THE ASSEMBLY; ITS USE AND OBJECT
[p. 297] THE ASSEMBLY; ITS USE AND OBJECT
Our blessed Lord, taking His place in the midst of His own on the day of His resurrection, and there and then forming the assembly for the first time on the earth, would of itself convey to us the gravity and importance of it. The disciples (the eleven, and they that were with them), were gathered into a room, with closed doors, the Lord Himself the one paramount Object before their hearts. He comes into their midst, and He now forms the assembly. He first fits the disciples for it, assures them of peace — the state belonging to the new ground — that of divine righteousness, in which He now sets them. He confers life in the power of the Holy Spirit. He sends them as missionaries into the world, and He announces to them their responsibility, in the words, “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”.
The assembly is now shown in pattern. I do not say that it commenced then, but I submit that the pattern of it was given then. The value of a pattern is that we have in it the essential parts of the thing described. The Lord, on the first day of the week, when everything is new, places the disciples, both as to their own state and responsibility, as He desired to have them, in assembly order. No soul, unless in the spiritual mind, which is life and peace, is really qualified to fulfil his part in the assembly. It is plain that if my own soul’s interests are not assured, and that I am not in real restfulness of heart about myself, I cannot truly take an interest in Christ’s interests in the assembly. But being settled, as to myself, before God, now I am called to act for Christ in the assembly. Invigorated in heart by His presence, His death prominently before me, I travel through remembrance of His death to the great fact that I am beside Him, that He is in the midst; while absorbed by His presence, I learn from Him that I am sent by Him into the world, and that our responsibility is set forth in the words, “whose soever sins”, etc. So that the present position of every one is determined by the assembly receiving or refusing. If we apprehend, in any measure, that the object of the assembly was to care for the interests of Christ on earth, we at once see how much it has departed from its object and use, while it is our blessing to seek from Scripture how we may return, in purpose and practice, to the mind of the Lord. We may lay down, then, that the Lord’s presence, and its effect, is necessarily the first object and use of it. Secondly, the way He directs and sends forth from there for His service; and thirdly, responsibility as to remitting and retaining sins.
Now, seeing that the assembly is here for objects so deeply interesting, let us gather from Scripture more about it. In Matthew 18: 20 we read, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. Here we have the basis of the assembly. Two or three would be as nothing without the Lord, but He in our midst — everything must be rightly determined. From the context it is evident there was a sense of powerlessness, and this led to prayer; but we were not to be despondent, for where two or three were gathered to His name, He would be in the midst; that is, He, in His grace, would form one of the company, when they were simply gathered to His name. The Spirit only could gather to His name, and He, the blessed Lord, will then come Himself. This is the basis of every meeting on divine ground. There is no power otherwise, and thus, in Luke 24 and John 20, the Lord is in the midst of His gathered ones, then only to form in pattern that assembly which is now in existence. We see in Matthew 18: 17 that the assembly was the last place for appeal in personal difficulties with one another, in our wilderness journey; and this affords evidence of the use and object of the assembly.
Now, in Acts 2 the disciples were in company when the Holy Spirit descended, and filled the house where [p. 299] they were sitting; and, besides, each individual was filled by the same Spirit who had filled all the house where they were sitting. The assembly, so to speak, was then established in true power; surely Christ was in the midst. It is a great thing to apprehend the nature of the assembly which is the habitation of God through the Spirit, as here begun. It was there each individual at first received the Spirit. The greatest blessing of the time is connected with the assembly. If we bear in mind that the descent of the Holy Spirit was not on one here, and another there, scattered abroad, but first to the assembly, possibly the same number as in John 20: 19, we must be impressed with the august nature of it; and that a manifestation of the Lord would occur there which would not occur elsewhere.
