PART I: THE CHURCH
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTORY
In matters of doctrine it is of vital importance that the authority
upon which we act shall be one on which we can unhesitatingly
rely. There are those who advocate that such authority is vested
in the Church. This at once introduces certain questions for our
consideration, namely, what the Church is, and what are its calling,
constitution and destiny. No claim to authority on the part of
any man, or company of men, can be admitted, till it is proved
to be well founded. We do not acquiesce in anyone's demands simply
because he puts them forward.
BASIC FACTS
It is axiomatic that the Church is the possession of Christ.
if Christ were non-existent, there would be no Church. That there
is a Church at all rests upon the basic facts of His Incarnation,
His Atoning Death and His Resurrection, and upon the fulfillment
of His prophetic announcement, "I will build My Church."
Our knowledge of this statement by our Lord is derived from
the writings of the New Testament. These are indeed the chief
sources from which comes our knowledge of Christ Himself, of the
claims He made and the work He accomplished. This would involve,
were it necessary here, the accumulation of proofs that the contents
of the New Testament consist of authentic historical details and
teachings and Divinely inspired writings. The subject of the authenticity,
authority and inspiration of Scripture has been adequately dealt
with elsewhere and will not be taken up in these pages. Suffice
it to say that the evidence of Holy Scripture is of primary importance;
all other evidence can be only subsidiary to it. As to their validity,
the New Testament books were written by men who lived both in
the time and in the country in which Christ lived, by men who
wrote immediately for the generation that was born before Christ
died, and many of the writers had been witnesses of the events
they narrated. Where the writers had not personal experience of
some of the events they recorded they had ample means of verifying
the statements they made. All the evidence, external and internal,
establishes their veracity. The very contrast of the character
of these writings with that of non-canonical writings, both contemporaneous
and of subsequent periods, pays its telling tribute to their validity
and Divine authority and inspiration.
Of the four Gospels the Gospel of Matthew is the only one that
contains a direct statement made by Christ concerning His Church.
The same is true regarding a local church. But in each respect
all that is taught in the rest of the New Testament is consistent
with our Lord's statements, the whole forming a harmonious body
of doctrine relating to the subject. The establishment of the
claims of Holy Scripture and the Divine authority of its teachings
necessitate our adherence to it and our acceptance of that alone
which is in accordance with it. To follow any teaching contradictory
to the doctrines taught by Christ and His Apostles is to challenge
at once the accuracy of Holy Scripture and His prerogatives as
therein set forth.
We turn, then, to these writings to consider the nature and
constitution of the Church and the churches, and the character
and scope of the authority given by Christ for the promulgation
of doctrine.
THE TERM EKKLESIA
In the New Testament the word ekk1esia (lit. "called out"),
apart from its application to an assembly of Greek citizens (Acts
19:39), and to a riotous mob (verses 32, 41), and to Israel (Acts
7:38), is used in two senses only, firstly, of the whole company
of the redeemed throughout the present era, the company of which
Christ said, "I will build My Church" (Matt. 16:18),
and which is further described as "the Church which is His
Body" (Eph. 1:22, 23); secondly, in the singular number,
of a company consisting exclusively of professed believers, with
reference to the place in which they are accustomed to meet together,
and in the plural with reference to a district. [1]
A SPIRITUAL ORGANISM
The truth relating to the Church, as formed by the incorporation
of believing Jews and Gentiles in one body, of which Christ is
the Head, is spoken of by Paul as a mystery (i.e., a truth to
be revealed to the saints in the Divinely appointed time) which
from all ages had been "hid in God" (Eph. 3:1-9), "kept
in silence through times eternal" (Rom. 16:25, R.V.).
While this great fact of its constituent parts as a living
spiritual organism was especially committed to that Apostle (Eph.
3:9), the first specific pronouncement concerning the Church was
made by Christ on the occasion of Peter's confession of Him as
"The Christ, the Son of the Living God" (Matt. 16:16).
The Lord declared that the Father, and He alone, had revealed
this to him, and that on the foundation of that revelation Christ
Himself would build His Church, [2] and that the gates of Hades
would not prevail against it. The revelation conveys the great
foundation truths of the Person of Christ as such, His eternal
relation with the Father, and the fact of His resurrection; He
was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according
to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead"
(Rom. 1:4). Being eternally the Son of God He was declared to
be so in His resurrection. That He would be Himself the Builder
of His Church was essentially connected with His death and resurrection.
By these, too, He vanquished all that Hades stands for, the gates
representing the place where authority is exercised. He brought
to nought "him that had the power of death" (Heb. 2:14).
Upon Christ risen, victorious, life-giving, immutable, the Church
is established. "Other foundation can no man lay."
| [1] There is an apparent exception
in the R.V. of Acts 9:31, where, while the Authorized Version
has "churches," the singular seems to point to a district;
but the reference is clearly to the church as it was in Jerusalem,
*0m which it had just been scattered, as recorded in 8:1. Again,
in Rom. 16:23, that Gaius was the host of "the whole church,"
most naturally and simply suggests that the assembly in Corinth
had been accustomed to meet in his house, where also Paul was
entertained. |
| [2] If we grant that the words,
"Thou art Peter," represent the actual original, the
Lord was confirming a name which He had already given him (John
1:42), and was indicating the association of his character with
that of the truth of his confession. There is, however, considerable
ms. authority for the reading "thou hast said." In
the contracted form of the last word the lettering of the original
is the same, and the difference is simply one of spacing; thus
su ei ps is "thou art Peter," and su eips,
which stands for su eipas, is "thou hast said."
St. Augustine in his Latin version has "tu dixisti"
(thou hast said), and must have had ms. authority for this. St.
Jerome quotes the passage in one place as "su eipas."
Moreover on the occasion, as recorded in this very Gospel, when
Caiaphas questioned the Lord as to His being "the Christ,
the Son of God" (practically the same U40 as in Peter's
confession), He immediately answered, "Thou hast said"
(Matt. 26:64). |
A SPIRITUAL EDIFICE
Conspicuous among the facts relating to the Church as set forth
by Christ and His Apostles are its spiritual establishment and
its heavenly character and destiny. The Apostle Peter, continuing
the metaphor used by the Lord, and speaking of Christ Himself
as "a living Stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God
elect, precious," says of believers, "ye also, as living
stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices" (I Peter 2:5). "All
the building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy Temple
in the Lord" (a sanctuary, a spiritual holy of holies), believers
being "builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit"
(Eph. 2:21).
The Apostles did not establish an earthly system, an organization
of churches centralized in ecclesiastical headquarters. Such a
policy is significantly absent both from their methods and their
doctrine. What took place at Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts 15
provides no example of such a centre. The company which assembled
there has been called an apostolic council. Whatever was its nature,
no Apostle presided over it; Peter and other Apostles took part,
James summed up matters in a closing speech, and an epistle was
addressed in the name of the Apostles and elders, and delegates
were chosen by the whole local church together with them (verse
22). But this gathering was incidental and not intended as a precedent.
No other such assemblage is recorded in apostolic times. Nor did
the decision effect a settlement of the trouble. Peter himself
was afterwards found acting inconsistently with the decree (Gal.
2:11-14).
A great missionary enterprise was initiated from Antioch, but
instead of taking place under the aegis of Jerusalem it was undertaken
in entire independence of the Apostles there, and own of their
delegates (Acts 13:1-3).
UNAUTHORIZED SYSTEMS
Events at Jerusalem, therefore, provide no support for the
establishment of a controlling centre for the organization of
churches. One will search in vain in the Acts and the Epistles
for even an intimation of the establishment of such an institution.
Apart from such matters as the supply, by churches in a district,
of the needs of poor saints in another region, the only bond binding
churches together was spiritual, that of a common life in Christ
and the indwelling of the same Holy Spirit. There was no such
thing as external unity by way of federation, affiliation or amalgamation,
either of churches in any given locality or of all the churches
together. Apostolic testimony is, indeed, against the organization
of churches into an ecclesiastical system. There is no such phrase
in Scripture as "The Church on earth," nor is there
anything in the Scriptures to justify such an idea (see p. 57).
The only Head of the Church is Christ, and at His hands provision
is made for the spiritual needs of each local church. The Church,
consisting of all who are joined to Him, the Head, is "visible"
as an entity to God alone. In contrast to it there stand out to
the eyes of the world ecclesiastical systems, but these include
the real and the false. As systems, they are the product of departure
from the design of the Divine Founder and Builder and of human
interference with the operation of the Spirit of God.
The view has been promulgated that certain decrees of church
councils, and potentates, in centuries subsequent to apostolic
times, were either developments from apostolic teachings or such
additions as were necessary to meet the circumstances of later
times. That the accretions were developments is contrary to facts,
and that additions were designed or needful is contradictory to
the testimony of Christ and His Apostles.
The following pages show something of the departure from the
instructions and commandments laid down for the churches by the
Lord and His Apostles, and the radical difference between what
was established in apostate Christendom and the doctrines of the
faith "once for all delivered to the saints." The rise
of ecclesiastical systems produced a state of things in the churches
which, so far from being developments of the faith, were utterly
opposed to it. Such a departure was, after all, the fulfillment
of what Christ and His Apostles had foretold, that false teachers
would arise, speaking perverse things.
