OVERSIGHT AND RULE
OVERSIGHT AND RULE
The idea of love in any true sense, implies that there must be care and oversight of the objects of it; and in proportion as there is wisdom and superiority, so must this oversight become a responsibility, while as it is accepted and appreciated, with a sense of duty to obey and observe its injunctions, when the heart is not corrupted and perverse.
Adam in the garden of Eden was peculiarly under this oversight so blessed and good, which he refused and lost, when he in disobedience acted according to his own will; he disregarded the highest counsel, and the rule, which in the greatness of His love and wisdom, God had imposed. This introduced a root of evil which has ever since corrupted the nature of man. But though there be opposition to the oversight and rule, yet the superior in love and wisdom according to his relation to me, and claim upon me, is responsible to exercise both; and there is disobedience and perverseness when there is not subjection to him. Hence it is enjoined in the first commandment with promise, that children should obey their parents. “Honour thy father and thy mother”. The opening and beginning of life here is subjected to [p. 155] oversight and rule where the greatest love, and superior knowledge must naturally exist. A child who would not submit to the oversight and rule of his parents suffered, under law, the punishment of death. There was a perverse heart that would not comprehend its positive duty, and present advantage from God and man.
Thus oversight and rule are the established principles of government, beginning with our earliest life here, and in the nearest relationship, and in figure and measure, it expresses and indicates the oversight and rule, which each one believing in God would enjoy and be blessed by, as he submitted to it.
I need not enter on a history of rule, but it is simply necessary that it should exist; that the one with ability and consideration, should overlook and direct his fellows; and they, as they have sense, should submit to his rule, or suffer for their disobedience.
At first Israel had no king, the fullest oversight and rule were vouchsafed to them from God Himself; but gradually they lapsed into the ways of the nations around them, and they yielded themselves to a king, or rule where there was power but not the oversight, which love dictates and imposes, a separation most fatal in its consequence.
Among men there was no reciprocal responsibility of this kind, before the death of Christ. It was enjoined as we have seen as the great bond of families, and the blessing of children, but from man to man it was not known. Cain readily said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” True the law required that man should love his neighbour as himself, but as it did not confer on him the power to do so, it only exposed his inability to fulfil a fundamental duty; and this was exemplified when both the priest and the levite left the half-dead man to perish (Luke 10). But when the love of God to man appeared, then came the new commandment, “Love one another, as I have loved you”. It is therefore now the responsibility of every individual believer to love his brother as Christ has [p. 156] loved him; because there is through grace given him, the nature of Christ. Thus in the church every one was responsible to wash his brother’s feet. I cannot however discharge my responsibility beyond my ability; but lack of ability never absolves the responsibility. The responsibility is, that each should by divine skill remove from his brother everything that hinders his communion with Christ.
Now as this is common to all, and incumbent on all, it is easy to see that the elder brothers should be the most competent for this great and arduous service. Of course it is not always simply elders in age, though that of itself is necessary; because a bishop or elder was not to be “a novice”, and they were appointed by the Holy Spirit to the office as qualified pre-eminently for fulfilling the duties of oversight and rule. They had the grace for the office before they were appointed. They had some measure of the gift of a pastor, who by gift is a shepherd; that is, grace is given to him by the Lord to feed His sheep, and declare to them His mind suitable to their need. But though thus highly gifted, such an one would not necessarily be an overseer; because with the overseer or elder there was rule with respect to circumstantials, and the conducting of things. There was to be an overlooking of the doctrines taught; and of the manners of the saints in general. Just as the deacons directed their attention to the temporal wants of the saints, so the elders were occupied with the moral condition of the house of God. The apostles Paul and Peter were very express in their injunctions on this subject. The former, writing to Titus, says, “For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou mightest... establish elders in each city”. It was of the last importance that there should be godly oversight and rule. He had written to Timothy, “if any one aspires to exercise oversight, he desires a good work”; that is, the oversight is a good work. And when at Miletus, he would communicate with the church, he does not send for the gifted men, as such; but he sends [p. 157] for the elders. I do not say that they were not gifted, but it is with regard to their local position that he selects them. An elder is local, a pastor is general, belonging to the whole church of God. The apostle’s desire or injunction was that the saints should be subject to this rule and oversight. He says, “And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake”, 1 Thessalonians 5: 12,13. Again, in Hebrews 13: 17, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account”, etc. Again, Peter exhorts the elders to “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof”. (1 Peter 5: 2.) All those passages prove that rule and oversight were inalienable prerogatives of the house of God, where all things should be done decently and in order.
Now those who exercised this rule and oversight were not the gifted men absolutely. A pastor had the spiritual powers of an elder, but he had more, and it was not as a pastor he was enjoined to oversee and rule, but as an elder. Hence when ruin came in (and through mercy the gifts remained, as given by the Head in heaven) and order was succeeded by disorder, the effort in christendom has been to connect the office of overseers or elders with the gift, and when this is done, the clerical element is assumed. When the right to oversee and rule is denied, the radical element is in the ascendant. There is in the latter the desire and purpose to do their own will, and in the former to assert the right to rule, because of being a teacher, and thus natural ambition works in the servant of Christ. These two opposite forces are often found in the same meeting, each trying to correct the other; though the only true way is by owning the responsibility to oversee and rule, in those whom Christ has given grace and qualification for it, and so separating between the office and the gift, that the teacher, unless [p. 158] qualified would not assume the place of an elder, because he was a teacher; and an elder would not assume the place of a teacher, unless he was really gifted to be one.
In a day of ruin like this it is evident that the attempt to appoint elders or overseers, and deacons, in any place assumes that the church is not broken up into sections, and that in making the selection or appointment, one has all those duly qualified before one, ready for the charge. This is not the case; and the work of gathering saints together on the ground of the one body of Christ, must precede any formal ordination of elders and deacons; but though there can be no attempt to ordain them, until the saints are on one common ground, yet it is clear that oversight and rule are fundamental principles; and though the official title cannot be appropriated by any, or conferred by any one to any one; yet there is grace given of God, so that by one or another the work should be done, and as there is true subjection of spirit, there will be an aiding of one another; the elders will be alive to their responsibility and the others ready to bow to everything of God, because expecting it. The right to oversee and rule implies a reciprocity on the part of others, if there be grace to submit to oversight and rule. And practically, where there is most oversight and godly rule, though there be little gift, there is always a happier state in the assembly than where there is much more apparent gift, and little oversight and rule. For when divine love is truly exercised, and duly received, and responded to, there must be the greatest development and manifestation of every christian grace.