehension of the church’s calling. Nothing can be plainer in Scripture than that the church — that which is His own building — is His body. But as it is the house of God on the earth where it is in testimony, each one acts in his [p. 164] individual capacity (practice is always individual), and as it is there in responsibility. Many have been allowed to enter the house who are not in the body, though the members of the body are the only vital thing in the house. If Christ’s body is not on the earth, the church is not on the earth, and if the body is not here, what is here? And what has become of all the statements in Scripture on the subject? I may be told saints are here, but to what family do they belong?
The great central purpose of God before the foundation of the world, was the church — the body of Christ. In the garden of Eden it came out in type, when Eve was formed out of Adam, and he said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”, and so all along the course of God’s dealings with man, until the secret was divulged. Rebekah conducted across the desert by Eliezer was a gleam of it in Abraham’s day, when he had turned his back on man’s city, in the plains of Shinar, to look for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And God has prepared for them a city, and that city is the bride, the Lamb’s wife. Joseph finding a wife in Egypt is another type of it in his day; while Moses marrying a Midianite was the type of it in his day. Thus Ruth in another day, and Solomon’s wife was an Egyptian. The great central company, the body of Christ, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all, must cast its light on every time and dispensation, though forming no part of it. Hence, when our Lord comes, He speaks in parables of this great circle; the treasure hid in the field and the pearl of great price. As soon, then, as our Lord was completely rejected — first, in His humiliation; and secondly, from glory — then the great secret was divulged. In Acts 9: 4 it is for the first time told out in the words, “Why persecutest thou me?” the Christ was here on earth in His body. Was this ever true, and is it not now true? Has God given up His purposes? Has Satan succeeded? Satan’s great effort has been directed against Christ being here on earth.
[p. 165] Herod the king sacrificed every feeling of kindness and humanity, in order to cut off Christ from the earth. What a sorrow he entailed! Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they are not. But when the Lord was definitely rejected, then the time was come for the declaration of the secret, when every power had combined to prevent His being here bodily, then God had ordained and brought to pass that His body should be here; and any one who refuses and ignores this fact that Christ’s body is here, falls into the grievous snare that Satan has set for the feet of every believer. God only can preserve one from it. All Satan’s force and machinations have been from the beginning directed against Christ being on the earth; and since God has signally defeated him in calling out from the man who rejected Him under the influence of Satan, members of His body on the earth, Satan’s effort all along has been to frustrate it. True, in Romanism, it was imitated, but there is no surer way of lessening the value of a real thing than by counterfeiting it, so much so, that the simple truth of Christ’s body being here was unknown for centuries to christian writers, until about the last half century, when God in His grace has been pleased to revive the truth to His people; but the opposition to it has not ceased, and the effort of the enemy to ignore it is as great this day as ever it was. But, blessed be God, He is as able to protect His own counsel, and preserve it to His dependent people in this day, as ever He was.
Many are the ways that it has been opposed in my remembrance, and in some cases by those who outwardly professed the truth as received among us. One party of disaffection, great in numbers and social influence, held that the church would pass through the judgments, and that it had not a heavenly position. They soon betrayed that they were not led by the Holy Spirit in His acknowledged place in the assembly, and as the One by whom all were baptised into one body. They [p. 166] became independent, and thus declared that they were not practically in the truths of the one body and the one Spirit. Heresy of the worst kind eventually exposed the evil of this system. Independency must be the result of not seeing that Christ’s body, one great whole, is on the earth. The art of Satan to blind saints as to this great central truth is very marked and continual. A system called ‘Holiness by faith’ diverted some from it. This so engrossed one with one’s own state, that there was no time nor inclination to apprehend the great reality of union with Christ. Then again, the gospel so exclusively occupied the minds of saints that the ministry of the church was entirely overlooked. This has wrought an indifference and disregard of the body of Christ in a very strange, but yet distinct way. A company of saints gathered by an evangelist seldom is sound in principle. The success of interest in this work has tended to exalt those engaged in it, at the expense of those who, interested in the church, had little or nothing to show for their labours, and hence even those who professedly had accepted and embraced the truth of the body of Christ on earth (they had in heart slighted it) came out in their true colours when a question arose which could not be solved but by a member (however unintelligent) of the body of Christ. A member has a spiritual sense. It requires no profound information, but simple faith, and the consequences flowing from it, of being by the Spirit united to Christ and to one another. When a saint pretends to be what he is not, some day or other he will be found out, and his real state exposed. Thus it is with many now whose want of faith was concealed by the position they occupied, while greatly commended because of their zeal in gospel work; and they are now only discovered as not only ignorant of being on the ground of the one body, but in some instances they actually assert that it is untenable and impracticable to meet now on that ground, and surely this is tantamount to saying that the body of Christ is not on the earth.