In these later times the Spirit of God has been operating in
the hearts of thousands of His people, causing them to return
to apostolic teaching.
CHAPTER TWO: THE CHURCH AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
The Lord's statement to the Apostle Peter, that upon the rock
foundation of the truth of his confession, as embodied in His
own Person, He would build His Church and the gates of Hades should
not prevail against it, was followed by the promise, "I will
give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt.
16:19). It is important to observe the distinction made by the
Lord between the Church and the Kingdom of Heaven. To identify
the two gives rise to much confusion.
"The Kingdom of Heaven" describes Heaven as the place
from which authority proceeds, while the earth is the sphere in
which it is exercised. Heaven is God's Throne, the Seat of Divine
Government (Ps. 11:4; 103:19; Matt. 5:34; Acts 7:49). When the
One who exercises the authority is the predominant thought, the
phrase used is "the Kingdom of God," &~ phrase which
also extends beyond all the various ages of time with their dispensational
features.
"The Heavens" have always ruled (Dan. 4:32). Inasmuch,
too, as the Kingdom of Heaven assumed a special phase with the
testimony of Christ in the days of His flesh, obviously the Kingdom
of Heaven preceded the formation of the Church. While yet the
inception of the Church was future Christ denounced the Pharisees
for shutting up the Kingdom of Heaven against men: "Ye enter
not in yourselves," He said, "neither offer ye them
that are entering in to enter" (Matt. 23:13). That alone
would be sufficient to show that there is a distinction. They
were not hindering men from entering the Church, as it did not
then exist.
THE KEYS
In saying to Peter, "I will give unto thee the keys of
the Kingdom of Heaven," He was at once differentiating between
the Kingdom and the Church, of which He had just spoken. The keys
are symbolic of authority and of the power to give admission to
something. In this case the admission was not to the Church. Peter
did not open the door into the Church either when He preached
to the Jews on the Day of Pentecost or when he preached to Gentiles
in the house of Cornelius. If the preaching of the gospel is the
opening of the door into the Church, then all who engage in preaching
are openers of the door. Moreover, the Lord's commission to preach
the gospel was given to all the Apostles, as recorded in Matthew
28:19. While, on the one hand, He was about to build His Church,
which would consist of true believers only, His disposition of
the affairs of the Kingdom of Heaven, of which He handed Peter
the keys, was quite another matter; it had to do initially with
the nation of Israel, in the midst of which the powers of the
Kingdom had already been exercised, though it was not limited
to Israel.
ISRAEL AND THE KINGDOM
Whereas there is no mention of the Church in Christ's previous
discourses, He had constantly spoken of the Kingdom of Heaven,
as also had His herald John the Baptist in his special mission
to Israel. Each had given the nation the message, "Repent
ye; for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2 and
4:17), clearly a reference to the fact of Christ's presence in
the nation. The Kingdom had been one of the Lord's chief topics
in His discourses.
The nation of Israel, though professing allegiance to God,
had shared in the general rebellion of mankind (cp. Isa. 1:2,
4). The King had at length Himself come into their midst, but
they had refused to recognize Him, and, at the time when Christ
spoke of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Jews were just
about to reject Him absolutely. For this they were eventually
to be "cast away," until a time of restoration, an event
still future (Rom. 11:15,25). In spite of this, to Peter was to
be committed the proclamation of a great amnesty to the nation,
and thereafter the gospel was to be carried by him and others
t6 the Gentiles.
PENTECOST
On the Day of Pentecost, after explaining the circumstances
of the sending of the Holy Spirit, and addressing his hearers
as "men of Israel" (Acts 2:22), and "brethren"
(verse 29), i.e., as his fellow nationals, the Apostle proclaimed
the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they
had crucified by "the hand of lawless men." "All
the house of Israel" were to know assuredly that God had
"made Him both Lord and Christ" (verse 36). In, his
subsequent message to the nation he says, "The God of Abraham,
and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified
His Servant Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied" (3:13).
Yet, upon the condition of their repentance, their sins would
be blotted out, "seasons of refreshing" would come from
the presence of the Lord, and He would send the Christ (verses
19, 20).
Here, then, was a proclamation to the nation, "the house
of Israel," and in this and his further testimony the Lord
fulfilled His word to the Apostle, that to him He would give the
"keys of the Kingdom of Heaven." In other words, besides
the new fact that the Church, the Body of Christ, began to be
formed at Pentecost, the Apostle Peter, in offering terms to Israel,
was dealing administratively with the affairs of the Kingdom of
Heaven; not that he was the first to do so (that is not involved
in the Lord's word that He would give Him the keys), for the authority
of the Kingdom had already been operating, but that he fulfilled
a special function in regard to it.
.While members of the Church, the Body of Christ, are thereby
in the Kingdom, yet, as we have seen, the Kingdom was preached
as the Kingdom of Heaven before the Church began, and will be
proclaimed on earth after the Church is complete and is removed
from earth to its heavenly destiny at the Rapture.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
The Kingdom of God is the sphere in which God's rule is acknowledged.
It is said to be "in mystery" (Mark 4:11), that is,
it does not come within the natural powers of observation.' The
Lord said, "The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation"
[4] (margin, "with outward show") (Luke 17:20). The
reign of God on earth today is not that of an earthly kingdom
(though His Almighty power controls the affairs of kingdoms),
but is the reign of His will over the unseen movements of the
inner man. Submission to His will involves faith in Christ, and
this brings regeneration, or the new birth, of which our Lord
spoke to Nicodemus. Then it is that we become children of God,
being born of the Spirit, and thereupon we receive eternal life
and are justified in His sight, becoming accepted in Christ. Without
the new birth all other conformity is vain. The Kingdom of Heaven,
as Scripture portrays it, makes all attempt to gain temporal power
entirely inconsistent with its objects. Those who would reign
as kings to day must reign without the Apostles (see I Cor. 4:8,
where Paul deprecates the attempt to reign now, and expresses
an ardent longing for the appointed future time for doing so).
When hereafter God asserts His rule universally, then the Kingdom
will be in glory, and will be manifest to all (cp. Matt. 25:31-34;
2 Tim. 4:18). That is destined to be the ultimate phase of the
Kingdom of Heaven, an expression which often covers the same ground
as "the Kingdom of God," the two terms being frequently
interchangeable (cp. Matt. 19:23 with verse 24, and again with
Mark 10:23, 24; also Matt. 19:14 with Mark 10:14; and Matt. 13:11
with Luke 8:10). [5]
| [4] See an extended note
on the subject in Notes on I and 2 Thessalonians by C. F. Hogg
and the writer. |
| [5] The phrase "the Kingdom
of Heaven" is used only in the Gospel of Matthew in the
New Testament (in 2 Tim. 4:18, the phrase is "His heavenly
Kingdom"). That Gospel speaks of the Kingdom of God four
times. There is a distinction between what that Kingdom actually
is and what it resembles. In the parables in Matt. 13 the Lord
does not say, "the Kingdom of Heaven is so and so,"
but "the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto" (verses 24,
31, 33, 44, 45, 47), and again in the corresponding passage in
Mark, "So is the Kingdom of God as if..." (verse 26),
and "How shall we liken the Kingdom of God, or in what parable
shall we 80 it forth" (verse 30). Just as there is a radical
difference between wheat and tares, so there is all the difference
between .'sons of the Kingdom" and "sons of the evil
one' (Matt. 13:38). Both are to be found in the Kingdom, in its
mystery form, outwardly acknowledging the name of Christ. But
some yield either merely formal or even feigned obedience. This
will be so even in the Millennium, and with hearts unchanged
they Will rebel at the last (see Rev. 20:7-10). Only those can
enter into the Kingdom in reality and in its eternal blessedness
who are born again (John 3:5). |
BINDING AND LOOSING
The promise with which the Lord immediately followed His word
to Peter about the keys, namely, "and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt
loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven," He subsequently
extended to all the disciples, as recorded in chapter 18:18. From
this it is obvious that, whatever is indicated thereby, it was
not, as a principle, to be confined exclusively to Peter. The
preceding context in the eighteenth chapter shows that the reference
there is to cases of discipline for maintaining the Lord's honour,
and the succeeding context shows that the power was to be shared
with two or three who would be gathered together in His Name.
He would Himself be in the midst of them. The passage in the sixteenth
chapter shows that the reference is, as we have seen, to administration
in the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Lord's words to Peter, therefore, do not in any wise imply
that this Apostle was to receive a primacy of jurisdiction in
the Church, or that he was to have supreme authority to teach
and govern under Christ. Both this, and the idea that Peter was
the rock foundation upon which the spiritual edifice of the Church
was to be built, are based upon ecclesiastical misconception and
find no support in the pages of Holy Scripture. Christ was neither
founding a monarchy in forming the Church, nor was He establishing
an individual to be a ruler over it.
Nor again can such superiority or authority be inferred from
the Lord's words to Peter, after His resurrection, "Feed
My lambs," "Feed (or tend) My sheep." What Christ
was doing, as recorded in John 21:15-17, was not the impartation
of ecclesiastical authority but a confirmation of Peter after
his restoration from his fall, and a preparation for his service.
