ONE SPIRIT AND ONE BODY
[p. 286] ONE SPIRIT AND ONE BODY
Reading, Revised by F.E.R.
1 Corinthians 12: 1 - 31 I have been accustomed to think of the eating and drinking as the vital things, that is as remembering the Lord in coming together on Lord’s day morning; but you gave a different impression this morning. Will you speak a little further on that? What is the end in view?
FER The end in view is to call Christ to mind; do this for My remembrance. The Supper is the mode by which He would be called to mind.
PHF What is it that we discern; is it Christ in death?
FER No, you discern Himself; I think that is the idea. His death is the means by which He Himself is presented to you.
PHF He in death, or in going into death?
FER It is His death, but I think that His death presents Himself.
JC If I understand Mr. F., his question was, to what does the Supper lead on?
FER The Supper leads on properly to the assembly in its true character. But the first thing in connection with the assembly is that you call the Lord to mind.
WHC “Not discerning the Lord’s body”. Would that be Himself?
FER Failing to discern the body was very low down. The Corinthians were taking up the bread as common food; they did not discern what the bread represented. There is no transubstantiation in the Supper, but the bread by common consent represents something, that is the body of Christ, as the cup does the blood of Christ; but if people take up the elements [p. 287] in an irreverent way, failing to see what they represent, they do not discern the Lord’s body.
JP That is what the apostle alludes to when he says, “When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper”.
FER Yes.
WM They lost the spiritual significance of it.
FER Yes.
RSS In connection with Mr. F.’s question: is this thought right, that in the first part of the meeting it is rather the Lord Himself that we address, whereas in the latter part of the meeting He would lead us to the Father?
FER The Lord has Himself instituted in the Supper the way by which He would be called to mind.
PHF Properly, do you begin with meditation on the Lord in His death?
FER I do not think you meditate in assembly. If you do, you separate yourself from the others.
JP Because meditation must necessarily be individual.
FER Saints ought to wait on the Lord in assembly.
WM The breaking of bread calls Him into presence.
FER I think that is the way. The first time the Supper was ever eaten the Lord was Himself present, and He showed the way by which He would be called to mind.
WM Would it be anything like showing His hands and His side to His disciples to identify Himself to them?
FER That is something analogous. He will be called to mind through His death, and that tests us, because it raises the question how much we are in accord with His death. If your mind is in accord with His death, there is no great difficulty in calling Him to mind [p. 288] by it.
RSS The Lord said when He was here, “I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished”. But, after His resurrection, He was not straitened when He sent that message to His disciples by Mary. Do you think we go through the same experience in that sense in the meeting? I think we feel more free after the breaking of bread.
FER It is so if things are right. There is quite a change after the breaking of bread in the whole tone of the meeting.
RSS After that it is what the Lord does. That is the second part. “In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee”.
FER And if people have come to the Supper rightly, there has been a calling of Christ to mind. That is, you have given Him in your soul His proper place of pre-eminence.
WM And you do not remember His death.
FER The force of remembering is “calling to mind”, and you cannot call Him to mind in death.
WHC But you call Him to mind as the One who had died.
FER You cannot call Him to mind as dead, but as one who is living, who did die.
WM In regard to calling Him to mind, you use the expression, ‘bringing Him into presence’. That makes it more easily understood.
FER If you call Him to mind you really bring Him into presence.
GW It is not remembering at all in that sense.
FER It is not remembering in the sense of recollecting an event.
GW What did Mr. Darby mean by saying that he insisted that the dead Christ should not be taken away from him, or words to that effect?
FER His death is that through which you call Him to mind, but you apprehend His death in the symbols before you; and I regard His death as the [p. 289] great expression of His love. It is in that way I understand His death to come before us.
PH We remember Him as He once was, and we think of Him as He now is.
FER You have the sense that He went into death, but if He went into death it was to express His love to us.
WHC John saw a lamb as it had been slain.
RSS Mr. A. gave us this illustration. He said he was in Australia, and he happened to find in his trunk something that he had not put there, but which he needed very much; it was the thoughtfulness of his wife putting it in there; and when he found it it called his wife into presence, so to speak. Is that a good illustration?
FER I think it serves to illustrate the point. The moment you get Christ’s death before you it brings Himself into view. Death came in as an incident in His pathway of love, and was the great expression of the love. It is not the circumstance of His death that you are occupied with, but the meaning and power of it; and it brings Himself into view. Christ is not a single bit changed; what He was in death He is now.
