It is difficult to conceive of anything more important today, on the negative side, than the thorough acceptance of the fact of the ruin of the Assembly in its responsible course here. One says "Thorough acceptance" though assured of the necessity for divinely given intuition in the matter. The ruin is complete. If it is thought otherwise, it is because the eye has before it something less than the Assembly of God. Such a conception is sectarian and self-condemned, twice ruined in obduracy of heart.
In Jeremiah's day, he alone in Jerusalem proclaimed the ruin, weeping, as he did so: complaining at his persecution, not inconsistently with the dispensation of earthly administration in which he did so. A sighing Baruch, or an Ethiopian Ebed-melech may accompany him in his sorrow and affliction, that was all: witnesses indeed to the faithfulness of God in their tears. It is to him, Jeremiah, that "hidden" or "unattainable" things were revealed (Jer. 33). But so far did the truth of the ruin penetrate at long-last even the unrenewed mind, that such say: "The two families that Jehovah had chosen, He hath even cast them off" (Jer. 33:24). And there is a similarity between Jeremiah's and Paul's commissions in the radical character of their ministries and reference to the nations; and while Paul's ministry included, exclusively to himself, the "ministry of the Assembly," he has himself to speak of its ruin: "All seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 2:21). Eternal purpose alone meets his heart where the ruin is thoroughly under his eye with his beloved child Timotheus (2 Tim. 1:9). John has his back towards the Assembly, and turns to view it in a new way in its responsibility, only to find it as having left its "first love" and "fallen" (Rev. 1 and 2). And if he would see the heavenly city descending out of heaven from God having the glory of God, it is "one of the seven angels which had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues" which spoke to him saying "Come here, I will show thee the bride the Lamb's wife;" a fact full of moral instruction to our hearts.
The various revivals which have taken place down through the centuries, and the good that the all-seeing eye of Him like the Son of man (Rev. 1) sees, altered nothing of the fact that the Assembly was ruined, fallen and falling still; until the "lukewarm" state in Laodicea crowns the loss of first love in Ephesus and is about to be "spued" out of His mouth. Thenceforth the Assembly is only seen in heaven (Rev. 4 et seq.).
It is the in-wrought sense of these things which is needed by all our poor hearts. Revival, especially such as a hundred or so years ago, awakened evanescent hopes but to be necessarily disappointed: and so it must prove concerning any refreshings which, in the faithfulness of God are vouchsafed. Such were never intended for one moment to remove from the soul the ruin in which the tiny refreshment — taking in in its scope and thought, the whole Assembly of God — was given. Present blessing must never betray us from soberness of mind and watchfulness against Satan in this respect. And this sober judgment in the state it must produce, will lead to the very place of blessing before our good and gracious God.
And let it not be forgotten that while Israel, renewed in heart, nationally resurrected, re-united, will be restored under an everlasting covenant in the land, and Jehovah's tabernacle with them and He Himself there — Jehovah-shammah; the professing Assembly will not be so restored. While the nations of the world, purged by the judgments of God, also individually renewed in heart, will become, or come in under "The kingdom of the world of our Lord and of His Christ," no such regeneration will place the christian Assembly again in the scene of its failure. On the contrary, spued out Christ's mouth, it will become the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth — Babylon, riding the scarlet beast full of names of blasphemy and eventually, fallen, be destroyed by it and the confederated ten kings, overwhelmed, destroyed with judgments from God more terrible than all the rest of the world to which she really, in spite of her profession, belonged: the false bride, never, any more at all, to arise; while the true bride is seen in her own proper place in heaven, the bride of the Lamb, the true light, through Him of the world to which the glory of the nations will be brought. But there is another serious consideration in the subject dimly being traced, viz., the part the individual plays in all this, for the stream of ecclesiastical confusion is formed and fed by individual failure in the watershed of man's ruined nature, if we may so speak. How far have we contributed to the final catastrophe?
Paul's Gospel is radical, and complementary to that new-creation ministry in which the Assembly consists according to God. In this latter he may and does speak of what is administrative, and that also fails; but ever with that which pertains to new creation contained therein. In the Galatian lapse indeed, new creation and as many as walk according to that rule alone meet the case: but in Corinthians, the evil and the good run concurrently for a while here below. How serious then, appropriately to our consideration here, is chapter 3 of the first epistle. What are we, each one, building? Gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, straw. But the "day will declare it," the day revealed in fire. The corrupter of the temple of God is destroyed, while the faulty builder will be saved yet so as through the fire. We need to become fools to be wise in this respect of building. And Paul's Gospel underlies this matter. If, in our ministry — and also taken in the widest sense of our whole course here — it is not "Christ speaking in us" (2 Cor. 13:3), we but reproduce ourselves (" wood, grass, straw" sure enough!) What a thing it is that God has given us Christ's death! Baptised to Him, we have been baptised to it, whether to sin and the law in Romans, or the world in Colossians. Jesus Christ came by water and blood, and the Spirit bears witness (1 John 5). Not only is our guilt removed, but God has condemned sin in the flesh in Christ's death: and we are also risen with Him so as to be clear altogether from that man and place where he disports himself, not only carnally and secularly, but religiously "to the satisfaction of the flesh" (Col. 2:23). So that church questions do not merely concern the ecclesiastically-minded, but such in which each Christian is deeply involved.