There was no implication in the Lord's words that any specially
superior work of pastoral care was to be committed to him. The
care of the flock is a responsibility devolving upon all spiritual
shepherds; as the Apostle himself says when exhorting elders,
"Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the
oversight thereof, not of constraint, but willingly, according
unto God; nor yet for filthy lucre but of a ready mind; neither
as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves
ensamples to the flock" (I Peter 5:2, 3, R.V.).
THINGS THAT DIFFER
To sum up, the Kingdom is not coterminous with the Church.
Holy angels, though they do not form part of the Church, are in
the Kingdom of God. The Psalmist, after saying "The Lord
hath established His Throne in the heavens; and His Kingdom ruleth
over all," calls at once upon His angels to praise Him. They
fulfil His commandments, "hearkening unto the voice of His
words"; they are "His ministers that do His pleasure"
(Ps. 103:19-21). In the present era the powers of the Kingdom
work in the hearts of men by means of the preaching of the gospel,
but neither the Kingdom of God nor the Church consists of a visible
external organization. Christ did not found and build up for Himself
a Kingdom upon earth, nor do we find any intimation in Scripture
that the Church is an earthly establishment.
When Christ, speaking of a trespass on the part of one brother
against another, and of the efforts that were to be made by means
of witnesses to remove the difficulty, said that if the erring
one refused to hear them the injured brother was to tell it to
the church (Matt. 18:17), obviously the reference was to a local
congregation. The Church, in the extended significance of the
word, is ruled out by the circumstances. The thought of the establishment
of a central ecclesiastical institution as a court of judicature
for the trying of such cases is as absent from that passage as
it is from the rest of the New Testament. The Church is never
looked upon, in the teaching of Scripture, as an earthly institution.
To conceive of it as the Kingdom of God is to confound things
concerning which Holy Scripture makes a difference. That Kingdom
is spiritual in its present phase. Its operations do not consist
in the punctilious observance of ordinances, in things external
and material, but in those which are spiritual and essential,
in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost (Rom. 14:17).
CHAPTER THREE: THE BODY OF CHRIST
The truth relating to the Church as the Body, of which Christ
is the Head, was especially committed to the Apostle Paul, and
it was evidently with the design of unfolding it that he set out
to write the Epistle to the Ephesians. The teaching that occupies
the first twenty-one verses of the first chapter forms the basis
of the statement that God gave Christ to be "Head over all
things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that
filleth all in all."
An essential truth laid down in this first chapter, amplified
in the course of the Epistle, and conveyed in the symbolism of
the head and the body, is that the Church, instead of being an
earthly organization built up and established in the world, is
heavenly in its design, establishment and destiny. Its individual
members necessarily become incorporated into it in this life,
according as each one receives eternal life through faith in Christ
and is born of God. Each one then becomes part of the Body and
is inseparably united to the Head. At no period can all the believers
living in the world at any given time have constituted the Church.
They could not in that respect be spoken of as the Body of Christ
and yet that is an alternative designation of the Church. [6]
| [6] A local church, meeting
in any particular place, is spoken of as a body in 1 Cor. 12:27,
but in a different aspect: "To the church in Corinth,"
the Apostle says, "Ye are (the) body of Christ" (the
definite article is absent in the original), but some of the
members, in that application of the word, are themselves part
of the head, being spoken of as an "eye," an "car"
(see verse 16). Accordingly the symbol is not applied in that
passage in the same way as in Ephesians, where Christ is the
Head of the whole Church, the Body. |
THE SCRIPTURE VIEW OF THE CHURCH
Even at the time of Pentecost those who believed comprised
only a small fraction of the whole Church, and if they, or all
the truly regenerate in the world at the present time, or at any
other time, were the Church, then that of which He is the Head
(and there is no other) would be a body maimed and marred and
lacking most of its parts. In the early part of the present era
most of the Church had not come into being; in the closing part
of the era most of the Church has, or will have, departed this
life, such, while stiff part of the Body, being present with the
Lord. The whole will not be completed till the gospel has fulfilled
its object. After its number is complete, the Lord will "descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first;
then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them
be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air"
(I Thess. 4:16, 17, R.V.). The Church win then have its full membership
as the Body of Christ, and only of that company can the term "the
Church" be rightly used, apart from its application to a
local company.
Many apply the term "the Church" to all those in
the world who profess the faith. But such a view of the Church
is not borne out by the teaching of Christ and His Apostles.'
Believers [7] are formed into local churches here, each being
a separate spiritual temple of God, according to the Divine plan;
as the Apostle says to the church at Corinth, "Ye are a temple
of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (I Cor. 3:16,
R.V.). But the churches were not externally organized into an
ecclesiastical entity, in any district or country, or generally
as a universal system. Neither is there any hint in apostolic
teaching that such was Divinely intended to be the case. To such
a system or combination the word "Church" is nowhere
applied in Scripture, and any such organization is a contravention
of apostolic testimony and therefore of the will and design of
Christ.
| [7] The view referred to has
been explained by means of the illustration of a regiment in
the British Army, which fought, for instance, at the battle of
Waterloo, and still bears the same designation, though not a
soldier who took part in that battle is alive today. But Scripture
knows no such third definition of the Church as would provide
ground for the illustration. Again, an attempt has been made
to find some support for the view in the suggestion that the
letters to the seven churches in the second and third Chapters
of the Apocalypse speak of conditions which anticipatively represent
successive periods in the history of the Christian churches,
or of Christendom, throughout the present era. It is argued from
this that since the condition prevailing in any one of the periods
represents what is conveyed to a particular church in the actual
letter, the term "church" way be said to stand for
all the Christians in the world during the period intimated.
This argument is precarious indeed. To begin with, it is based
upon a mere inference, and then, whatever justification there
may be for the successive period view, that view involves the
teaching that the conditions which are represented by the last
of the four letters are not distinctly successive since each
of these four last continues from its beginning to the end of
the age; so that there are four simultaneous conditions at the
time represented by the letter to Laodicea, three represented
by the letter to Philadelphia, two by the letter to Sardis, while
that which is represented by the one to Thyatira continues through
all four. In other words, if we hold the anticipative and prophetic
view of these letters to the churches they cannot all be held
to represent distinctly separate, successive periods. This itself
runs counter to the idea that the Church consists of all believers
in the world at any given time, and in any case it is unsafe
to apply the word "Church," in a way in which it is
not used in Scripture, to something which is simply based upon
inference, and especially an inference which does not fit the
view taken. |
CHRIST'S DESIGN ABANDONED
In times considerably subsequent to those of the Apostles,
churches were externally combined, organized and centralized,
as the result of ecclesiastical aims and efforts, and by such
means something took shape quite different in character from the
arrangements which were designed by Christ and carried out by
the Apostles. It is true that then the term "Church"
was applied to that organization, but in no way could its use
in that respect be justified from the Divine point of view. The
claim is made that such an organization was inevitable, and was
developed and directed by the Spirit of God, but the claim is
invalid. The ecclesiastical history of the third, fourth and fifth
centuries is a witness against it. In those times the churches
became partially paganized, and their organization was arranged
under the influence and guidance of the Emperor Constantine, and
modeled largely on the plan of State arrangements. The whole system
thus became a travesty of the Divine institution and the term
"the Church" was, and has been since, a, misnomer, when
applied to it.
That local churches are themselves visible communities professing
the same faith, partaking of the same holy privileges and spiritual
blessings, governed by the same Lord, and indwelt by the same
Holy Spirit, has never afforded any ground for their external
amalgamation, with the establishment of a central ecclesiastical
authority on earth, either for any particular district, or for
the churches at large; neither has the fact that the Lord provides
spiritual gifts in the several churches for the guidance and care
therein of believers. We have already remarked that the record
of what is regarded as a Council of the Church in Acts 15 affords
no evidence of this. The incident there mentioned is, on the contrary,
a testimony against such an institution rather than an evidence
in favour of it.
THE ONE AND ONLY HEAD
That God the Father gave Christ to be Head over all things
to the Church as His Body, is the crown of all the Divine counsels
relating to the Church. There is no more glorious theme in all
the plan of Redemption. That, no doubt, is the significance of
the double title of God, "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ"
and "the Father of glory," with which this passage begins
(Eph. 1:17), while it also resumed the threefold mention of the
praise of His glory, in verses 6, 12 and 14. The Son wrought for
the glory of the Father in His life on earth and His atoning death,
and the Father, in response thereto, glorified His Son in raising
Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the place
of universal authority and in Headship over the Church.
The phrase "Head over all things to the Church" is
very comprehensive when viewed in the light of both the preceding
and succeeding contexts. The latter speaks of the Church as the
fulness of Him "that filleth all in all" [8] that is
to say, in regard to the Church as His Body, He fills all things'
in all the members, all their activities being under His direction
and fulfilled by His power. But this does not exhaust the meaning
of the phrase. The preceding context directs our thoughts to the
position which Christ occupies in His universal power and authority
both in this age and that which is to come, a position in which
all things are put in subjection under His feet. This is stated
here anticipatively, as an accomplished fact; for, though as the
Epistle to the Hebrews says, "we see not yet all things subjected
to Him," yet its fulfillment is as certain as if it had already
taken place.
| [8] Here the presence
of the definite article in the original refers apparently to
what has preceded. |
This opens out a wonderful vista. The One to whom all things
are to be subjected has been given to the Church as its Head.