WHC Would that bring us to resurrection, and all that is involved in resurrection, otherwise you might not get beyond the cross?
FER You are on the ground of resurrection and therefore, in a sense, you come back to death.
RSS You go back to death in association with Him.
WM That delivers us from a sort of mystical idea as to the Lord’s presence.
FER You give the Lord His right place, which is the great point in the meeting.
JP That is what you spoke of as the introduction to [p. 290] the assembly.
FER He gets His place, and in chapter 12 the saints have their place; chapter 11 brings in Christ Himself, and chapter 12 the saints.
PH When you speak of the meaning of His death, do you mean as the expression of His love, to the exclusion of His dying for our sins?
FER That accentuates and gives force to it; the point in the Supper is that His death was the expression of His love.
PH I mean it is more that than the thought of His making atonement.
FER The fact of His having died for our sins tends to accentuate His love.
RSS Would you connect with it the scripture where the Lord says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”?
FER Quite so. “Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it”.
JP It is impossible to dissociate the love from Himself.
FER Suppose you were to commemorate the death of some great man in a particular way, you could then get but a remembrance, for the man himself is not living. If the Duke of Wellington had fallen at Waterloo, you might have instituted something to commemorate the battle, but you could only call to mind the fact, not the man himself, because the man is dead; but that is not true in regard to Christ; the moment you recall His death, as the expression of His love, He is realised as living, for the love is still there.
GW Do you mean, then, that when the bread is broken and the cup taken, that that brings Christ into the midst?
FER I would not say into the midst, but it brings Him into your consciousness; His presence is little gain to us if we are not conscious of it.
RSS Would you say that was quite so with the two disciples going to Emmaus? They had gained [p. 291] through being in His presence, even if they were not conscious of His presence.
FER I admit that, but it is curious that He was known of them in the breaking of bread. Perhaps I might modify what I said, for if Christ is present it is exceedingly possible that those not conscious of His presence may get gain.
RSS And the Lord gets a response from those who have been made conscious of His presence. They could say, “Did not our heart burn within us”; but at the same time there was not the outgoing at the time that there would have been had they known who He was.
FER No, He was simply to them an expositor.
WM I suppose the Corinthians were hardly fit to enter into the assembly in its normal character.
FER No, and hence the apostle does not unfold it. You get no idea in these chapters of the sanctuary; the saints are not contemplated there in that connection; there was too much disorder; the apostle is correcting disorder in these chapters.
JC That thought has often troubled me, were there any there who could enter into the normal condition?
FER There may have been some, but it was not general.
JC Is such a state of things possible, that part can enter in, and not the rest?
FER Undoubtedly; but the apostle takes them up as the one existing body at Corinth; they were the temple of God, and the body of Christ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and they came together in assembly; but, so far as entering properly into the privilege of christian worship in its true sense is concerned, they missed the mark. They were not ‘perfect’. They knew little or nothing about death and resurrection with Christ, nor of sonship, and yet they came together as saints, the assembly of God at Corinth;
[p. 292] but coming together in assembly, which is right in its way, and entering into the reality of the sanctuary, are two different things. The fact is, everything in these chapters is elementary; you do not get the idea of the sanctuary unfolded, nor is there brought out what the true worshipping company is.
WM And there is no teaching as to the body of Christ.
FER No, the teaching in chapter 12 is simply the fact of one Spirit and one body; then chapter 13 presents to you a beautiful picture, but the disappointing part is that the picture is hanging on the wall to be looked at, not portrayed in the saints. Then in chapter 14 he puts things in their place. He says, “Follow after love, and be emulous of spiritual manifestations”. They had made everything of spiritual manifestations and had ignored love.
JC I have heard it put that in chapter 12 we have the assembly, in chapter 13 what would keep the assembly going on, and we get it going on in chapter 14.
FER Chapter 13 is the life of the assembly properly, but the Corinthians had not got to the life of the assembly. There was the picture, but they had not realised the picture. Hence you get things put in their proper place in the beginning of chapter 14, “Follow after love, and be emulous of spiritual manifestations”.
JNH Before leaving chapter 11, do we get a wrong impression by using the expression, “ye do show the Lord’s death till he come”?
FER The word is ‘announce’.
JNH To whom do we announce it?
FER I do not know at all; in taking the symbols of His death we announce His death; but I do not think it is the announcement of His death which occupies us.
RSS The thought is simply that we set it forth, but that [p. 293] is incidental.
FER Manifestly, the thought in the Supper is calling Him to remembrance.