"But wisdom, where shall it be found? and where is the place of understanding? … Destruction and death say, We have heard its report … God understandeth the way thereof, and He knoweth its place: … and unto man He said, Lo, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom: and to depart from evil is understanding" (Job. 28:12-28).
Let us, then, survey the ruin, our ruin; our uprightness of heart is in it. Let us remember that "The Most High dwelleth not in (places) made with hands" (Acts 7:48) that it is written in the prophet, "But to this man will I look: to the afflicted and contrite in spirit, and who trembleth at My word" (Isa. 66:2). And as we do so, with the Cross upon our spirits (1 Cor. 1-3), we may get a view according to God indeed of that fair new creation, into which sin cannot enter, or man's hand or foot defile. And are not "all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge" found in the "Mystery of God?" that vast system of glory including the Assembly's peculiar place in it by virtue of her relationship with Him Who is the glorious Centre of it all, even "the Son of the Father's love." How appropriately can we see here that "destruction and death say, We have heard its report." That — destruction and death — is God's answer to man's way; and as we are with God in spirit; our eyes anointed with the eye-salve obtained alone from Him (Rev. 3:18), our minds and hearts submit to His holy judgment, our walk and our ways, "ecclesiastically" also, become conformed thereto; we cease from our own efforts to "repair" the ruin, we "With-draw from iniquity … and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart" (2 Tim. 2:19-22). Should not the faith and love of the Assembly in these last solemn moments, be as the unclouded view of a dying man, looking out of his "earthly tabernacle house" to that "building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?" (2 Cor. 5:1-2). It is a present, ecclesiastical deliverance, just as the hope that "He that has raised up Christ from among the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies also on account of His Spirit that dwells in you" (Rom. 8:11), is the completion of the personal deliverance. But our paths often are, alas, like Jacob's in this respect. He spent twenty odd years outside of the land of promise, with many experiences indeed, as we, but all to break down his planning, plotting mind and way (and have not we had many ecclesiastical expedients? and of what use have they been!!) Abraham and Isaac, the risen man in type, dwelt with God in God's land of promise and were fruitful therein. And this leads to a brief view of Paul's own position and mind and outlook in this connection.
No doubt he had (though we speak with the utmost diffidence here also) to feel personal failure in connection with his own work; no doubt such thoughts may have been mixed with his feelings as, after the shipwreck and the brethren from Rome met him, he "thanked God and took courage" (Acts 28). But the energy, faithfulness of his path and devotedness, so wholly governed by the divine testimonies, left his heart free in his Roman prison also for other thoughts. What does he say as he surveys, beyond the ruin, how "God; Who has saved us, and has called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to (His) own purpose and grace, which (was) given to us in Christ Jesus before (the) ages of time, but has been made manifest now by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, Who has annulled death, and brought to light life and incorruptibility by the Glad tidings?" (2 Tim. 1:8-10). He suffers, but is not ashamed, and he says "For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to Him" (2 Tim. 1:12).
He sees Him whom he had believed and "that day." And may not our eyes, beloved, each in his tiny measure, do the same? Paul's greater faithfulness may enable him to so speak, we in our lesser. Further, in the "crown of righteousness" he awaited from the "righteous Judge … in that day," he also links "all those who love His appearing with Him" (2 Tim. 4:8). And again, mercy is looked for "in that day," for one, even Onesiphorus who being in Rome had sought him out very diligently and found him (2 Tim. 1:17). And has not this a word for us today? Whilst standing and surveying the ruin which we have brought in, is it not an essential part of faithfulness to, metaphorically speaking, seek Paul out very diligently and find him? And has the real Paul changed, either in doctrine or manner of life, or suffering? Evangelical christendom may think so, but indeed it is not so. The true" Paul "is as rejected today, as then; and this is a solemn consideration for each of us." The testimony of our Lord and of me his prisoner," still stands before our responsibility, even if it do little else than to humble us. No "fragments" are to be "lost" in this the Spirit's day. Nothing will help to keep us apart from acquiescing in the ruin, in the way of submitting our ways to the general decline, like such a consideration. God does not change, nor does the world, whatever its fashions. As long as the word stands "Till He come" in regard of the Supper, Paul must be thus "sought," however alone in the power of life (2 Tim. 1:1) it may, and must be so. The sovereignty of God will see to it that this "door" will not be "shut" "Till He come," as it is written.
C. N. Snow.