My Dear Brother,
1894 57 I have been observing of late several distinct marks of the assembly of God, as given (sometimes in an indirect way) by the apostle in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, and have thought they may be of interest to your readers, especially in a day of difficulty and confusion such as the present.
There are two epistles which have for their theme the church of God viz., Ephesians and 1 Corinthians; but each views the church from a totally different standpoint. Ephesians is a rich exposition of the counsels of divine grace (there I find the marvellous expression, "the exceeding riches of His grace") concerning Christ and the church. Christ is shown as the One Whom God has raised again from among the dead, and set at His own right hand in the heavenly places, etc. — given by Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. Here we get the church's wondrous place spoken of according to the counsels of God, formed before the foundation of the world: it is Christ's body, and blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Him. This is altogether God's planning and working; man has no place here, save — as believing in, and associated with, Christ — being the recipient of all. 1 Corinthians, on the other hand, presents the church in its practical walk here below, giving the mind of God upon all matters collective, while exposing, alas! a terrible amount of human failure of every sort. Ephesians directs our eyes to the heaven, and we are shown our wondrous place before God, even the Father, in Christ; while Corinthians directs our eyes downwards, and we get human doings and, too often, sin. The latter epistle opens in an unusual way; it is not addressed "to the saints and to the faithful," as in Ephesians, nor to those "beloved of God, saints by calling," as in Romans; but "to the church of God which is at Corinth … with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." And the opening words are important as indicating the contents of the inspired note.
To proceed to the marks mentioned, the first is given (in an indirect way) in chap. 1, the name of Christ, the assembly's true gathering point. The Spirit has grave fault to find on this score; for schools were rapidly forming, party-names were being adopted, and saints were no longer knit together in love, all speaking the same thing, perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Schism was already at work, and sects or heresies would follow, if not checked by the energy of the Holy Ghost through the apostle, as the natural result.* Do we wonder at Paul's indignation? "Is Christ divided?" he asked; "was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptised in the name of Paul?" He loved the Head, and he loved His body, the church, far too well to accept quietly such dishonour. Nor did it affect the question, that his own name was one of those used: "who then is Paul, and who is Apollos?" Who? indeed, when Christ was in question! The Spirit was in the apostle to glorify Christ, and the devoted servant would knock down all at one blow, that Christ alone might be exalted among His saints.
{*It is important to see the difference between schism and heresy. The first is alienation of heart; the second party-making (not necessarily bad doctrine, according to the modern narrow use of the word), and so an open rupture. See 1 Cor. 11}
What deep failure for the Corinthians? They were "enriched by Him in all utterance, and in all knowledge," and came behind in no gift; yet were they carnal, and walked as men. But the truth that Christ is the alone centre of His saints, both here and in glory, abides in spite of all human failure and sin. In Rev. 5 He is shown as the Lamb in the midst of the throne, the elders, representing the glorified saints, being seated around Himself. What a scene for the heart! How the thought of it causes the spirit to yearn for the day when all, through grace, shall be verified in all the saints! But the same Christ is the gathering point today ere the glory; and His precious promise in Matt. 18:20 ever holds good, "Where two or three are gathered together in (unto) My name, there am I in the midst of them." Happy for the church had she never departed from it; but alas, alas, how deep and widespread the failure and departure! Everywhere names gloried in and adopted, and party-making rampant, not the least painfully among many who declare sect-making to be of the foe, rather than of God. Surely the Lord had His eye on evil days when he spoke of "two or three." I do not find twos and threes in the Acts of the Apostles, but rather thousands here, and hundreds there; but where is this seen today?
While not trying to be pessimistic, one is somewhat suspicious today as to the hundreds, where found gathered together — professedly in Christ's name. To be gathered to His name means more than is sometimes thought. His name Jehovah expresses what He is; and this principle runs throughout scripture. When God revealed His name "El-Shaddai" to Abraham, it was a revelation of what He was (and of course is), the All-sufficient and All-powerful One. Again, His name Jehovah expresses His eternal unchangeableness. But, sweeter still, the name of Father, revealed by and in the Son, expresses for us a wonderful relationship, and an intimate heart of love. Thus the gathered saints may count on Christ according to all that He is; and is He not enough? His fulness is for faith to draw upon, be the day ever so evil and dark.