JC We usually seek seclusion to remember the Lord, it is not the thought of making a show of it.
FER I think that fully, it is a place of seclusion.
LTF Is it the thought that we commit ourselves to it?
FER There is a public evident act, and it may be done before unconverted people outside; at all events, there is the fact announced.
Ques Would that be in giving thanks?
FER I think it is in taking the Supper.
WB Has the scripture in Matthew 18, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”, anything to do with the breaking of bread? It is often used in connection with it.
FER It has to do with two or three come together for prayer; I think we ought to take up points of that kind in their connection.
JNH Would you say it was connected there with discipline and prayer?
FER With prayer, not discipline. In certain cases you tell a matter to the assembly, but that is not quite the simple thought of two or three gathered together in Christ’s name. The passage runs, “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven, for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”.
JP That is distinct from what goes before.
FER Yes.
JP After all, the great thing in coming together is Himself.
FER If it is not that I do not know the worth of it, and it is a poor thing to be in the faith of His presence and not in the consciousness of it.
[p. 294] Ques Would you separate the passage in Matthew 18 at verse 19, “Again I say unto you”?
FER Yes, another point is there taken up.
RSS But Matthew 18: 20 is perfectly true as to the assembly thus come together.
FER I do not object to that at all, but it is no use bringing Matthew 18 into 1 Corinthians 11.
GW Hebrews 2 would come in, would you connect that with the assembly?
FER Yes. What is exceedingly important is to distinguish between saints come together in assembly, and the proper character of the sanctuary. You must in mind distinguish that, “in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee” is not exactly the idea of saints come together in assembly.
JP That is what you reach in Hebrews 10.
FER Yes.
JP Because coming together in assembly is common, and proper for every christian.
FER All the christians at Corinth came together, and yet many of them were in a very unsatisfactory condition; the apostle does not check their coming together, but the disorder.
PH Is the sanctuary and the holiest the same?
FER Yes, the holiest is to us the sanctuary.
WB Going back to the Lord’s supper, is it not rather the way in which the Lord conducts us consciously into the realisation of what He is in the midst?
FER It is the way in which He makes His presence good to and felt by us. He was about to leave His own after the flesh, and shows then how He would make good His presence to them after He left them.
WB And then do we get on to the assembly?
FER I think so. You have another element of the truth in chapter 12, and that is we are one body in [p. 295] the Spirit, not in the flesh; there is one Spirit and one body.
GW You say we go from the breaking of bread to the assembly.
FER It is clear enough that the Lord’s supper is the beginning.
GW Then you go from the assembly into the sanctuary.
FER The sanctuary is largely a question of individual apprehension; so long as we are down here (it will not be so in heaven) this must be the case.
GW I am surprised at that; you mean when we are gathered together on the Lord’s day morning — and that, you say, introduces us into the assembly?
FER The saints are together in assembly, that is right enough, but the question of entering into the sanctuary is a question of individual apprehension.
GW On Lord’s day morning?
FER Yes, you may have three people in the meeting who are in the sense of it, and the bulk not at all so; that is very possible.
GW But I thought those two or three would be together, not individual exactly.
FER They may be in the midst of two or three hundred. Do you think that in any meeting the bulk enter into the idea of the sanctuary, or the place of priests?
W.E. Why do we not?
FER Many care little about it; they have come out of church or chapel to a more correct and scriptural order of things, and they doubtless get a certain benefit from the meetings, etc., but they do not enter into the reality of the sanctuary. They congratulate themselves on having got away from one man ministry to a place where there is liberty of ministry; I do not know that they get much farther.
GW The reason I was surprised was that I thought everything in new creation [p. 296] was collective.
FER You must enter individually into what is, in its own proper character, collective.
PH Have you not said that in the assembly you lose your individuality, and it is a company.
FER I think you do properly, but you must get the apprehension individually in the first instance.
PH Would not the Spirit of God be hindered in those who were in the right state by those who were not?
FER That may be the case; but I have comfort in that I am associated with those who are not avowedly opposed to the truth. If I thought that brethren were so I would leave them; but while the truth has place among them, even though many do not follow it, one can go on with them.
JC Do you not think if they wanted to get on they would?
FER I think so, but not if they are not exercised, and prepared to suffer loss. No one will ever get into the truth of God’s calling unless prepared to suffer loss.
Rem Please tell us how you could leave brethren.
FER I do not intend to leave them, but if I saw that they were opposed to the truth, I would have no question about leaving them. It is not at all difficult to do so; we have found people leaving us for reasons which are not sufficient. The place is right as long as brethren are not opposed to the truth.
