THE SIN OF CHRISTENDOM
THE SIN OF CHRISTENDOM
The great and peculiar distinction between the church and every preceding dispensation is the gift of the Holy Spirit. True, redemption was not accomplished in any preceding dispensation, but then it was assured in hope through the Spirit to the heart of each believer; while in this period, consequent on the exaltation of the Saviour, after having in His cross brought out full reconciliation, the Holy Spirit was sent down to earth. Every believer is now entitled to enter into full reconciliation with God, all of the old man having been judicially dealt with in the cross and God having been glorified on the earth. Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and “having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which ye behold and hear”, Acts 2: 33.
The first thing to be insisted on in this day is the simple undeniable fact that the Holy Spirit, a divine Person, has come down to earth to make it His sphere of action, and that consequently an entirely new order of things is established here. The Holy Spirit was always the acting One; He garnished the heavens, and was [p. 282] always the One to inspire or perform any divine act; but He has come down from heaven to abide here. It cannot be gainsaid, if we accept the plainest statements in Scripture, that the Holy Spirit has come down here, consequent on the exaltation of Christ, and that He has remained down here all these years, and that He is now in the same power, and with the same intention, as when He first came. It is momentous on the face of it to the natural mind - nay, more, it is astounding and impossible; but still it is as distinctly declared, if not more so, than any other truth in the Scriptures.
In order to understand this great gift, the first thing is to accept simply in faith what the word of God says, and then to see what His work is here, and then to note how it has been overlooked by the church for ages, and finally to seek guidance as to how we may clear ourselves of all and every part of the leaven which has so corrupted christendom.
If we believe Scripture at all, we must see that the Holy Spirit was promised to replace our blessed Lord on earth. “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you”, John 16: 7. “Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him”, John 14: 17. The Son was visible here, revealed in flesh, but the Holy Spirit who should come here in His place would not be visible. Faith alone, through divine light in the soul, could recognise or be aware of the presence of the great invisible Stranger. Distinctly and unquestionably, then, He was to come, and two distinct services would be fulfilled by Him. One is described in John 14: 26. The Father would send Him, in Christ’s name, to teach me. “He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you”. The other, in John 15: 26, is to testify of Christ. “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me”. Two [p. 283] great duties, as I might say, were assigned to Him, one referring to the individual, the other to the testimony.
Now in Acts 2 we read of the manner of His coming, which is very significant as marking these two lines. “And there came suddenly a sound out of heaven as of a violent impetuous blowing, and filled all the house where they were sitting... And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”. We must note that He filled all the house first, and then sat on each of them (verse 3). Two distinct acts. The first was never discontinued, because it relates to the testimony; the second has not been enjoyed, because there was no faith to receive Him. “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” Galatians 3: 2. Now mark how His personal presence for testimony is spoken of as an incontrovertible fact. When Ananias lies, Peter says, “Why has Satan filled thy heart that thou shouldest lie to the Holy Spirit?” Acts 5: 3. He speaks of Him as a Person present amongst them. Doubtless Ananias, tainted already with the sin of christendom, did not perceive nor acknowledge His presence, but he was to bow before His power. Again, in chapter 13: 2, we read that the Holy Spirit said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them”. The Holy Spirit is acting there as a Person belonging to the company. Again, in verse 4 we read, “... having been sent forth by the Holy Spirit”. If it be alleged that we have no instances like these in the church now, nor are they known of in church history, I reply that it is now in confusion, but that when the Holy Spirit first came down, He was regarded as a Person to direct and order the servants of God, and in all church matters. This is more striking and conclusive in chapter 15: 28. “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden” etc. Here the inspired writer speaks of Him as in partnership and co-operation with the assembly, as we should speak of the Queen and the Parliament.
[p. 284] Now on the other hand it was the natural thing for every believer to receive the Holy Spirit. When He first came down, it is added to His filling all the house that “there appeared to them parted tongues, as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them”, Acts 2: 3. And the effect on them in the eyes of others is described: “They are full of new wine”. As Peter says to the men of Israel, “be baptised, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”, Acts 2: 38. This shows that the gift of the Holy Spirit was to follow on the knowledge of the remission of sins, the natural and simple sequence. Again, in choosing deacons in Acts 6, the qualification required was men full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom. A man was not fit for any office, even to distribute money, unless he were full of the Holy Spirit. And it is remarkable that when Peter was speaking to the house of Cornelius, as soon as he reached the word sins, the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard the word; and of the gentiles he adds, “who have received the Holy Spirit as we also did”, Acts 10: 47.
Again in Acts 19: 2 we find that the apostle puts to the disciples at Ephesus the plain and pertinent question, “Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye had believed?” These passages must establish beyond any question that the Holy Spirit was regarded in these two functions here - one, in testimony for Christ absent; the other, as the Comforter and portion of the believer on earth.
