THE GOSPEL WITHOUT THE CHURCH
THE GOSPEL WITHOUT THE CHURCH
There never was a beginning yet but it had a reference to an end, and the end therefore must give a character to the beginning. True, a person might alter his design as he proceeds, but then his beginning was not in keeping with the end he now has in view, nor is it the one that he would have adopted had he had the same end in view when he began. There is nothing more evident than that there must be an end in view to every beginning, and the beginning must be in keeping (however distantly) with the end proposed. The end may be very undefined, but nevertheless it was with reference to it that the work was begun or undertaken.
The servant of the Lord receives a commission from the Lord to do a certain thing; he may not be able to comprehend the full result of his work, but in order to be true to the result, he must be true to the commission. The first thing after the servant’s appointment, is his commission. If he be ignorant of what he is to do, he must of necessity be defective in all his services.
Every real servant now is appointed, he is called of the Lord and gifted. A gift is a specific line of service, and as each servant waits on the Lord, he receives instruction from Him through the word in order that he may please Him who hath chosen him.
No one is an evangelist unless he be gifted by the Lord for that ministry. This is the first thing, and one which no one taught in the word will deny; the next thing is the commission which the evangelist receives from the Lord. Now here I apprehend arises all the imperfection and weakness in preaching the gospel in this day. Every servant is only really useful and efficient as he is the bearer of his Master’s mind. Whenever he fails in truly representing the Lord’s mind, he fails in his commission, however great his power as an agent. To “please him who hath chosen him”, is the first and chief quality of a [p. 2] servant. It is not enough that he have ability; ordinarily speaking a servant might have every qualification, and yet be unsatisfactory, because he pays little attention to his Master’s wishes. The most gifted evangelist, however great his power and ability, will fail in his service unless he knows what his Lord desires that he should effect by his preaching. It is therefore of great moment that he should learn from the Lord what he is to do.
In preaching the gospel you must either derive light as to your commission from the Scriptures before the Lord’s ascension or after it. Before the ascension there was salvation for the soul, but there was no assembly, and the evangelist who now relies on the measure of light there was before the ascension for his guidance, is behind the mark, and however gifted he may be, he is defective in the Lord’s mind, and is doing the Lord’s work negligently; not intentionally, I fully admit, but in a day like this it is of the last importance to be able to discern the one perfect way. There cannot be two. Being near the right way, or having any amount of zeal or success, will not compensate for disregard of His mind or for ignorance of His wishes. To say “Corban” to the Lord is profane or worse, and yet the one who shelters his ignorance or argues for it, because of his or others’ zeal or success, is literally doing so.
The gifts were given after the ascension of our Lord and therefore the evangelist now, if he be instructed by the Lord who has conferred the gift on him, must have a distinct end before him, and one according to the mind of Christ. The evangelist either falls back to the light before the ascension of Christ, and then he does not connect his gift with the source of it, and is behind the testimony, or, knowing that he is an evangelist by gift from an ascended Christ refused on earth, he seeks to turn souls from “darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they might receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me”; that is, in a glorified Christ.
[p. 3] If the salvation of the perishing soul be the one end before the mind, then the beginning and every part of the evangelist’s services more or less express this end. But if Christ, and being united to Him in glory be the end, (as it assuredly must be when the evangelist knows that he has been sent by a Saviour ascended to God’s right hand, to preach the good tidings of His finished work,) then the beginning and every part of his work bears the stamp and colour of this truth, and souls who receive his message are enlightened accordingly. If the evangelist derives his gift from an ascended Christ, surely if he keep this one simple thing honestly before him, he must study the mind of his ascended Lord and look for souls here who will believe in an ascended Christ, and in believing receive the Spirit who unites them to Him now absent.
The assembly came in consequent on the rejection of Christ, at first indirectly though surely; that is, while there was an offer to Israel of the Lord in glory in the earlier chapters of the Acts, up to the stoning of Stephen, yet all the time the assembly was the only one true gathering point.
Saints now are baptized by one Spirit into one body; the weakest member is necessary, and the safety of the soul is not the end of the gospel now, but that believers should be united to Christ the Head in heaven, and to one another on earth by the Holy Spirit. It is of immense practical import whether the evangelist apprehends what is the mind of his Lord in conferring on him the gift of an evangelist; because however earnest and faithful he might be, he cannot do his duty to souls, or please the Lord otherwise. If he in his own heart limits the end and finish of his work to the salvation of the soul, he cannot seek for anything beyond, until the limit in his mind be altered. If the preacher in knowledge and purpose be not beyond remission of sins, there may be converts as there were at Ephesus, where they had not advanced beyond Apollos who had preached to them, “knowing only the baptism of John”. When the Spirit of God blesses the word spoken, the blessing is according as it has been set forth. This is what is called in 1 Corinthians 3 “man’s work”, which may be either wise, foolish, or wicked. The work done is in keeping with the teaching of the servant. Souls may and do receive help or light in other ways from the Lord, but there will always be found a distinct correspondence between the teacher and the taught. Hence the disciples at Ephesus who were converted by Apollos were no farther on than their evangelist when Paul met with them. I adduce this to show that if the groundwork be not laid, if there be dispensational darkness in the evangelist, it must damage and hinder the converts. I am sure that no preacher can lay the foundation of unworldliness, nor can he have it in his own soul, unless he knows that he is united to Christ in glory and that he derives his gift for service from an ascended Lord upon whom he waits, knowing Him where He is, and receiving instructions from Him, according to the nature of the sphere from which He communicates them, and therefore in keeping with His present testimony.
It is impossible to separate from the world unless one knows what it is to be heavenly. Nothing can divert the heart from the earthly side of things but the Spirit of God leading it into association with Christ where He is. It is not to a believers’ meeting that we go to look for it, nor a meeting of any kind however rightly constituted. If the heart has found its true bond to Christ, it will soon find the right meeting or way of meeting. Often the question of hell or heaven is settled for the future, when the question, Is it earth or heaven now? has never been raised; and the real reason, let servants fail to see it as they may, why there are so many advocates for the gospel without the assembly is this, that you can hold on with the world and in an earthly position and pursuits, and still earnestly seek to save souls from hell, which could in no way be done if your aim were to connect them with [p. 5] Christ in heaven, in order that they might be not of the world because He is not of it; and the fact is patent, that the most acceptable evangelists of the day are those who have never broken with the world. No one can truly or consistently maintain the truth of the assembly without in some degree breaking with all earthly things. The very constitution of the assembly requires it. It is heavenly in its hopes, and it is spiritual in its power and support; and it is impossible to be truly and sincerely a member of the body of Christ on earth, and not see that it is only as you are heavenly and spiritual that you are in any measure true to this transcendent calling. This highest order of mutual relations, and this entirely new kind of unity, where each member affects the other, can only be known and understood in the assembly, and as understood, it exacts new and peculiar vital sympathy, in the heart, for Christ’s people on the earth, never known nor ever intended to be intelligible otherwise. I distinctly and sorrowfully insist that the great cause of the weakness in principle, etc. in the young converts of the present day is mainly attributable to the little reference made by the preachers to the Lord where He is, and from whom they have received their gifts; consequently, they go back to the Scriptures previous to the introduction of the assembly for instructions as to their commission, and hence all their work bears the stamp of their ignorance or indifference. Painful language this is, but necessary in such a day as this. May the Lord rouse them to a true sense of what becomes them, and show them that if they are sent by the Head of the assembly, they must distinctly and carefully accomplish the mission of an ascended Christ refused by men.