WHC You mean that the basis is not ecclesiastical?
FER Just so.
JP And our apprehension of spiritual things depends on the work of God in our own souls.
RSS I suppose you go on the principle, “Follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart”, and if brethren do not act on that you could not go with them.
FER Quite so.
[p. 297] WM In connection with the assembly, do you only see one assembly meeting?
FER The only thing that I see in Scripture is the saints coming together in assembly, rallied by the Lord’s supper.
WM And would every other coming together during the week be on the ground of that?
FER That is the only idea in Scripture I know of in connection with the meeting of the assembly.
Ques Would you use the expression that other meetings are a continuation?
FER No, for as a matter of fact the assembly does not come together except to the Lord’s supper.
WM Perhaps this chapter simply regulates the exercise of gift in the meetings; it does not describe the meetings.
FER The Corinthians had not come to the truth of the sanctuary, but they had the manifestations of the Spirit, and in chapter 12 the apostle shows that the manifestations of the Spirit were secondary to the truth of the one body. The manifestations of the Spirit tended in the use of them in the direction of clericalism and the exaltation of man, and the apostle puts all that aside by introducing in chapter 12 the truth of the one Spirit and the one body, because in the idea of one body there can be no pre-eminence.
WM It is a deathblow to clericalism.
FER Yes, the most feeble member is necessary. You get the idea of that in the human body; what member in the human body is pre-eminent? In the constitution of the body, not one member, that I know of, is pre-eminent. The fact is all work harmoniously, and every member is dependent on every other member.
RSS Of course one member may have a larger function than another.
FER It may have a more conspicuous function, as we judge, but I do not know that we judge rightly.
[p. 298] The eye is dependent on the foot and the foot on the eye.
WHC So if we had a correct thought of the body the manifestations of the Spirit would be all right.
FER The apostle’s point is to subordinate the manifestations of the Spirit to the truth of the one body and the one Spirit, so that you cannot put one manifestation against another.
WM You do not see in these chapters warrant for what is called an ‘open meeting’.
FER I think they are a continuation of chapter 11; what is taken up in chapter 12 is not strictly limited to the assembly come together, but the chapter is brought in to regulate the assembly so far; that is, in coming together you come together in the truth of one Spirit and one body, and all the manifestations of the Spirit are subordinate to that.
JP And this will greatly tell upon us when we are together.
FER Yes, when you come together in assembly you do not think of some particular member; no member is pre-eminent.
WM It is not a question of gift there; it is love.
FER Yes, when you come together in assembly every eye is looking to the Lord; you do not think of some brother having an overshadowing gift. In the assembly come together, an apostle is no more than anybody else.
WB Generally it is one or two members that do all that is done.
FER More shame for all the rest. I have no doubt if others were more devoted, the manifestations of the Spirit might come out through them just as much as through anybody else. You might get the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge through the simplest member.
RSS It is not well for the right hand to let the left hand do all the work; you would get left-handed.
FER [p. 299] The right hand would get into a kind of desuetude. People get settling down to take no part.
Ques At what time can anything be told to the assembly, as in Matthew 18?
FER I think for that the assembly would have to be called together specially; you would have to sound a trumpet.
WM That would be an abnormal gathering.
FER Yes.
GW I suppose two or three would do that.
FER It ought to be done on the testimony of two or three.
WHF That would be of a different character from the assembly proper.
FER You could not have that kind of coming together in heaven.
WHF I think in this country the assembly on the Lord’s day morning and for discipline, etc., has all been looked at as the assembly meeting proper.
FER That is not the way the scripture teaches, for in 1 Corinthians 5, where there was need of discipline, the apostle takes it up as a special matter.
WHF It is important to be clear on these points.
WM It is a great help to see that the subject of the assembly is a continuation of chapter 11.
FER The assembly has come together, and what brings it together, properly speaking, is the Lord’s supper.
GW But it may be called together.
FER The trumpet may be sounded because something is existing which would compromise the assembly. Then it is the priests sound the alarm, and the assembly is called together; but the Supper properly convenes the saints.
JP It would not be proper for any but priests to sound the alarm.
FER No, and in the mouth of two or [p. 300] three witnesses.
WM Do you mean by a priest a spiritual person?
FER Quite so.
Ques So the coming together in chapter 14 differs from the coming together in chapter 11?
FER No, not at all, it is a continuation of the same subject.