Thus the first mark of the assembly, which I have seen in 1 Corinthians, is its gathering to Christ's name; the second is found in 1 Cor. 5, a holy maintenance of discipline according to God. When this is despised, and the holiness that becomes God's house ignored, how can we recognise the company as God's assembly? Grave moral evil had appeared among the saints at Corinth — evil graver than was common among the dissolute Gentiles around them. How low may not even the saints sink, when the heart departs from the Lord! Flesh in the Christian is the same as flesh in the unbeliever; only there is light, which makes its outbreaks the more dreadful. Solemn indeed was the general condition of the Corinthian assembly. They had evidently been puffed up before the evil appeared, and even so glaring a blot had not humbled them. One would have thought that such a dishonour would have dispelled the boasting and brought them to their faces; but what is man? The apostle wrote and wrote vigorously by the Spirit, "What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in spirit of meekness?" He then proceeded to declare the mind of the Lord concerning the evil in question. "For I verily as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together and my spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 5:3-5).
The assembly, not merely official individuals (of whom, I may say, we have no trace at Corinth, as it was not long that the saints had been called), was to act, and clear the Lord's name. Of old Jehovah had said, "Israel hath sinned," and all Israel stoned the offender with stones that he died (Joshua 7). So here; the assembly, with Paul present in spirit, was to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh.* Did they not know that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Were they not familiar with the former oracles of God, where instructions are constantly given to expel all leaven? Did they not know that the assembly in God's sight is an unleavened lump? How inconsistent, nay, how dishonouring to Him Who is Holy and True, to allow the unclean leaven to remain unjudged! They were to judge those "within" (leaving those "without" to God), and were therefore to put away from among themselves that wicked person. And this is ever incumbent on the gathered saints. The assembly, according to God's thought, is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15); and its character is quite belied, when it becomes indifferent to holiness. But in the absence of apostolic power, the "two or three" cannot go beyond the putting away in ver. 13, the handing over to Satan calling for authority which we have not, in the present broken and ruined condition of things (compare 1 Tim. 1:20). Assumption is out of place, and an offence to God; it is ours to walk with lowliness before Him, and use what we have for His glory.
{*Discipline, according to scripture, is always exercised with a view to ultimate blessing thus we read here, "that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." The same principle is found in 1 Cor. 11:32. So gracious is our God!}
I refrain at this point, from speaking of the assembly's attitude towards false doctrine: it is a matter for discipline most assuredly, where Christ has His true place; it will, however, come before us later. A due maintenance of discipline is therefore an undoubted mark of God's assembly.
I now proceed to the subject of ministry as dealt with by the apostle, chiefly in 1 Cor. 9, and somewhat in chap. 4. Some were evidently venturing to put the apostle on his trial as to his service, pronouncing as to the genuineness of his call to the office, judging his motives, and making various insinuations concerning him. The blessed man of God, established in God's thoughts, knew well how to deal with all such assumption and folly. He stood on his own direct responsibility to the Lord, and wishes them to know it: "let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). He was in no wise their servant (save in a sense for Jesus' sake, 2 Cor. 4:5), and he repudiated their right to enquire into, or criticise him in, his path of service for Christ. Ministry is in Christ's hands; not in any sense in the hands of official men, or of the church. The source of all ministry is given in Eph. 4 — the ascended Christ. He has given gifts; apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers; the church has no place, save as receiving what He gives according to the grace of His heart, and the fulness that resides in Him for all its needs. How lamentably has this been lost sight of in Christendom! to the church's serious hurt, and graver still, to the Lord's dishonour. Officialism is to be observed on the one hand, men assuming to be successors of the apostles with power to ordain; religious republicanism on the other, the church claiming the right to control itself, and to control ministry. Which is the farthest from the divine pattern? Surely in both systems the true idea is entirely lost. The truth is, that the ascended Head gives and fits, while the assembly is but the receiver of all.
The apostle asserts his right to support from the saints (not from the Gentiles, 3 John 7) — though not a salary — and draws analogies from vineyard, flock, oxen and temple; yet glories in the fact that he had not used this right, nor had he written such things that it should be so done unto him: for it were better for him to die, than that any man should make his glorying void (1 Cor. 9:12, 15).