The Church in this relation to Christ occupies the highest position
in the Divine counsels for the future. All things in Heaven and
on the earth are unitedly to own His authority, and the position
of the Church as being "in Christ" determines its association
with Him in the exercise of this universal control. We are to
be "joint-heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:17). The Father
has in view for His Son "a dispensation (or administration,
lit., economy) of the fulness of the times," wherein He will
sum up all things in Christ, "the things in the heavens and
the things on the earth" (Eph. 1:10); and inasmuch as the
Church, chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, is united
to Him in the closest possible manner, it will, while being under
His Headship as His Body, at the same time be associated with
Him in His power and rule, and thus He is, in the fullest scope,
"Head over all things to the Church."
PREPARATORY ANTAGONISM
Against such a transcendent truth, affecting as it does the
glory of God and the Person of Christ, it is not a matter of surprise
that the arch-adversary should set himself with his utmost might
and his most persistent and ingenious devices, both by opposition
and imitation. Nor need we be surprised that, throughout an era
when God is calling out from among the nations a company for His
Name, to constitute the Church the Body of Christ, formed by the
Holy Spirit, and Heavenly in establishment and destiny, the adversary
should seek to obscure and travesty the truths relating thereto.
Satanic preparation had been made, in the long centuries before
Christ came, for the paganizing of the apostate Christendom of
the fourth century A.D., by the worldwide spread of Babylonish
tents, customs and practices.
ECCLESIASTICAL PRESUMI'TION
The doctrine relating to the Church as the Body of Christ has
a most practical effect on the life of believers, and is strikingly
counteractive of a tendency to regard Church truth as merely doctrinal
and removed from the sphere of Christian activities. The dominating
principle for all believers, in this figure under which the Church
is set forth, is their entire subjection to Christ. The Body is
for the Head. Human will of itself is ruled out. The glory of
man as such has no place. For the believer the Cross of Christ
is the death of human self-satisfaction, ambition and pride. The
Cross has revealed in full measure man's alienation from God,
his love of this world and his disinclination towards grace. But
the Cross is at the same time the very basis upon which the relationship
of the Church to Christ is established. Man's tendency is to exalt
himself. He loves reputation. He likes to be somebody, to do something
which will attract the esteem of people to himself, to be of importance
in his own eyes as well as in the eyes of others. In the very
discharge of spiritual functions in the Church, man is apt to
forget that all that he is and does is to be surely and solely
for the glory of Christ, that Christ is the one Head, controlling
everything, and imparting everything of life and energy to the
Body in all its members.
Nowhere is this innate tendency more dangerous than in spiritual
things, and particularly in the exercise of the care and guidance
of the people of God. Here one exposes himself especially to the
wiles of the adversary, and a man may be deceived into thinking
that he is serving God while really he is establishing the glory
and power of his ecclesiastical position. The true glory of Christ
is obscured when man's greatness is prominent. Ecclesiastical
rivalry, and the resulting domination of the strongest men in
the churches, served to produce such a condition, that control
eventually was exercised from one religious centre, and man usurped
the position of the authority of Christ.
That the Church is the Body of Christ strikes a blow at the
idea of its establishment on earth as a universal ecclesiastical
organization. Christ the Head is in Heaven, and His Body the Church
is identified with Him in the Heavenly places. There the Church
is "seated" with Him, and its establishment and destiny
are there. Its very existence and condition depended, and ever
will depend, upon His ascension and exaltation there as a result
of His Incarnation, Death and Resurrection. There could be no
Church without Christ as its Head, and it is because He is set
at God's right hand that He holds that position. That the Church
is His Body assumes, then, both His exaltation and the identification
of the Church with Him in the heavenlies.
GROWTH OF CLERICAL DOMINATION
This is not according to the ideas and inclination of the natural
mind; it clashes with man's carnal propensities. It is significant
that, while this great truth relating to the Church as the Body
of which Christ is the Head, was taught and maintained by apostolic
testimony, there is the clearest evidence that in post-apostolic
times it fell into neglect. The low spiritual condition into which
the churches lapsed made this inevitable. The state of things
against which Christ Himself remonstrates through the Apostle
John in Revelation 2 and 3 was such as to induce a disregard of
the doctrine concerning the true position and relation of the
Church. Not only so, but, on the other hand, there were forces
at work detrimental to it. The rapid and general advance of clerisy
was against it. The un-apostolic assumption of human power and
domination on the part of Church leaders practically obliterated
it. How could it be apprehended when men "loved to have the
pre-eminence," and when people gloried in man? The general
development of the clerical system was antagonistic to that truth.
Those who have carefully studied the history of the first few
centuries of this era, will perhaps have observed that the writings
even of the early "Fathers" contain no testimony to
this doctrine of the Headship of Christ over the Church as His
Body. Whatever else was taught, that was allowed to lapse. Earthly
aspirations, motives guided by natural ambition, aims that were
concentrated on worldly ideas, superseded the truth of the Church
as the Body of Christ. The confusion of the true character of
the Church with that of earthly organization was a triumph for
the adversary and shows how possible it was for the churches to
be "corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is
toward Christ."
CHAPTER FOUR: A FOURFOLD DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH
The first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians sets forth
the Character of the Church as heavenly in its position, its relationship
to Christ and its destiny. As His Body, it is united to Him as
its Head "in the heavenly places." The second chapter
likewise speaks of the Constitution of the Church. It consists
of those who "in the flesh" were Jews and Gentiles,
all alike being "sons of disobedience," living "in
the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of
the mind," "by nature children of wrath," and spiritually
"dead through our trespasses" (2:3-5). Of such materials
Divine grace has designed that Christ should "create in Himself...
one new man," reconciling believers both Jew and Gentile,
"in one body unto God, through the Cross" (verses 15,
16). The "one new man" is the Body with the Head, viewed
anticipatively, instinct with spiritual life derived from the
Head, though the Body is actually in process of formation until
the whole attains "unto a full grown man, unto the measure
of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (4:13).
Toward the close of the second chapter the metaphor is changed
(to be resumed in the fourth chapter), and a threefold description
is given. There is firstly the figure of a city, secondly that
of a household, and thirdly that of a temple. Gentile believers
are not raised to the level of Jewish believers; both are brought
out of their former condition into the high privileges of fellowship
and association with Christ.
A CITY AND A HOUSEHOLD
"So then" (i.e., because of this union in Christ
and the common access by one Spirit unto the Father) "ye
are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens
with the saints, and of the household of God." The words
rendered "strangers" (xenos) and "sojourners"
(paroikos, lit., a by-dweller) and not infrequently found together
in the Septuagint.
The stranger was an alien, tolerated, indeed, yet liable to
be frowned on and debarred from rights and privileges which belonged
to the nation into whose midst he had come to reside for the time
being.
As a sojourner, if the Apostle was merely referring to conditions
in Greek States, a sojourner was one who came from one city and
settled in another but did not enjoy the rights of citizenship.
If, however, he had in mind the Septuagint use of the word in
the rendering of Leviticus 22:10; 25:23, etc., the reference would
be to one who, while resident with a family or community, was
excluded from its domestic rights and privileges, as, for instance,
in the case of one who sojourned with a priest as his guest but
was prohibited from eating the holy things. That this is the meaning
is suggested by the contrasting context, which speaks of believers
as "of the household of God." [9]
| [9] In Leviticus 22:10, the
Septuagint has a different word for "stranger" (allogenos,
one of another race). In Genesis 23:4, "sojourner"
(Paroikos) is the first word. See also Leviticus 25:23, 35, 47.
In the New Testament the terms are found only elsewhere in Acts
7:6, 29; cp. 1 Pet. 2:11. |
How striking the change wrought by Divine grace! Instead of
"strangers," "fellow-citizens with the saints!"
Literally the phrase is "fellow-citizens of the saints,"
that is to say, the saints constitute a community of which all
are fellow-citizens not that Gentile believers are now privileged
with Jewish saints, as a distinct class, but that all saints (whether
Jew or Gentile formerly) are together privileged as being possessed
of heavenly citizenship. All enjoy the same government and protection,
the same organization and fellowship, the same rights and liberties.
Instead of "sojourners," they are members "of the
household of God!" Not mere guests, here to day and gone
tomorrow, but members of God's spiritual House, enjoying all the
benefits of domestic life, in the most intimate relationship,
as "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ."
A TEMPLE
As a Temple the saints are "built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief
corner stone; in whom each several building (more literally, 'every
building') fitly framed together groweth into a holy temple in
the Lord."
As to the foundation, the word rendered "being built"
(lit., "being built upon"), containing in itself the
mention of a dwelling place, forms a transition from the figure
of the household to the material of a building, that of a temple
being in view. The foundation was laid by the Apostles and prophets
(i.e., those whose testimony was contemporaneous with that of
the Apostles); it consisted of the doctrines relating to Christ.
[10] Their testimony was foundation work, Christ Jesus Himself,
i.e., His own Person, being "the chief corner stone,"
the foundation stone placed at the corner. Cp. Psalm 118:22, Isaiah
28:16. Christ, the glories of His Person and work, form the foundation.