OO'B I do not quite understand about speaking of a priest as a spiritual person; are we not all priests?
FER It is just one of those things as to which we have to say, we are, and we are not. We are all priests by calling, but we ought not to be content with that; we ought to be priests in fact as well as in calling; that is, we ought to be spiritual.
WM I suppose there is something analogous in what the apostle says, “Ye are the body of Christ”. They had that place, but they were not spiritual.
FER Yes, they knew little or nothing about the body of Christ. It was a statement to them.
WHC So that it is not sufficient to have the Spirit.
FER No, many a person has the Spirit who cannot be said to be spiritual. That comes out in chapter 2 of this epistle: “he that is spiritual judgeth all things”; that is a priest.
JP The same principle comes out, “If any man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one”.
FER I would say that ought to be true of every christian, but it was a kind of challenge to the Galatians. Every christian ought to be spiritual, but you cannot say all are spiritual.
JP Of course the privilege of the sanctuary is open to all.
FER “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus”, but we ought to be in the reality of sonship.
JP And I suppose it is as [p. 301] we come into the reality of sonship that we come into the reality of eternal life.
WM Eternal life is not introduced in Corinthians at all.
FER How could it be, for they had not got to love. The subject is broken in two. Chapter 14 is a continuation of chapter 12, but the thread is broken to bring in chapter 13, in which the apostle presents to them, as a picture, love objectively. He first tells them what a man is without love, and then, in the latter part, he presents what is perfectly lovely, but a contrast to all that was going on in Corinth.
JC In connection with a difficulty coming up, and a brother desiring to speak of it, would you think it was right to ask all the brothers to be present?
FER You cannot select brothers; you cannot have a sort of committee; I should prefer to call together the elders, but leave it to brothers to judge if they are elders.
WM You would not select the elders?
FER No, I could not.
JC You would not ask the brothers to remain?
FER What authority have you for calling a brothers’ meeting? It is not, I think, found in Scripture. I can understand the calling together of the elders, but in doing this you would have to leave on people the responsibility of whether they were elders or not.
RSS In connection with what you were saying, supposing Mr. C. asked the elders to remain after the meeting, I am afraid he would be left alone. I cannot see how you would work it out practically.
FER It is a point of detail which people will have to settle for themselves.
WHC Is the scripture in Acts, where the apostles and elders came together to consider the matter? a case in point?
FER I [p. 302] think so.
J.L.J. Who is an elder?
FER You get the qualifications of an elder in Timothy.
JP It is a man who possesses those qualifications.
GW Would it be right, supposing there was a matter which demanded the attention of the assembly, to state the fact after the breaking of bread?
FER I think it would be wiser to consult with two or three spiritual brothers.
LWB Would it be all right then?
FER They would act if they felt there was sufficient occasion for it, but no one brother can act in this on his own responsibility.
RSS Where Paul says in the end of chapter 14, “How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying”. Does he approve or disapprove of that?
FER I do not think he does either one or the other. He recognises what was there in the abundance of the Spirit’s manifestations, but all was to be subordinate to edifying. The most important thing was lacking with the Corinthians, and that was love; there was the mischief. You are only in divine things as you are partaker in the divine nature; yet you may get the manifestations of the Spirit. Possibly the manifestations of the Spirit may have come out even through unconverted men; at all events, they came out through men who lacked what was really vital, and that was love.
JP That is precisely the way it is put in the opening of the chapter.
FER The apostle says “Follow after love”, then they might be zealous of spiritual manifestations; and I think it is in that way that you get the idea of edifying; and this would put everything right, for even supposing that a man had gift, if he felt that the exercise of it [p. 303] was not to edifying he would be silent. Love would keep him silent.
WHC Would you explain how we are made partakers of the divine nature?
FER I think it is in responding to the love of God, “We love him, because he first loved us”. Evidently that was much lacking among the Corinthians, for there was among them a great deal of man and little of God, so that the apostle has to say to them in chapter 15, “some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame”.
WM It is possible to carry out the outside order of things, and yet there may be nothing in it for God.
FER No vitality; love is the vitality of the assembly, just as love is the life of heaven.
GW How do you account for it that the Spirit would be manifest through a vessel of the kind you referred to?
FER The Spirit brought testimony in gifts and manifestations to the glory of Christ, but that kind of thing might and did go on where saints were morally low down. At Corinth He would have had to wait a long time perhaps for suitable vessels.
WE Do you have anything now that answers to this chapter 12?
FER I suppose there is the one Spirit and the one body.
WE I mean the Spirit using an unspiritual man.