Noble and self-sacrificing servant! He had drunk deeply into his Master's spirit, and felt it to be far "more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20). What have his professed successors to say to this?
{Refer to W W Fereday "On Ministry" 1894 p.63.}
Letter on the Assembly.
1894 I will now turn to another and important mark of God's assembly given in 1 Cor. 10 and 1 Cor. 11 viz.: — a due regard for the Lord's table and supper. Upon these points the Corinthians had doubtless been fully instructed by the apostle, during the year and six months of his ministry among them (Acts 18:11); nor does he bring them forward as new, but says he had received of the Lord that which also he delivered (past tense) unto them. Yet how little did they know the power of the truth, and how feeble, nay, how stagnant, their jealousy for the honour of Christ! A mere knowledge of the letter of the truth will not at all suffice to preserve the soul; the truth must be held in communion with God in the power of the Holy Ghost, or the soul is but little profited, and the Lord but little glorified in His saints.
It will be observed that the apostle presents two different ideas in the two chapters referred to; first, the Lord's table, and afterwards, the Lord's supper, — various aspects of the same thing, I know, but the distinction should be kept clearly before our minds. In chap. 10 the great thought before the mind of the Spirit is fellowship, which will explain the fact of the cup being placed before the loaf; for apart from the precious blood of Christ (of which the cup so expressively speaks), how could there be any fellowship of saints? And further, the apostle adds a truth concerning the loaf which is not found in chap. 11, viz., that it sets forth the "one body," of which all the saints on earth form a part, and of which Christ in glory is the Head. In chap. 11 the great point is the remembrance of Christ: in chap. 10 rather, as I have said, the fellowship of saints, and therefore the added truth. It is important to see that eating and drinking is, according to this scripture, an expression of fellowship, which the Corinthians had apparently entirely lost sight of. Else how dare they enter the temple of an idol, and eat things offered there in sacrifice? especially as idol-worship is in reality the worship of demons.* In doing so they were provoking the Lord to jealousy — a serious consideration at all times for the saints; as the apostle solemnly asks, "Are we stronger than He"? A right understanding of the truth conveyed in chap 10 will deliver the Christian from independency and unholiness, two serious evils which, without doubt, go hand in hand. If we really believe that all the saints on earth form one body — Christ's body, how can we harbour the thought in our hearts of independency? and if we really understand that eating and drinking means fellowship, how can we be indifferent as to the persons with whom we sit down? The truth, evenly held in the power of the Spirit, and bowed to in all its parts, will preserve the soul from these and the many other snares laid by the ever watchful foe for our feet.
{* It may be well here to observe that the apostle uses the expressions "table" and "cup" of demons in 1 Cor. 10:21, in connection with idol worship, and, to be scriptural, we must confine the expressions thus. Bigoted and small minds are apt to apply such words falsely, but is it not going beyond what is written?}
Passing to chap. 11, the apostle says, "I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you." Paul was not one of the privileged few who sat with the Lord in the upper chamber on that memorable night; but the Head of the church had not left him to glean the particulars of the precious feast from the twelve, but chose, in divine wisdom, to make it a subject of special revelation to him. Not so did the Lord act with regard to that other christian institution, baptism; we have no record of any special revelation concerning that to Paul, though he was himself baptised, and practised baptism as a servant of Christ. Why the difference? Surely because the supper is the great standing expression of the church's unity (and was not Paul the apostle of the church?), whilst baptism is an individual thing, expressive of the believer's identification with Christ in His death, but in no way connected with the assembly. The Lord's supper is a memorial feast; it brings before our hearts not merely the Lord's work, important though it is, but the Lord Himself in His sufferings and death. While breaking bread thus, we are gathered to a living Christ, Who is ever in the midst where the two or three are gathered to His name; but we remember a dead Christ. How loudly does the loaf speak of His holy body prepared for Him by divine power (Ps. xl), formed without a taint of sin, and offered up once for all! (Heb. 10) And how powerfully does the cup speak of that precious blood, which alone makes atonement for the soul, shed forth at the altar — the cross of Calvary! Well does the Spirit say, "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." What shall we say of the pseudo-spirituality which regards the precious memorial as a carnal ordinance, with the Spirit's own plain words before us, "till He come"? Not till that day are those who love His name, and who would do His will, free from the responsibility and privilege of breaking bread in remembrance of Himself. The words 'as often' raise an important question, which the scriptures answer plainly to a simple mind. Acts 20:7, shows the custom of saints in Paul's day: "Upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread," etc., and the words are even a little stronger than they appear, for the best authorities read, "when we came together." What can the simple mind, desirous of doing the Lord's will, want more? Such words are a plain intimation that saints in the church's early days, met on "the first day of the week" to remember their Lord in His appointed way. And surely this is not too often where the heart's affections are towards Christ? where is the love of the one who finds it irksome to show the Lord's death so frequently? and what day more suitable than that which bears witness to His resurrection — the Victorious One, alive for evermore?
