SAVED FOR THE CHURCH

SAVED FOR THE CHURCH

I think it is not too much to say that souls are saved here with reference to the church; “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2: 47). They are not only saved for heaven, but are destined for a position on earth for Christ. The weakest member is necessary. I should quote that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places may be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. I can suppose that this theology would be very objectionable to a mere revivalist; ‘Conversion of souls everything, and the church nothing’ is the evil we have especially to contend against in this day. In God’s sovereign grace and wisdom souls are often saved on death beds; but even so, they are of the church now, and nothing else; and if they were continued here they ought to be found acting and living here as of it — members of Christ’s body. I do not believe that an evangelist has done his true work unless he has so presented Christ to a soul, that that soul may in the power of the Spirit through faith know itself as of Christ; and if of Christ it is of His body on earth, though it may not yet have intelligence as to this. Without doubt God ^[p. 16] saves a soul now for the church. If not for the church, for what else?

Is there a separate or distinct class of converted ones now irrespective of the church? Nothing of the sort. Every one converted now is in God’s mind a member of the body of Christ, and the true evangelist will see to it that he is “planted”, and in the building.

Paul says, I planted — Apollos watered. It is, I think, one of the most trying anomalies of the present day that many souls are known to be converted who are never heard of again, and though they are netted, and surely preserved by God in His unfailing mercy, yet they are not known here as belonging to Christ; and they have not here either a “father” or a “nurse”, see 1 Thessalonians 2. The duty of the evangelist is to hand the stone into the hands of the pastor, as a hodsman would pass on a stone to a mason.

There is no evangelist among the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, because it is the body which is there presented, but when the Head is before us the evangelist is one of the gifts for the perfecting of the saints (Ephesians 4: 11, 12).

The path is narrow, but daily I am more satisfied and assured that if we would know the presence and mind of our absent Lord we must be on the martyr line. The evangelical line may lead to this; the ‘no system’ line may lead to it, but it is not it!