[p. 167] This class seem never to get beyond the truths which minister to their affections. Hence what Christ suffered and wrought for us is their only theme. Everything to feed the affections, and this is most necessary; but when exclusively so there is no progress, and very often only relieving the conscience of indulged inconsistencies.
Another variety of opposition to this great truth has yet more recently arisen. It comes from those who profess to see the heavenly position of the saints. They assume to be led by the Spirit in their meetings and teaching, in fact, every truth connected with the body of Christ, and yet they deny that they can meet on the ground of the one body — that everything of a corporate character has passed away, that there are disjecta membra, twos and threes here and there, but no witness to the fact that Christ’s body is here. Of course, men might be deluded enough to say the sun was not here while they were walking in the light of it. These assert that they are in the enjoyment of the properties and privileges of the body, but that the body is not here, and that the Holy Spirit does not keep any number of the members in the principle and order of it on the earth because of failure and dislocation. Could not part of a natural body be released from paralysis to the great and solid benefit of the rest of the body? If the body be not here, how do these religionists reach a heavenly association with Christ, which is their great aim and teaching? If the body be not here there is no union with Christ, for that is corporate, and though it is quite true that the ministry of the gospel does confer heavenly hope and heavenly joys on the believer, yet there is no union with Christ in the ministry of the gospel; and hence if this association with Christ be sought for as a matter of attainment, which (though never spoken of in Scripture) it must be, if not by union with Christ, and it cannot be by union, if as they say, there is an end to the corporate thing; well, if it be so, this association so much spoken of and pressed cannot be enjoyed at all and is simply a [p. 168] myth as they teach it, and it is still more evident that they are not enjoying union, for if they were they would have the unmistakable mark of union, that is, identity of interest with Christ, where both the affections are deepened and full association is known, and this identity of interest cannot be acquired in any other way, because it is from our union with Him — a consequence of relationship.
In conclusion let me add the statements in Scripture establishing beyond question that the body of Christ is here. Where is the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made known to all the nations for the obedience of faith? (see Romans 16: 25, 26). If the body of Christ be not here, where is the ministry of the church in Colossians 1, “the mystery of God” (chapter 2: 2) which the apostle so earnestly sought should be understood by the saints? To what purpose is Christ the Head in heaven, “from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God”, if the body be not here? How do we obtain association or place with Christ in heaven, if it be that as His body we are all raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him, if the body be not here? How can Jews and gentiles be one if there be not one body? “That he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby”, Ephesians 2: 16. What is the work of the Holy Spirit on this earth if there be no body? How are saints bound to one another if they be not baptised by one Spirit into one body? “All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. 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 Christ”, 1 Corinthians 12: 11, 12. “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular”. For what purpose are the gifts, if there be no body to edify? “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some,
[p. 169] pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry; for the edifying of the body of Christ”, Ephesians 4: 11, 12. And lastly, how can the body edify itself which it is required to do if it be not in existence? “From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love”, Ephesians 4: 16.
Can anything more surely establish the inability of the human mind to comprehend a spiritual fact, than that a subject so distinctly and variously presented and insisted on in Scripture, should by even zealous and devoted christians be opposed and denied, while in simple faith apprehended by the youngest? The Lord anoint their eyes with eye-salve that they may see.