THE CHURCH ON EARTH

^[p. 152] THE CHURCH ON EARTH

We have at one and the same moment the most perfect acceptance in Christ, and by Christ the most absolute judicial removal of the man under judgment. The great thing for us to learn and to maintain is, that we have the life that was “manifested”. It is peculiar to the church, as the meat-offering was to the priestly family. The better we adhere to that which is special to the church, the body of Christ, the easier it will be for us to arrive at the order of life belonging to the other saints. The effort of the enemy is to merge all in one, in order to neutralise the speciality of the church. Satan will let a man do anything which will divert minds from this great truth, that Christ’s body is on the earth. A man might preach or do anything good if he would only not insist on that great fact, that Christ’s body is here in the scene of His rejection. This is the great testimony now, that God has so honoured Him in the place where man, through Satan, refused Him, and the tendency ever is to depart from it in principle and in practice.