The Apostles and prophets are again viewed in 4:12 as engaged
in the work of "building up."
| [10] Some regard the apostles
and prophets as themselves the foundation. While this is possible,
it is needful to remember that the genitive case in the original,
represented by the preposition "of," frequently has
an objective sense instead of the appositional. That is to say,
in the present instance the meaning would be, not that the apostles
and prophets were themselves the subjects, forming part of the
foundation, but that the foundation was the object laid by their
agency, and this is a fact. Revelation 21:14 affords no confirmation
of the subjective or appositional view; that passage speaks of
a city wall, a symbol of defence, not of God's Temple. |
The phrase rendered "every building" (R.V. margin);
"all the building," (A.V.); each is possible as a rendering
signifies the structure in every part of it. The edifice in course
of construction, in process of being "fitly framed together
(or, more literally, 'jointed together')," grows "into
a holy Temple in the Lord." This presents the process in
its ultimate issue. All is viewed in its future state as complete
and perfect, every stone fitting its appointed place, the whole
being God's dwelling place, a place of absolute holiness, a structure
of glory and beauty, a place of worship. There is no noise in
the process, no outward display. The building is not set up on
the earth it is a spiritual structure and this is consistent with
and confirms all the teaching of the New Testament concerning
the Church. Nothing can prevent its completion. The gates of Hades
cannot prevail against it.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE FATHER'S FAMILY
The first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians speaks particularly
of the counsels of God in regard to the glory of Christ and the
relationship of the Church to Him. The second chapter brings especially
before us the operations of God in the formation of the Church,
the present process and the ultimate design.
The third chapter, which, since the Apostle treats therein
of his own ministry, is parenthetic, yet introduces, as we shall
see, a figure additional to those of the second chapter. At the
same time even here he recalls the subject of the Body; in speaking
of the special stewardship committed to him in connection with
"the mystery" of Christ and the Church, he defines the
mystery in this way, "that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs
and fellow-members of the same Body, and fellow-partakers of the
promise in Christ Jesus, through the gospel" (3:6, R.V.)
Co-heirs, co-incorporated and co-sharers. Here the one Body is
again the dominating thought. For the thought of the incorporation
into the same Body conveys a closer union than that of joint inheritance,
and the third expression, "fellow-partakers" is simply
added to show that the first two involve this, that there is no
blessing or privilege, either in kind or in degree, which is not
shared alike by believers, both Jew and Gentile.
The additional figure which this chapter presents is that of
a family. Having pointed out the present purpose of God concerning
the Church, in regard to the principalities and the powers in
the heavenly places, the Apostle speaks of the access which we
enjoy through faith, and bows his knees "unto the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named."
"Every family" may be taken as the correct rendering.
[11]
| [11] It is true that the Greek
word pas may signify "all," even when it is not followed
by the definite article with the noun (when the article is used,
the rendering should be "all the " or "the whole"
as in Acts 3:25, "all the families," and Phil. 1:3,
R.V. "all my remembrance of you; 11 contrast "every
prayer" in verse 4, where the article is absent). Yet a
distinction is necessary in the phrases without the article.
In the case of an abstract, or a proper noun, some collective
nouns, and some used in a collective sense where no other meaning
but "all" is possible, the rendering is "all,"
e.g., "all righteousness" (Matt. 3:15), "all Jerusalem"
(Matt. 2:3), "all flesh" (Luke 3:6). Otherwise the
rendering should be "every;" thus "every ordinance"
(1 Peter 2:13), "every creature' (Col. 1:15, 23), "every
Scripture" (2 Tim. 3:16); so "every family" (here). |
THE PATRIA
As to the meaning of the word patria, "family," it
is found only twice elsewhere in the New Testament, in Luke 2:4,
"lineage of David" (R.V., "family"), that
is, those who reckon their descent from David, and Acts 3:25,
"the kindreds (R.V., families) of the earth." The word,
then, signifies those who have a common paternal origin.
Now as to the context, the Apostle has mentioned in the 18th
verse of the preceding chapter that through Christ "we have
our access in one Spirit unto the Father." This he has just
repeated in the 12th verse of the third chapter and in this connection
he speaks of "the Father" as the One to whom he bows
his knees. In both passages the Fatherhood of God is stressed,
and the point here is that from the Father every family in heaven
and on earth is named. Some have regarded this as signifying a
series of families consisting of the Church, angels, Jews and
Gentiles. This, however, does not seem to be the apostle's meaning.
"EVERY FAMILY"
The phrase is exactly parallel in the original to that in 2:21,
where, speaking of the Church as a temple, he says "in whom
every building (see margin of the RX.), fitly framed together,
groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord." Just as there the
phrase "every building" signifies "the building
in all its parts," so here "every family" would
point to the same kind of meaning, namely, "the whole family
in all its parts," that is to say, all those who, whether
in Heaven or on earth, enjoy relationship to God as their Father.
Thus the Church is in view, in all its constituent parts9 those
who are already with the Lord and the various communities or assemblies
on earth who likewise enjoy this Divine relationship. This is
in keeping with the tenor of the whole Epistle.
That the whole in its several parts is named from the Father
indicates that from Him as Father it derives that which gives
it its true character, and it is the practical realization of
this in the lives of believers that the Apostle desires, as expressed
in his immediately following prayer. For the Fatherhood of God,
and all that this means in spiritual relationship and experience,
can be carried into practical effect only if we are strengthened
by the power of the Spirit of God in the inward man and Christ
dwells in our hearts through faith. only so can we be rooted and
grounded in love and be strong to apprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know
the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." Thus and thus
only can we be "filled unto (Or 'into) all the fulness of
God." All this is consequent upon having God as our Father.
THE FATHER
The matters contained in. this comprehensive prayer, then,
are those which appertain especially to the family of God. In
the Apostle's prayer in the first chapter he speaks of God as
"the Father of glory," as well as "the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ" (verse 17); for the subject of that prayer
is more especially the power of God in raising Him from the dead,
and in consequence the greatness of His power to usward. Here
in the third chapter his prayer is occupied more particularly
with the subject of love. We are to know the love of Christ and
are to be rooted and grounded in love. The theme of love is especially
appropriate to the subject of the family. As the Father ofg1ory
(chapter 1) He raised up Christ from the dead, and made Him to
sit at His right hand in heavenly places, giving Him to be Head
over all things to the Church, which is His Body. As the Father
of the spiritual family (chapter 3) His design is that the members
of the family should know His love as embodied in and expressed
through Christ. In the first prayer the Church is 44 the fulness
of Him that filleth all in all." That is a matter of glory
expressed in power. Here in the second prayer the subject of fulness
is not the power by which Christ fills all things in all the members,
as in 1:23, but the design of the Father that the members of His
family should so know the love of Christ that they may be filled
into all the fulness of God. Divine. power fills all the members
of the Body; by Divine love the members of God's family are filled
into His fulness.
THE DOXOLOGY
The theme of the Apostle's prayer is so transcendent, and the
effects designed to be produced so soul-stirring and heart-affecting,
that he follows his prayer with this doxology: "Now unto
Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto
Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations
for ever and ever" (3: 20, 21). Let us note particularly
the combination "in the Church and in Christ Jesus";
that is undoubtedly the right rendering. The Church is the sphere
in which the glory here spoken of is to ascend to God. But not
simply the Church; never the Church without Christ who is its
Head, who fills the members, and whose love draws forth their
praise. The combination is a beautiful continuation of the great
theme of the Epistle, the union of Christ and His Church. The
Son, who glorified the Father on the earth, having finished the
work which He gave Him to do, glorifies Him now, and will ever
do so, in and through His Church, which He has redeemed by His
precious blood and united to Himself. It is this oneness, this
fellowship, with Christ which causes the glory to ascend to Him
who is the Father of glory. The glory, which is the exhibition
of His own character, power and attributes, flows down from Him,
and returns to Him, in responding recognition and expression,
in the Church and in Christ Jesus, and it will do so through all
successive generations and throughout eternity.
CHAPTER SIX: "THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT"
At the beginning of the 4th chapter of Ephesians the Apostle
recalls his circumstances as mentioned at the opening of chapter
3. There he described himself as "the prisoner of Christ
Jesus;" here he speaks of himself as "the prisoner in
the Lord." The change of title is appropriate to the context.
At the close of chapter 2 he had been occupied with the Heavenly
aspect of the Church, and there, in introducing his appeal, he
uses a title of Christ which expresses the intimacy of the mystical
union between the Lord and His saints; here, where his appeal
actually begins, and his series of exhortations i~ regard to practical
Christian life, he uses the title which betokens His authority
as Lord over their lives.
In saying, "I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord,"
he not merely resumes what he had said of the Church at the close
of chapter 2, but bases it likewise on all that he has unfolded
in chapter 3.
HOW TO KEEP THE UNITY
While now beginning that part of his Epistle which consists
more especially of practical exhortations, he has yet more to
say, by way of the development of his subject, concerning the
Church as the Body of Christ. The sublime character of his theme
leads him at once to enjoin upon the saints the need of a walk
worthy of their calling. Such a walk could be marked only by "all
lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering" and by forbearance
of one another in love. Indissociable from these is the diligence
necessary "to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace."