Now a very important fact, which is entirely lost in christendom, must be added here — namely, that once in the assembly, I am always in it. I cannot properly say that I am going into the church, or that I am going to church. It is quite true the assembly meets, or it may be convened; but I am a constituent part of the assembly, at my work, as well as at the convened meeting. In Israel an assembly was called by trumpets, which I conclude has given rise to bells in the christian era; but the assembly meeting there was in order to provide for some apprehended difficulty. With christians the assembly is convened also, according to the necessity of the times; and, I conclude, also with the twofold intention of receiving comfort and help to the saints, and guidance and wisdom, under the circumstances, from the Lord. Surely thus it was in the beginning. “They continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers”. “All that believed were together”. “And being let go, they went to their own company”. “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were assembled shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness”. It is important to note how blessing is connected with the assembled saints. It would appear also that Ananias and Sapphira came to the place where the assembly was gathered. Ananias had come in first, and in three hours after, his wife, “not knowing what was done, came in”. The Holy Spirit was connected with the assembly, and hence Peter can say to Ananias, “Why has Satan filled thy heart that thou shouldest lie to the Holy Spirit?” Again, we read in Acts 6 that when there was a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration, then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples to them. Thus we grow into some apprehension of the use and object of the assembly. The interests of the Lord were to be secured there.
Now, in Acts 13: 1, 2 we get a very interesting use of the assembly. “As they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me now Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them”. This occurred in the assembly, and it recalls to us one of the great things connected with the first assembly, in pattern (John 20: 21) when our blessed Lord said, “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you”. That is, that servants were appointed to definite services in the assembly; as it is said of Timothy, “the gift that is in thee, which has been given to thee through prophecy, with imposition of the hands of the elderhood”. This, doubtless, occurred in the assembly.
We get another interesting statement in Acts 15: 4: “And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them”. The assembly is evidently here the central object, and not the apostles and elders; and we find in the same chapter, after the apostles and elders had discussed the question of circumcision, and had arrived at the Lord’s mind about it, the assembly endorsed it. “Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole [p. 301] church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren”.
Again, in 1 Peter 2:4,5; 1 Peter 2:9: “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.... But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light”. Here we get the twofold use of the assembly; one to God, offering up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ; the other, setting forth the excellencies of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous light.
To this I must add the counsel to Timothy, “that thou mayest know how one ought to conduct oneself in God’s house, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth”. Surely a godly soul, on reading the above quotations from the Scripture, will be impressed with the august nature of the assembly. It may be alleged, and truly, that the assembly now has, to man’s eye, lost all trace of its primitive greatness. This will be readily admitted, but, at the same time, we must remember that its object, and the use for which it was formed, are the same as ever, though there be a marked inability in answering to them. No creature of God can lose its responsibility as to the object and use for which God formed it; however, from injuries or internal weakness, it may become incapable of conducting itself as it ought; still, the responsibility remains, and this is all I would press; while I am encouraged by the assurance that, however powerless the assembly has become, to any heart which is really set for instruction as to the interests of Christ, there will be given now, as surely as to Nehemiah or Daniel in another day, both light and [p. 302] opportunity for promoting them according to the mind of the Lord.
I must add a few remarks on the assembly as the body of Christ. We must bear in mind that every believer in the assembly is a member of the body of Christ, and that, when convened as in 1 Corinthians 12, because of the intimate connection between each, that if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it. They are there gathered by the Spirit to the name of Christ, in whose name He (the Spirit) was sent by the Father; and consequently each member, in faith holding the Head, which he must do to be true to his responsibility, is really led by the Lord to behave himself in the house of God, and to carry out the mind of the Head there and then. The apostle adduces the truth of the one body to the Corinthians, to awaken them to their responsibility, and to deter them from merely doing their own pleasure in the assembly. Now mark, that not only are the saints edified in the meeting, but, “if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all”, 1 Corinthians 14: 24. This great blessing was not effected by the assembly being the habitation of God through the Spirit, but by the present energy of the Spirit, through the members of the body of Christ.
The Lord grant that we may apprehend a little more clearly the use and object of the assembly as it is in His mind.
One word more as to the mystery — the church as one great structure on the earth, of which Christ is the Head in heaven. I speak of it now, not merely convened, as in 1 Corinthians 12, but as we get in Ephesians 4: 15, 16:
“But, holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ: from whom the whole body, fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply, according to the working in its measure of each one part, works for itself the increase of the body [p. 303] to its self-building up in love”. Each one of us, however apart, is called to promote the benefit and progress of the whole body; and to effect this there are two great ministries; one — gifts from the ascended Head in heaven, which are exercised in relation to His members here (the evangelists to pick them as diamonds out of the mire, and the pastors and teachers to set them in their proper settings, to the glory of God); and the other — the joints, the individual exercise in the Spirit to promote the health and vigour of one another, unto the edifying of itself in love.