Now the sin of christendom was in separating from this blessed and marvellous standing, as it is said in Jude 19, “These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit”. This fatal separation from the control and action of the Holy Spirit has produced all the corruptions in christendom. The manner and form of the truths propounded might be retained, as it is said, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”, 2 Timothy 3: 5. If there had been no retention of the form, it would at once be seen [p. 285] that they were not on christian ground at all; but the more the right thing is imitated without the reality to maintain it, the more it is invalidated, because it is an empty and shadowy assumption. Where the Holy Spirit was not believed in and insisted on as here to govern and comfort the church, then false spirits entered the field to counteract Him. They had no success so long as the flesh was refused a place; but as soon as the sensuous element was allowed a voice, then the true ground was separated from, and the seducing spirits led the mass of the professing people into a spurious sanctity; otherwise the real character of the opposition would have at once been discovered. Can anyone estimate the damage and loss the church as a whole suffered when they ignored the presence of the Holy Spirit here on the earth in both His functions, and set up a man who openly and unblushingly called himself the Vicar of Christ? The unheard minority, to their credit, refused the usurper, but alas, they were so leavened with this sensual element that they have never, as a body, recovered and returned to the only Vicar of Christ on earth - the Holy Spirit. One wonders that every believer who has been awakened to the great loss the church has sustained, and the great dishonour done to the Lord on earth, is not stirred to the heart, and in the fire and power of the Holy Spirit, does not renounce and refuse every shred of the sensual element which was the bait or decoy to the grievous sin of casting a slight on the Holy Spirit; a stigma, alas! from which none of us can ever be free while sojourning here, any more than Israel, in the best hours of its best remnant, could free itself of the blot on the nation, because they had disbelieved about the sabbatical year.
The reviving of truth, however ample, is not security against this desperate and most degrading leaven. Nothing can ever preserve from it even the most advanced and best educated in divine truth, but constant and undying horror of the sensational in religion in any and every form. The more the true form is learned, the [p. 286] more we must guard against this insidious foe; because the way he works is to deceive by the adopting and adhering to all the forms that the truth enjoins, and then, under this cover, surreptitiously to introduce the natural element in any way - no matter how, so that it be admitted - and then the province and function of the Holy Spirit is encroached on and hindered. Someone said that ‘such an one has adopted the true thing in the flesh‘ . Surely nothing could be more delusive and dangerous, because the unwary or unspiritual see everything done after the proper form; and thus they are entrapped into an order of things that denies the power of God, while, like an artificial rose, assuming to the ignorant and general eye to be a real one.
The great thing to be dreaded and shunned in the present day, by everyone in any degree awakened to the enormity of christendom’s sin, is appealing to the senses. It is not morally wrong, and it is at the same time the best vein in humanity, so that there must be great and decided power in the Spirit of God to keep clear of it. If it were either morally reprehensible or intellectually degrading, there would be no difficulty in condemning and deprecating it; but when it is the best side of man, there is no escaping from it but by the repudiation of man in toto, and this is what the Spirit of God always insists on. Go into the company gathered in the most correct order, and clearly intelligent as to the true mode of meeting, and you will find that the one who addresses the feelings, and seeks to act on the senses, either by hymns, prayer, or speaking, is not the spiritual one, and the effect of his action is to lower the tone of the meeting, though as far as zeal went he was seeking to raise it. The thing to be inculcated is the holy and continued dread of anything sensual; to have such a respect for the Holy Spirit, and deference to His action, that one is ever afraid lest anything so easy and ready naturally should be admitted to quench Him. I do not venture to say that one is not in the Spirit when speaking in a very loud [p. 287] voice, or shedding tears; but this I do say, seeing the stigma under which we labour congregationally, that there should be the utmost care and watchfulness lest we lapse in any measure into that line of things which has exposed us to so much reproach and loss. I think the respectable member of a family under public reprobation for intemperance would in every way avoid any action which would subject him to the imputation of it, where another would pass without notice. If this is so among men, and for purely natural things, how much more when I am under the reproach, and once involved, too, in this unaccountable blindness and ignorance of the presence of the Holy Spirit, the most incomparable gift of Christ to His people on earth I do say, and earnestly press, that there should be a shrinking from the very air or tinge of the sensual. But if in word and manner every believer avoids the sensual, and seeks to be led by the Spirit of God, how much more, accordingly, will he avoid any other means than the Holy Spirit for the work of Christ! The action of the truly humble and faithful in this day is described in the words, “Ye, beloved,... praying in the Holy Spirit..”., Jude 20.
This is to be our characteristic. If I am sensible of the dishonour in which I am implicated through the sin of christendom, I shrink from arrogating to myself any place of superiority, simply because I have emerged from gross and culpable darkness through the mercy of God. The sense of the great stigma resting on the church keeps me retiring and unassuming, though in every way seeking to undo the mischief which has been perpetrated, and, like the mouse, nibbling the knots of the net which still ensnares my fellow-christians on the earth. I believe any conspicuous announcement or publication of our work, or anything which tends to bring us before the public eye, is unbecoming. We must remember we are still in christendom, still within the ruins of the temple of God, desecrated by a total disregard and obdurate dullness, even in the real, to recognise [p. 288] that the transcendent glory of the house is still dwelling in it. Surely in a family of ten children, afflicted with the monomania of not believing in the existence of their father and mother, though residing among them, would it be decorous or lovely of two of them, once equally afflicted, and who had only just recovered their senses, to be perpetually posting large handbills and notices on the doors of the apartments of the other eight, announcing that they will preach or deliver lectures on the way or mode by which they were restored to their senses? Surely the parents would not support such a course in their too-ardent sons, and would prefer that they should adopt gentler and less conspicuous means under the circumstances. How much more seemly and lovely were they - in company with their parents, still unknown and lost to those insensible of their loss - suppliantly and carefully seeking to awaken them to the wondrous intelligence they had to impart! And so now, I am assured, there would be more success, and surely more comeliness, if the mode indicated in the words I have quoted were more heeded and observed. “Praying in the Holy Spirit” at once sets forth my true place of assuming nothing, bearing the sense of our humiliation, but though accepting the lowly place, yet confiding in God, and able to partake of and enjoy the present support and guidance of the Holy Spirit, once so grievously overlooked and unrecognised.
Oh may the faithful in this day be stirred up to hate even the garment spotted by the flesh, and with repentance for the church’s failure and dullness, to make common cause, and uphold the great and amazing grace of the presence of the Holy Spirit on earth. Amen.