DECEMBER 17TH, 1896

DECEMBER 17TH, 1896

We did not seem able to escape the subject of the house and the body.... I had deprecated the idea of the matter being brought up at the meeting, but plunged us into it by raising the question of whether responsibility (collective or corporate) was connected with the house or the body. I maintained that the body was Christ’s body, the vessel of the Spirit, and that a true idea of the body did not go beyond the work of the Spirit in saints; that if there were responsibility as to the body it must belong to the Head, and that the light of Scripture as to the body (the mystery) was given us to enable us intelligently to carry out our responsibilities in the house. Some seem to fear that something is being taken from them. They have been accustomed to depend on mere statements without apprehending their import. They divorce the baptism of the saints by one Spirit into one body from the baptism of the saints individually by the Spirit, instead of seeing that the fact of our all receiving one and the same Spirit must of necessity form one body. They have an idea ^[p. 128] that by being formed into one body they gain something additional, instead of seeing that it adds nothing, but that the church is thereby subjected to Christ. My impression is that the real defect lies in want of knowledge of the gospel, hence they are not prepared for the mystery. I think we distinctly gained ground.