There is urgent need for care in handling such precious memorials, as the apostle shows in 1 Cor. 11:27-29. The Corinthians had not so far departed from the truth as to welcome unworthy persons (that was reserved for the christendom of a later day); but there was a danger of themselves eating in a very unworthy way, and this the apostle solemnly points out: "Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." The saints to whom these words were written were eating and drinking with unexercised hearts, in I utter forgetfulness of what they were doing. It is for saints to examine themselves in the light of the Lord's presence, before going up to His table to remember Him in the breaking of bread. Not that unworthy eating on the part of saints involves "damnation," as the Authorised Version of ver. 29 wrongly states; but such indifference to the Lord's honour brings down the hand of the Lord in judgment. If we are forgetful of what is due to Him, He never can be, and will vindicate Himself and clear His name. To be near to God is very blessed, but also very solemn, for judgment must begin at the house of God (1 Peter 4), the world's judgment being still delayed in the long-suffering grace of God. The truth of this was experienced by the lax Corinthian saints, for many among them were weak and sickly, and many slept. Had they judged themselves, they would not have been judged, for it gives the heart of the Lord no pleasure to deal thus with His own; but holiness must be maintained. Yet even here grace is seen, for "when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." When the world is dealt with for its iniquity and rejection of Christ, the believer is, through grace, exempt, his judgment having been borne once for all by the Blessed One; but he is chastened now by a holy yet loving hand, if he walks not fruitfully to the glory of Christ.
May the Lord help us to value our privileges, and give to us an ever-deepening sense of what is due to Him, in a cold and indifferent day!
Letter on the Assembly and Ministry.
1894 95 The next mark of God's assembly, observable in the first epistle to the Corinthians, is the presence and sovereign action of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12, 1 Cor. 14). It is important to see that the Spirit of God dwells in the saints individually, and among the saints collectively. Without going outside the present epistle, the first truth is expressed in 1 Cor. 6:19, and the second in 1 Cor. 3:16-17. To the saints individually the apostle could say, "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?" and to the saints in their collective character, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" This is an immense truth, too often overlooked in Christendom, to the damage of souls, and, above all, to the Lord's dishonour.
Let us consider briefly 1 Cor. 12:4., etc. The apostle tells us "there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." Here we find one Spirit operating, not exclusively through one vessel, but through many; for the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. Of what value are the various gifts, if there be not liberty, when the saints are gathered, for their exercise? That such liberty obtained in the Corinthian assembly is clear from the perusal of 1 Cor. 14, which chapter gives us the practical working out of the truth expressed in chap. 12. The apostle asks in ver. 23, "If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?" How could such questions or exhortations be addressed in many companies in Christendom today? If all were wrong in speaking, whether with tongues or otherwise, why did not the apostle embrace the opportunity of saying so? Yet he does not, but he rather lays down a golden rule for all utterances in the assembly, "Let all things be done unto edifying."
Nor is the epistle to the Corinthians alone with regard to this truth, for similar teaching is found in 1 Thess. 5:19, 22. The assembly is there urged not to quench the Spirit, but to allow Him His due place among the saints; prophesyings were not to be despised, but all was to be tested; the good only to be held fast, and every form of evil abstained from. To pass thence to the apostle of the circumcision, we find that each is to minister according to the measure of gift received, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God, all who speak being charged to speak as the oracles of God," that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 4:10-11). And the writer to the twelve tribes expresses no other principle when he says, "My brethren, become not many teachers, knowing that we shall receive greater judgment" (James 3:1).
