JUNE 21ST, 1941

JUNE 21ST, 1941

BELOVED BROTHER, — The question you raise as to speaking of the assembly of God in a place where no saints come together as in the light of the truth is of interest and importance. I am free to submit my thoughts as to this to your judgment.

All saints indwelt by the Spirit are of the assembly — of the ^[p. 296] house, the temple, the body — and none of them can evade the responsibility which attaches to them as called of God to such a holy privilege. But if, in a certain place, the saints are all found in the national system, or in sectarian bodies, I cannot see how they can be spoken of as the assembly of God in that place. For the assembly of God, as addressed at Corinth, is not an abstract idea, or an invisible body, but a concrete company of persons, acknowledging the Lord’s authority, accepting responsibility to maintain what is due to His Name, and enjoying together Christian fellowship and collective privileges. What J.N.D. felt in 1828 was that “the true church of God has no avowed communion at all”. But if, through infinite mercy, a few saints are found walking together in the truth, something of assembly character can be recognised, and accredited to the locality where they are.

Not that such would publicly or formally claim to be the assembly of God, but they walk together as in the light and faith of the assembly position, and they are, I think we may say, the assembly of God representatively. There is something under the eye of God, and known to faith, which has the true character of the assembly of God in contrast to the many religious bodies which have not that character at all. There may be many believers in a place, but if they are all found on sectarian or independent ground how can we rightly speak of the assembly of God in that place? Through the enemy’s work, and man’s unfaithfulness or infirmity, the assembly of God is not there in any concrete expression. There may be material for the house there, and perhaps we may do something to get it built together, but, so far as I can see, nothing has taken assembly form as yet.

I know that it has often been said that all the believers in a place make up the assembly of God in that place. But this is looking at the matter very abstractly, and it does not carry us beyond what any pious person in the sects would say, and the practical result of holding this idea is that exercise is set aside, and believers made content to remain where they are. I do not see that Scripture contemplates the local assemblies of God in any such a vague and intangible way. They are always, I believe, definite companies of persons who have certain customs, and who can depute messengers to carry their practical love to saints in other localities, and who can receive letters of commendation. It seems to me that if we apply the term, “the assembly of God” to saints who are scattered and divided in the systems of men we are in danger of losing a sense of what is in the mind of the Spirit in using the term. It is to put an abstract idea in the place of a concrete company of persons. I cannot think that this is the mind of God....

With love in the Lord,

Yours affectionately in Him,

June 21st, 1941.