and glory; will have special connections with the Son, and be the vessel in which He will be glorified by the then unrestrained power of the Spirit. All these things and others had their commencement in display at Pentecost; hereafter it will be in the heavenlies literally, in the glory of God and the Lamb; it was in time the place on which, when Heaven was opened, the rays of the light of the Son upon the Father's throne, and of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ were known, by faith, to play. It will be the place of display of the Spirit in unrestricted power; it was the place of His residence, but self-restrictively (John xvi. 13-15), amid earthen vessels, acting through faith chiefly, acting as a means to an end. There were the powers of the world to come, shown too, in man, and a sort of first-fruits of the blessing man will have hereafter: the confusion of tongues remedied by the gift of tongues; sickness, by gifts of healing, etc.; and the impress of a moral character of unselfish love put upon the company gathered, which was beautiful and excellent. While, from what I have said as to our adorable God and redemption, it will be seen I have precluded myself from the possibility of admitting that "gathering to good" was ever the distinctive mark of gathering, yet in the subordinate and second sense (the one from which one is precluded by the contrast supposed between the two principles stated), I of course own that there was a manifested good to which, in apostolic days men knew believers were gathered. For there was once a God-honouring, undefiled temple habitation of God through the Spirit, with the company who (because true to God and the trust committed to them) had, as the church, the tokens of gracious power and moral character which spake among men for God; "great grace was upon them all, and they had favor with all the people" (see Acts ii. and iv). But this I should press, that in those days, and never indeed while the church stood, did believers in it look upon it as other than as means to an end. To the mind of the Spirit, it might be the fold, for the time being, of those with whom he was dealing for eternity; and the great practical point of the believer that he was there as one separated as a living member of Christ's body from all around it incompatible back to where it is not will only be weakness. He, if honoured, can, and in His own time, will return, the blessing, and greater still. Arise, this is not your rest; It is polluted. In Israel the pillar of fire and cloud was the central point till Israel made the calf-but when Moses had pitched the tabernacle outside the camp-thither moved the pillar, and there the people who were called and obeyed the call to separate themselves unto the Lord went forth, and there they found the Lord and the mediator in converse together. Gilgal was but a repetition of this in principle; for there they had to separate themselves afresh from their own evil to the Lord by circumcision. And when in Judges, chapter ii., the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bocchim, His first word was one of rebuke, that they had lost their practical separateness from the evil of the world around them. It may be, that while the church stood in the integrity of its primitive state, there was no such observable separableness to the individual soul of his principles as for eternity and as for time; for the God of eternity was honoured by man in the position He in time had taken up; and while failure was going on, the distinction adverted to might not be so felt as it ought to be, now that the failure has been made fully manifest. And here I would observe what the Book of Judges fully establishes, that help from the Lord to a failed people always comes in a way to rebuke the failure, and make it to be seen by all, that though gracious amid failure, God is no sanctioner of the failure. Yea, the aid so comes, that you cannot get it without the admission of failure. I doubt not, that the preserved in Jesus Christ and called, of Jude's epistle, are as well the token of the failure of the whole from which they are separated, and of those that need "compassion" (verse 22); and of those that are pulled "out of the fire," as of God's faithfulness; and is not their very work one which avows failure. To those who look for numbers to their party with something that can be seen, and of weight in it, I say I would rather be among the as to the church or the soul. He is a jealous God, and loves not to see a soul rest in aught which is short of that in which He rests. 300 who, unlike men, lapped of the water with the tongue as a dog lappeth .... chosen of the Lord in their unconsciousness, as the deliverers of Israel, than of the 22,000 who, like worshippers and men, bowed down on the knee to drink, whom the Lord sent away. To attempt to make good, in display, the unity of the body on earth, when God has been dishonoured, is really to turn back from the tabernacle of testimony outside the camp (where is the Lord, and the mediator and the avenger of his dishonour), to honour the place out of which he has been driven by the golden calf and its worship. God is God*, and will be God alone, even unto the end. Christ is the one, who in His presence is the all-governing and first object. If you have found Him, or been found of Him, abide near Him, and then the church will ever be in your sight in its right place too as dear to Him, and subject here below to the Holy Ghost. The notion of the church out of the presence of God and of Christ is Romanism; and that is not the care, or subject of care, of the Holy Ghost at all. * The passage in Rom. xi. 36, ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ δι ̓ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα· αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. Αμήν. “ Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, [are] all things: to whom [be] glory for ever. Amen" is heart-searching to nature, soul-comforting to faith. Since there is One to whom all things are, in some sense or other, ek, dia and eis', of—through-and to-there clearly are roots of responsibility from which none of us can possibly free ourselves. He who originated all things, upholds all things, and can and will cause each and everything to subserve his own glory-and make its subserviency to appear before all. This flows from what He is, and what our connection with Him must be. But His grace has introduced into the scene now, and into our hearts too, testimony as to who He is, in grace and mercy, so that we can rejoice in the thought that He cannot deny Himself-and He will not give his glory to another. a On the second subject of this paper see a Tract entitled "Separation from Evil, God's Principle of Unity."-ED. 66 "Thou shalt call his name JESUS; for he shall save his people from their sins." Matt. i. 1. 'Thy name is as ointment poured forth, etc." Cant. i. 3. 279 We see Thee crowned in glory, Thy work well done, Our righteousness completed. 5 Thy name we love, Lord Jesus; For though thy travail's ended, Thy tender heart Still feels the smart, Of those thy grace befriended. And haste the hopeful morrow. We'll then with gladness greet thee. 8 Thy name we love, Lord Jesus; We long to see Thy glory, To know as known And fully own Thy graces, all before Thee : |