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AUGUST 1ST, 1912

MY BELOVED BROTHER, — I have read your papers with interest on Matthew 14 - Matthew 16, and “Christ in the Midst”.

I am glad to have seen the latter paper as it gives me opportunity of sending you a few lines on the subject of your last letter to me.

There is much in your paper which I believe to be of great importance and value. Your remarks on the Supper and what it leads to, seem to me to express the truth clearly as to how ^[p. 61] the Lord leads His own into conscious association with Himself where we can be in accord with His praise. And this has to be reached spiritually — reached by following Him in spirit.

Now it seems to me that the assembly in the midst of which He sings praise is viewed in the light of having reached this place of spiritual privilege in virtue of the drawing and leading of which you speak. He sings in the midst of a company in perfect accord with Himself. That this is God’s mind for all His saints is certain, but it is equally certain that but few have reached it in spiritual reality. I am sure that you would labour that this should be wrought in the souls of the saints in divine power and reality, and I believe this to be a necessary condition for the fulfilment of Hebrews 2: 12.

This is why I hesitate about using the terms “abstract”, “general”, and “unconditional” in connection with this Scripture. These terms seem to me to suggest that what is involved in the verse is true of all saints apart from the work of God which alone could make it spiritually good. That it is for them in God’s mind and purpose I rejoice to believe, but there are many, alas! who have never reached it.

To sing praise in the midst of the assembly is a characteristic position and action of Christ, but I do not see that it is necessarily a continuous action. The coming together of saints in assembly is an abiding characteristic of Christianity, but this does not imply that it is continuous at all times.

The assembly gives expression to its existence by coming together, and thus takes form locally in every place where saints call on the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it seems to me that the enjoyment of assembly privilege is connected with this, and would be entered upon in proportion to the spirituality of the saints, and the measure in which the work of God has become effective in them. And I look upon Hebrews 2: 11, 12, as the crown of assembly privilege — the goal which divine love has set before our hearts in all its blessedness and attractiveness to draw us on to its realisation, and to make it an exercise and desire that we may reach it on each occasion when coming together in assembly.

I do not think that the presence of Christ “in the midst of the assembly” can be applied in a general sense as being true of all the saints of God apart from being convened, or apart from that spiritual formation which alone would qualify ^[p. 62] them to be of the assembly viewed in the height of its calling and privilege. The assembly viewed in this light is not only the result of Christ’s death and victory, but it is the product of a mighty and divine spiritual work in the souls of all who compose it. Apart from this effective operation of God it has no real spiritual being ...

I am sure you will understand that I am expressing my thoughts as one desiring to learn on such matters rather than as setting up to teach.

With very much love in the Lord,

Yours affectionately in Him,

August 1st, 1912.

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