FER I do not think so, but now is not quite analogous. Gifts came in at that day with the introduction of christianity, and now that christianity has become established in the world we do not get the manifestations in the same way. In Ephesians you get gifts which continue for the edifying of the church, but in Corinthians the point is the Spirit’s witness to the glory [p. 304] of Christ.
WHC Was the fact of one being away from the Lord in his soul a thing necessarily hindering the exercise of his gift?
FER I do not think the Corinthians had got away quite, but they had been stopped and hindered in their spiritual progress; you have to take that into account in this case.
JC Would you say it was worldliness?
FER Looseness in some way had come in.
Ques Is edification a test of the condition of the assembly, that all might be done to edifying?
FER Yes; I think every member ought to be bent on edifying; it is what love would lead to. You will be bent on the good of the company, not simply on your own.
JP That is what Ephesians 4: 16 contemplates, is it not?
FER Yes, the body edifying itself in love.
WM I suppose mere devotedness and earnestness in itself will not enable a person to edify.
FER I have seen persons earnest and devoted with really very little love. You may get earnestness and devotedness in a monk, but they are not the same thing as love.
WM They can be attached to a person’s effort in the flesh.
FER That is not love. You get the true character of love in chapter 13; that is a most beautiful picture. It certainly would not allow of anything like persecution.
WM Suppression of evil is often mistaken for growth; if a person suppresses himself and does not allow that which is natural, such is often taken for christianity.
FER Growth is in the divine nature and in knowledge. These are the two great elements of a christian.
WHC And is love the secret of [p. 305] knowledge?
FER You get no knowledge in divine things except as you grow in the divine nature.
JP “Every one that loveth ... knoweth God”.
WHC Growing by the knowledge of God.
FER Your intelligence is greatly expanded in love.
WM I was helped by a remark I heard you make in Greenwich, that ‘Christianity cannot be understood by common sense, but it does not shock common sense’.
RSS Is not christianity an exceedingly natural thing?
FER It is spontaneous, like a tree, fruit-bearing and growing.
JLJ Would you not say all believers are christians?
FER If a man is a believer he is a christian. The word ‘christian’ appears to be a human term taken up by the Spirit of God, and I think a christian describes one who believes in Christ.
JLJ I thought it meant more to follow.
FER No, I do not think so; perhaps a christian may mean a professor.
WB I think it has been said that you cannot call a person a christian until they have got to a certain stage.
FER I would not agree with that; if I found any simple believer in Christ I would call him a christian, and in a certain sense you would have to call almost every person in this country a christian.
OO'B “In whom also, having believed, ye have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”, and that is a christian?
FER Yes, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His. The only way you can recognise that a person is a christian is by his confessing Christ as [p. 306] Lord.
WM I suppose the origin of the term was from unconverted men.
FER They were first called christians at Antioch, but the Spirit of God takes up the term in Peter, “If any man suffer as a christian”.
It is important to see that in these chapters we have only the elements; the sanctuary and the priestly calling do not appear in them. You may accept the truth in these chapters and never enter into the reality of the calling, that is, of the sanctuary and the service of God. In chapter 15 the apostle deposits the truth of the gospel with the Corinthians, and in the second epistle he brings to them the new covenant and reconciliation. So they could not as yet enter into the calling of God.
WM Do you think the reason of mentioning what they were, without going into it, was to lead them on?
FER The Spirit of God takes things up and puts them in order, but at the same time all this is done in regard to people to whom the apostle could not unfold the deep things of God.
WM Is it not in a kind of way analogous to the truth in Romans, presented in its elements?
FER Yes, and chapter 13 is peculiar in that way, he shows them a picture, but a picture hardly realised in them.
WE When he says “pursue love”, it shows they had not reached it.
FER They certainly had not reached it much.
GW What do you think is the importance of chapters 12 to 14 now?
FER You get guidance and light in regard to the saints coming together.
GW Are they not important in that they contain what we do not get any place else?
FER Supposing you were in a town and there was evangelistic work going on, and a number of [p. 307] people getting converted; you could not expect those people to enter into the truth of the sanctuary, but at the same time, having the Holy Spirit, they have part in the saints coming together.
WM That is, there is room for edifying.
FER It is the place where they would get edified.
WHC Although it would be hard to gather such together, and leave them to their own responsibility without anybody to help them.
FER They want help.
WB Then we have really been going backwards in our reading today from where we were yesterday?
FER I think so; where we were yesterday was very much in advance of this spiritually.