Unity can exist only where we have a right estimate of ourselves,
a realization of our own littleness and demerit, and that unassuming
self-abasement which is a reflection of the lowliness of Christ;
when, too, we exercise that spirit of glad submissiveness to God's
dealings which produces considerateness towards others even when
under provocation, the "invincible might of meekness,"
which reflects the meekness of Christ and overcomes evil with
good. To these is to be added the longsuffering which patiently
bears with unreasonableness and meets disappointments with quiet
fortitude. Only so can we forbear one another in love. That kind
of forbearance is not studied courtesy or frigid endurance, but
is characterized by the holy attachment which binds believers
together in the bonds of Christian love.
TEM FORMATION OF THE UNITY
Since these things are exhibited by reason of our relation
to Christ, and are the fruit of the Spirit, they are essential
to the maintenance of the unity of the Spirit. We are to "give
diligence" (not merely "endeavour"), i.e., to make
it our business, to keep this unity. The unity is there; it is
not for us to fashion it. The Church is one, a Divine entity.
The Spirit of God makes it so. As the presence of the Holy Spirit
imparts to the Church its fitness to be God's Temple (2:22), so
His power imparts its unity to it. That unity is not formed by
man, nor by any ecclesiastical organization on earth. Human arrangements
and institutions may devise, and have devised, something which
possesses a show of uniformity from the natural point of view,
but the unity of the true Body of Christ of which Scripture speaks,
is spiritual in its course of development and heavenly in its
position and character, its design and destiny.
Believers, then, are not exhorted to make the unity but to
keep it. Each has a responsibility to act consistently with it,
keeping it in the bond of peace, by exhibiting those traits of
character and that conduct which are here enjoined. Such a manner
of life is necessarily connected immediately with local conditions
and circumstances. The Apostle was, for instance, directing his
injunctions to the church at Ephesus, thus bringing his general
instruction about the character of the whole Church as the Body
of Christ, to bear upon their life as a local community. By dwelling
together in harmony in "all lowliness and meekness, with
longsuffering, forbearing one another in love," they would
walk worthily of their high and spiritual vocation, and, as he
says further on, by speaking truth in love (or rather dealing
truly [12] in love), they would "grow up into Him in all
things, which is the Head, even Christ" (verse 15). Again,
"putting away falsehood, they were to speak truth, each one
with his neighbour, since they were members one of another"
(verse 25). All bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour
and railing, and all malice were to be put away from them; they
were to be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each
other, even as God also in Christ forgave them (verses 31, 32).
Thus maintaining unity in the local church, their harmonious conduct
would be in conformity with the unity of the Spirit which pervades
the whole mystical Body.
| [12] "Speaking truth," represents
the one verb aletheuo in the original. It signifies to deal faithfully,
or truly, with anyone. "The idea of integrity of conduct
as well as of truthfulness of speech is included in the word,
see Gen. 42:16, LXX, "whether ye deal truly or no"'
(Notes on the Epistle to the Galatians, by C. F. Hogg and the
writer, p. 207). |
AN UNSCRIPTURAL UNIFICATION
There is no hint here, or anywhere else in the New Testament,
of anything like a unity consisting of the combination of a number
of communities, or assemblies, delimited by geographical conditions,
or formed into earthly associations or circles of fellowship,
nor is there any hint of a number of churches bound together by
the bonds either of formulated religious creeds or of human tradition.
No matter whether such communities are organized by mutual consent
or under a church council or any form of ecclesiastical authority
centralized in a given locality, all such combinations are a distinct
departure from the plain teaching of Christ and His Apostles.
They do not constitute the unity spoken of in this passage or
any other in the Word of God. They are the outcome of human conceptions
and operations. They satisfy the aspirations of men but are contrary
to the mind of the Lord.
The unity which the believer is to give diligence to keep is
determined neither by efforts to bind churches into an earthly
organization, nor by human ideas of what is or is not a local
church. The risen and glorified Head has made provision for the
spiritual direction and care of each local assembly. The traditions
of men and the bondage, or confusion, which has been brought about
by them have naught to do with the unity formed by the Holy Spirit.
Where a local church acts in conformity with the teaching of the
Word of God, it is thereby an expression of the unity of the Spirit.
ELEMENTS OF UNITY
There are elements of unity which characterize the whole. These
are enumerated in verses 4 to 6:"There is one body, and one
Spirit, even as ye were also called in one hope of your calling;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who
is over all and through all and in all." The mention of the
Trinity, "one Spirit," "one Lord," "one
God and Father of all," is significant. The Spirit is put
first, for the immediate subject dealt with is the unity of the
Spirit. Associated with Him are the spiritual and heavenly unities
of the Body and the hope of our calling. The Body, yet incomplete,
and only a small portion of which is on the earth, is the entire
Church, formed by the Spirit of God. The hope is associated with
the Spirit, inasmuch as He is "the earnest of our inheritance"
and is in that connection called "the Holy Spirit of promise"
(1:13, 14).
The next three unities are associated with Christ. They have
to do with public witness; firstly, the acknowledgment of Christ
as Lord; secondly, the one faith, the complete Divine revelation,
which testifies of Christ; he who holds it confesses Him; thirdly,
the one baptism, an ordinance involving the public recognition
of, and identification with, Christ as Lord. Then, to crown all,
"there is one God and Father of an, who is over all"
(His transcendence and supremacy), "and through all"
(His pervading and controlling power), "and in all"
(His indwelling and sustaining presence).
All these constitute "the unity of the Spirit" (verse
3), and they are enumerated as inducements for us to give diligence
to keep this unity in the bond of peace. They have to do with
the one Church, the Body of Christ, in which all believers are
thus united to Him. Its unity is not yet visible, for the Head
is not visible, but it will become so when He is manifested and
His saints with Him.
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE BUILDING UP OF THE BODY OF CHRIST
After the description of "the unity of the Spirit,"
a unity which constitutes the high character of our calling (Eph.
4:1-6), our attention is drawn to the functions assigned to individual
members of the Body. Indeed the mention of the seven unities in
verses 4 to 6 is designed to form a basis for the setting forth
of the various forms of service given to us and the source from
whence they are derived.
UNITY NOT UNIFORMITY
Unity is not uniformity. There is diversity of gifts, a variety
of operation. "To each one of us was the grace given."
None have been overlooked. There is no room for envy at the possession
of gifts by others, or of self-glorying in the exercise of them
ourselves; they are gifts of grace; they are to function for the
glory of Christ. Grace and self-exaltation are incompatible. The
grace was given "according to the measure of the gift of
Christ." That is the principle operating in the endowment
of gifts. To each believer grace for service is supplied upon
becoming, by faith in Christ, a member of His Body, the Church.
That is the significance of the past tense "was given."
In 2:8 grace was mentioned in the matter of salvation: "by
grace have ye been saved through faith." That gives us membership
in the Church. In no other way is such membership possible. Here
in 4:7 there is an added grace
grace for functioning in the Body.
THE GIVER OF THE GIFTS
"The gift [14] of Christ" suggests the source of
the supply, the fulness which there is in Christ, and the relation
which each recipient bears to Him. Paul has already anticipated
this in the preceding chapter. His own ministry of the gospel
was 'according to the gift of that grace of God which was given
him according to the working of His power.' "Unto me,"
he says, "was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ" (3:7, 8). In his case
he mentions God the Father as the Bestower of the gift; here he
speaks of Christ as the Bestower, a testimony to the Deity of
Christ and His oneness with the Father. Whatever the nature of
the gift, Christ is the sovereign Distributer. Whatever the degree
of ability, whether the more highly gifted, or the less, the adjustment
in the Body is His work. The measure of the gift is His.
The description of the varying gifts is preceded first by a
quotation from the Psalms, which tells first of Christ's triumphant
Ascension (verse 8), and then by a statement as to the antecedent
descent which His Ascension involved, and the position and purpose
of His Ascension (verses 9, 10); all this serves to establish
the fact of His absolute prerogative and power in the distribution
of the gifts. Let us consider this a little. "Wherefore He
saith, When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive and
gave gifts unto men." Psalm 68, from which this is quoted,
is a celebration (probably of a general character, that is to
say, without pointing to any particular occasion) of Jehovah's
victory over the foes of Israel and the deliverance of His people
from the oppressor. [15]
| [14] "The word dorea, "gift,"
is used (in the eleven passages where it is found in the New
Testament) only of spiritual gifts bestowed by Divine grace.
This word and dorema, which has the same meaning, and is found
only in Romans 5:16 and James 1:17, are to be distinguished from
dosis, which directs the thought more particularly to the act
of giving; dosis is used only in Philippians 4:15, "giving
and receiving," and in James 1:17, which, taking the RX.
margin, reads, "Every good giving (dosis. the act) and every
perfect boon (dorenia, the concrete gift)." Here in Ephesians
4:7 the phrase "the gift of Christ" is not "the
gift possessed by or consisting of Christ," but "the
gift bestowed by Him." There is a further word, charisnou,
signifying distinctly "a gift of grace," and though
this is not used in the Epistle to the Ephesians, yet it is connected
with the bestowment of grace (charis), as in chapter 3:7, as
well as the present passage. |
| [15] The phrase "to lead
captivity captive," was used to express the completeness
of a victory, as demonstrated by the multitude of captives taken.
Cp. the words of Deborah's song in Judges 5:12. The abstract
noun "captivity," stands apparently for the concrete
"captives," thereby adding force to the expression.