Clearly then liberty obtained in the assemblies of God in apostolic days, for the Spirit of God to lead whomsoever He would. These gifts of the Spirit are also "administrations" (1 Cor. 12:4), and those who have them are responsible to the Lord in the exercise of them; and it is God Who operates — "it is the same God which worketh in all." Again this diversity of gifts is in connection with the truth of the one body. By one Spirit are all the saints baptised into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free; and are all therefore members of Christ, and members one of another, mutually dependent. As in the human body every member should be in healthy exercise, and none kept in a state of disuse; so in the body of Christ there is that which every joint supplies, and what the Spirit has given to each is needed for the blessing and edification of the whole. How seriously are saints the losers ho ignore all this, and who look to a humanly-appointed vessel for all their nourishment and edification! The Spirit of God will not be thus restricted. Though He is very compassionate over the saints, He is sovereign, and divides to each severally as He will.
But such a truth must be held in power, or all is vain. Wholesome and humbling is it for us to remember not only that is the Divine Spirit present when saints are gathered together, but that the flesh is present also, ever ready and ever corrupt. How it becomes us to be found in the presence of our God with examined and judged hearts, having no confidence in the flesh, but patiently waiting upon the ever-present Guide, Who will never fail or disappoint us! Whenever flesh does manifest itself, either in haste or worse, it is not because of "a rotten system," as an unfriendly critic once said, but because of the unfaithfulness of man as a steward of the precious things of God. And the remedy is not the suppression of liberty, and the appointment of a human leader, which is the carnal way of disposing of difficulty and trial; but humiliation before God that the truth, so well known in the letter, should be so little known in power. And where God's order is systematically set aside and God's Spirit displaced by unbelief in its many forms, how can we discern God's assembly? Failure and weakness we are bound to bear with and seek to correct, as the apostles ever did; but from false principles we must resolutely turn away. Bad practice is one thing; bad principles are quite another.
There remains another mark of God's assembly in the first epistle to the Corinthians, viz., purity of doctrine. Alas, for man! Not only had corrupt morals crept into the assembly of saints of which we have been speaking, but bad doctrine had appeared also; for there were some who denied the resurrection of the dead, This the apostle speedily dealt with (1 Cor. 15), and showed that if there be no resurrection of dead men, then Christ had not been raised; and if Christ had not been raised, all the preaching was vain, all who had received the testimony were not pardoned and justified but were yet in their sins, and all who had fallen asleep in Christ had perished. Those who taught this fundamental delusion probably saw not the tendency of it, until pointed out by the apostle. Had the assembly formally adopted the error, the apostle would have written in a different strain; but under the circumstances he seeks their restoration to the path of truth and simplicity.
Alas for a company of saints who wilfully tolerate and are passive towards evil of a doctrinal character! Where is fidelity to Christ? where zeal for the honour of Him Who bought us with His blood? Foul doctrine is more subtle in its working than ungodly practice; the latter is obvious and readily discerned, but the heart and ear of saints need to be quick of apprehension when the former is in question. We are told by some that scripture is silent as to how to deal with false doctrine. To what effect then is Rev. 2:14-15, 20, to say nothing of 2 John? Why should the Lord so solemnly rebuke the assemblies of Pergamos and Thyatira for allowing persons to remain among them holding and teaching false doctrine, if such is not the assembly's concern? And why should Paul deliver unto Satan Hymenaeus and Alexander (1 Tim. 1:20)? Granted this is a case of apostolic action, and not of assembly discipline; but why done at all, if false teachers should be allowed to remain among the saints? Not a word in scripture is written in vain; every word commands our attention: when will saints see this? Holiness becomes the dwelling-place of God both in doctrine and morals; or its character is lost, and its testimony is gone.
Will any say it is difficult to carry out today such principles as these we have been considering? It is difficult, yet not impossible, and the highest favours are promised to the loyal and true, if but "two or three." Humility of mind, brokenness of spirit, and true dependence draw forth all grace and blessing from the ever-faithful unchanging Lord upon the throne. We may fail deeply, but He abides the same until the end.
(Is the writer J. N. Darby?)