No intimation is given in Ephesians 4:9 as to who the captives
were. The statement has been regarded as referring to the release
of the spirits of the just from Hades and their transference
by Christ into Heaven. Not improbably the reference is directly
to the complete victory of Christ over the spiritual foe, which
had formerly triumphed over his captives (cp. Is. 14:2). All
the efforts to oppose the designs of God in the Death, Resurrection
and Ascension of Christ, had been frustrated, and now, as a result
of what had been accomplished, and in virtue of the glory and
power of His own Person as the triumphant one over him who had
the power of death, as the Liberator of His redeemed and as Head
of the Church in His place of high exaltation, He "gave
gifts unto men," i.e., those on whose behalf He had triumphed
(Acts 2:33). |
CHRIST'S UNCHANGED PERSONALITY
The next verses lay special stress upon the fact of His descent
and then upon the identity of His Person as the One who having
descended likewise ascended. "Now this, He ascended, what
is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?"
(verse 9). Opinions vary as to whether this means the descent
into Hades after His death, or whether the reference is to His
Incarnation. In the latter case the phrase, "lower parts
of the earth," means the earth as consisting of the parts
lower than heaven. Whatever may be the intention in the statement,
the great fact stands out that Christ could not be the Ascended
One if He had not first descended. It is a confirmation of His
pre-existence, and served to counteract the erroneous Gnostic
theories being promulgated in the Apostles' times. So again, in
the next statement, "He that descended is the same also that
ascended, far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things."
Changes of locality meant no change in His humanity.
The Giver of the gifts is One who ascended with unchanged personality.
Coming down from heaven to enter upon a life of true manhood,
and having become, by His Death and Resurrection, the Victor over
death and him that had the power of it, He ascended in His glorified
humanity to His place of authority at the Father's right hand.
As Son of Man, while still Son of God, He had experienced all
human conditions, sin apart, and still with undissociated Godhood
and manhood He ascended far above all the heavens, that filling
all things He might meet the needs of His Church. The One who
supplies the gifts is as absolutely cognizant of human needs as
He was m the days of His flesh. He is therefore entirely fitted
to give gifts to His Church, assigning to each his appropriate
work. This is indicated by the emphatic pronoun in the original;
"He Himself gave," that is to say, He and no other is
the Provider and Bestower of the gifts.
THE VARIETY OF THE GIFTS
"And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets;
and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers." Human
appointment has no place here. The list is a series not of formal
offices but of the exercise of spiritual gifts bestowed by the
Lord. The apostles and prophets fulfilled an initial ministry
in laying the foundations of doctrine. The revelation given to
the apostles was likewise communicated to the prophets (see 3:5).
Evangelists, pastors and teachers communicated the truth already
received in respect of the gospel and the ministry of the truths
of the faith. The work of the apostles and prophets was distinctly
supernatural and temporary, until the completion of the Divine
revelation. The work of evangelists, pastors and teachers continued
and still continues. The last two are associated in a special
way, as one who teaches thereby engages in a measure of pastoral
work.
The provision of these spiritual gifts by the ascended Lord
was for the perfecting of the saints, that is to say, for the
development and equipment of each member, with the following twofold
object in view:(1) "unto the work of ministering," [16]
that is to say, for service in all its various forms, each in
harmonious relationship with others (a general ministry in which
we all share), and (2) "unto the building up of the Body
of Christ." What this verse plainly sets forth is that both
the service and the building up of the Body, by gathering in new
members and consolidating the work, are to be rendered by all
the saints. In other words, the provision of the spiritual gifts
mentioned is to enable all the saints both to serve and to do
the work of building up of the Body, and this "till we all
come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of
God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ."
| [16] Diakonia is "service,"
"ministering," not "the ministry," as if
signifying the present technical sense of an ordained set of
ministers. The prepositions pros and eis, in verse 12, make clear
the order intended. Pros, "for," "with a view
to," introduces the phrase "the perfecting of the saints;
on the other hand, the preposition eis, "unto," is
used to introduce each of the two following clauses, "the
work of ministering," and "the building up of the body
of Christ," showing that both the ministering and the building
up are intended to be the work of all the saints. |
THE COMPLETION OF THE BODY
There are three parts to the subject of the unity of the Spirit
in the 4th chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians:
(1) As to its essentials (verses 1-6); (2) as to its development
(verses 7-12, 14-16); (3) as to its ultimate state (verse 13).
In the first part, the unity, which is sevenfold, provides the
standard of conduct consistent with our calling. In the second
part the unity is shown to be developed by the ascended Lord,
who provides the requisite spiritual gifts, the object being that
the saints may be perfected in their service and may fulfil their
part in the building up of the Church, avoiding error, dealing
in truth and love, and so growing up into Christ in all things.
In the third part the finality designed is stated, and is to have
fulfillment in the completion and perfection of the Body of Christ.
In verse 13 the threefold use of the word "unto"
(eis) should be noted: "till we all attain unto the unity
of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ"
(R.V.). The 46 we all" signifies all believers as a Body,
the complete company. [17] The end in view, then, while it has
its bearing upon the life of each individual, is yet the consummation
of the whole as the glorified Body of Christ. The present operation
of the Spirit in the process of building in regard to each member,
is antecedent to the aggregate completeness. The perfect attainment
is not possible for the individual in this life, but nothing can
prevent its fulfillment in all the saints in the Divinely appointed
time and manner.
| [17] This is indicated by the
use of the article with pantes, "all"; as we might
say, "the whole of us" (cp., e.g., I Cor. 10:17, there
especially of each local community). |
CONFORMITY TO CHRIST
Again, the word rendered "attain," in its grammatical
form in the original, signifies the point of time at which the
end determined is to be realized, indicating the culminating event.
The faith and the knowledge of the Son of God are associated as
a unity. They will together reach their climax in the day to come.
Faith is the outcome of, and is inseparable from, "the faith."
The doctrines of Scripture, spoken of as "the faith,"
so called because they consist of what is to be believed, are
not given merely as a revelation of Divine truth, less still as
a mere subject for theological contemplation, but with a view
to bring to us an increasing knowledge of the Son of God; an all
this is a matter of faith on the part of believers. Here the word
for "knowledge" is, more literally, "full knowledge,"
as in 1:17.
But this, again, is not a matter simply of personal acquaintance
with Christ. It is rather that of conformity to His character,
of the manifestation of Christ Himself in His saints. This is
what is suggested by the phrase "a full-grown man."
This, too, is what is borne out by the context, both immediately
and what follows in the subsequent verses. The complete development
is defined as "the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ," for it is Christ as the Head of His Body who
fills every part, ministering His grace and power by the Holy
Spirit through His spiritual gifts in the Church. The fulness
is that which is His in His own Person as the Head and by means
of which the Body is filled, now as the members are united to
Him and hereafter in eternal completeness. The present process
of conformity to His character is brought out in the exhortations
which follow. "That ye be no longer children, tossed to and
fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight
of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking
truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, which is the
Head, even Christ from whom all the body fitly framed and knit
together through that which every joint supplieth, according to
the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase
of the body unto the building up of itself in love" (verses
14, 15, 16, R.V.).
I THE WILES OF ERROR
The first exhortations have to do with that which hinders the
development of spiritual growth. We are not to remain as infants,
spiritually immature in the knowledge and likeness of Christ.
Our spiritual foe exerts himself in unremitting antagonism against
all that makes for the glory of Christ. While, therefore, Christ
provides those in the Church to minister the doctrines of the
faith and build up the saints, the adversary endeavours to thwart
this work by false teachings. These are spoken of metaphorically
in two ways. They are winds of doctrine and wiles [18] of error
(R.V.). Winds are variable and irregular, wiles are ingenious
and subtle. Those who are subject to such errors are like a rudderless
vessel, tossed about on a stormy ocean. On the other hand, they
unconsciously yield themselves to the craftiness of the Devil.
| [18] The word methodeia is rightly
rendered "wiles" in the R.V. in this verse. The Apostle
uses it again in 6:11, "the wiles of the Devil," and
it is found in these two places only in the New Testament. In
4:14, it is in the singular number; in 6:11, it is in the plural. |
To give way to error, then, is to come under a power which
prevents that spiritual growth into conformity to Christ which
it is the gracious work of the Spirit of God to develop. In contrast
to such hindrances, that which makes for spiritual progress is
"speaking truth in love" (margin "dealing truly").
This is not a matter merely of the maintenance of moral virtue,
it is a case of that conduct towards one another which is essentially
the outcome of adherence to the truth of Holy Scripture and manifesting
it in all our ways in the exercise of the love of Christ. "No
lie is of the truth" (John 2:21). If I deal falsely I not
only act contrary to the truth but stifle its power to work in
me. I am robbing myself as well as injuring my brother, and above
all I am grieving the Holy Spirit. The truth, the revealer of
which is the Holy Spirit, binds together in love those who know
it. Possession of the truth leads to walking in the truth, for
the truth produces truthfulness (see 2 John I and 3 John 3, 4).
The exercise of godly sincerity, of love that goes hand in hand
with the truth, enables us with our fellow believers to grow up
in all things into Christ. For such conduct is the effect of His
own work as the Head, making increase of the Body unto the building
up of itself in love.
TRUTH AND LOVE
It is needful to give heed to the exhortation that, "putting
away falsehood," we should "speak truth each one with
his neighbour," remembering that "we are members one
of another" (Eph. 4:25). Love and truth are never to be separated;
they are intimately associated. Love that is pursued at the expense
of truth is mere sentiment. While it may captivate the natural
mind, it is not of God. It plays no part in the building up of
the Body of Christ. Truth that is maintained at the expense of
love is frigid theory. It lives in the element of legalism. Its
effect may be the very opposite to that which it seeks to maintain.
Faith, which links us to Christ, works by love and maintains truth,
of both of which He is the source and which therefore in the life
of the believer are expressions of His character.
When Christ fills the heart there is no room for selfishness.
False teaching and deceit have selfishness as their motive. They
belong to the old nature and are expelled by the love of Christ.
They are superseded by that self-forgetfulness which seeks the
interest of Christ and His people. Truth and love belong to the
new man, "which after God hath been created in righteousness
and holiness of truth." It is only the power of the Holy
Spirit which enables us to grow up "into all things in Him."
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE CHURCH THE OBJECT OF CHRIST'S LOVE
In the passage which follows the command, "be filled with
the Spirit," Eph. 5:18 (a passage which, we may note, in
passing, is explanatory of what being filled with the Spirit involves
in human relationships, as of husbands and wives, parents and
children, masters and servants), the subject of the relationship
of husband to wife is taken as an illustration of the relationship
between Christ and the Church. It should be observed that what
is here set forth is used simply as an illustration. That is to
say, the passage does not state that the Church is actually the
Bride of Christ. Whatever may be gathered from the other parts
of Scripture, we need to keep clearly before us the difference
between what is definitely set forth in the passage and what are
merely deductions from it. The illustration, with its spiritual
application, is beautiful and full of teaching, but any direct
statement that the Church is the Bride is absent from this chapter.
THE METHOD OF COMPARISON
The language adopted is that of comparison. The reason why
wives are to be in subjection to their own husbands as unto the
Lord, is given as follows: "For the husband is the head of
the wife, as Christ is the Head of the Church, being Himself the
Saviour of the Body" (verse 23, R.V.). The phraseology of
comparison is continued in the next verse, where the order of
the natural and the spiritual is reversed. "But as the Church
is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands
in everything." Again, husbands are to love their wives,
"even as also Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself up
for it" (verse 25). Again, and still by way of comparison,
"No man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth
it, even as Christ also the Church" (verse 29). Finally,
when the Apostle speaks about a man's leaving his father and mother
and cleaving to his wife, the twain becoming one flesh, he says,
"This mystery is great: but I speak in regard to Christ and
the church."
THE COMBINED FEATURES
While injunctions are given as to Christian conduct in the
matter of this natural relationship, the subject of the Church
which has occupied a prominent place in the earlier part of the
Epistle, is interwoven into them. There are features of the relationship
between Christ and the Church which could not all be included
in any of the figures which have been used in the earlier part
of the Epistle, those namely of the body (1:23), the city, the
household (2:19), the temple (2:20, 21), the family (3:15), and
the full-grown man (4:13). While the subject of authority and
subjection are involved, for instance, in the relationship of
the head to the body, yet there are additional features in this
respect in the simile of the relationship between husband and
wife. In the illustration of the head and the body there is union
between the one and the other, but, so far as the physical illustration
itself goes, the head does not choose the body; with husband and
wife there is choice as well as union, and love, joy and companionship.
Again, there are servants in the household, and they are chosen
for their service, but they are not related to the head of the
household; with husband and wife there is relationship as well
as choice. There may be friends in the household, but here, too,
there is choice without relationship. Again, in the family there
are love and joy, communion and relationship, but not choice.
Only in the case of husband and wife are an the conditions fulfilled
choice, union, relationship, love, joy, companionship and communion.
All are comprehended in this illustration.
These features form, in a special way, the subjects of that
part of the Lord's discourse in the upper room recorded in John
15. There He speaks of His choice of them (verse 16), of their
union with Him (there in the figure of the vine and the branches
verses 4, 5 and 16, where the word "appointed," R.V.,
is literally "set in"), of His love for them (verse
9), their mutual joy (verse 11), their companionship with Him
(verse 27), His communion with them (verse 15), and their relationship
with Him (verse 5). Thus to those who formed, as it were, the
nucleus of His Church, He unfolded, before His death, those details
which the very illustration of husband and wife in Ephesians 5
provides.
UNITY AND UNION
The metaphor of the head and the body suggests unity; the illustration
of husband and wife suggests union. The former has to do with
constituent parts of a whole, the latter with the oneness of two
persons. The body conveys the thought of that which is the instrument
of the Lord's will; the simile of the wife conveys the thought
of that which is the counterpart of Himself and the object of
His love.
The similitude of the marriage state is the most lovely of
all the figures by means of which the mystery relating to Christ
and His Church is set forth. It is at the same time the most practical
in its teaching for it sets forth, to begin with, the headship
and authority of Christ over the members of the Church and their
delighted subjection to Him in the fulfillment of His will, the
great principle that moulds their character and guides their conduct;
for Christ Himself becomes the ideal and standard of their manner
of life. Further still, the illustration conveys the truth of
that holy and gracious intimacy by which the Lord unlocks the
secrets of His heart, making known His mind, His counsels and
His love; while on the other hand it suggests that living response
which those who enter into the joy of this communion make to Him.
THE PRACTICAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
It was the delight of Christ ever to abide in the Father's
love and so to fulfil His will. This is the very fount of His
love to us and His desires toward us, as is expressed in His words
of grace "Even as the Father hath loved Me I also have loved
you: abide ye in My love. If ye keep My commandments, ye shall
abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father's commandments,
and abide in His love" (John 15, 9, 10). Let us, then, abide
in His love, as a faithful spouse does in her husband's love.
The practical acknowledgment of this relationship is intimated
in what is said of Sarah, who "obeyed Abraham, calling him
Lord" (I Peter 3:6). Not by mere exclamations of faithfulness
and loyalty, or loud protestations of adherence to the truth,
is He to be acknowledged as Lord, but by manifestation of that
character which is conformed to His own, which indeed involves
the maintenance of Divine truth, but therein displays His virtues
and excellences. Christian conduct consists in truth expressed
in love, love which is a Spirit-kindled response to His. "We
love because He first loved us" (I John 4:19, R.V.).
THE CLEANSING AND PRESENTATION
"Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for it."
Displayed in all its fulness at the Cross, His love is undiminished
now that He is in glory. The love which led Him to the Cross had
this as its object, that, having cleansed the Church by the washing
of water with the Word, "He might sanctify it," and
might "present it to Himself." Christ did not sanctify
the Church in order that it might be His possession, He made it
His possession in order that He might sanctify it. It belongs
to Him inasmuch as He gave Himself for it, and it is destined
to be just what He designed that it should be, the great expression
of His character as well as the object of His care. It is in its
heavenly sphere and destination that He will present it to Himself
and it will then be entirely suited to His own glory.
Since there are things which are contrary to His character
in the life of believers here below, His present work is to cleanse
them by the laver of the Word of God. This is the Divine purpose
for all who as true believers constitute the Church. How readily,
therefore, should we respond to this His gracious operation, realizing
what He has done in giving Himself up for us, what His will is
for us now, and the destiny to which He is bringing us! How ardently
we should desire just those things that He desires, and do only
that which pleases Him, that our life may be entirely lived for
Him!
THE NOURISHING
Let us ever remember that we are the objects of that tender
care and love which are expressed in the words "nourisheth
and cherisheth." "Even so ought husbands to love their
own wives as their own bodies." To love one's wife is to
love oneself. "For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth
and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the Church" (verse
29, R.V.). What is said about Christ's love for the Church is
given as the pattern of the husband's love for his wife, but what
constant and loving care on the part of Christ, what provision
for all our needs, are herein set forth! As one ministers nourishment
to his body so that it may be healthy and strong, and affords
it protection and everything else designed to make it free from
that which would be detrimental to it, so is the gracious and
unremitting ministry of Christ for those who are members of His
Body, the Church.
All this is designed for our comfort. May we live in such close
communion with our Lord that we may enjoy the realization of His
love, and respond by our love to the impulse of His. Let us remove
from us all that would hinder this holy communion, and, entering
into His desires towards us, find accordingly our delight in Him.
PART II
THE CHURCHES
CHAPTER NINE: LOCAL CHURCHES
The word ekklesia is never used in the New Testament in the
singular number to embrace all the believers in a country, or
district, or the churches in any locality. Such companies of believers
are spoken of in Scripture as "churches of God," as
in I Cor. 11:16; 1 Thess. 2:14; 2 Thess. 1:4. The phrase in the
singular, "the church of God," is correspondingly used
to designate a company of believers acting together in local capacity
and responsibility. Thus Paul addresses his first Epistle to the
Corinthians to "the church of God which is at Corinth"
(1:2. See also 10:32, and 11:22). He uses the same phrase with
reference to the church at Jerusalem, which he had persecuted
(I Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13). So with regard to the church at Ephesus
in Acts 20:28. Obviously the phrase is used of the local church
there, for the Apostle, in addressing the elders of the church
whom he had called to him at Miletus, exhorts them to take heed
to themselves and "to all the flock, in the which the Holy
Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed the church of God which He
purchased with His own blood" (R.V.). That the church in
which they were to exercise their responsibility is spoken of
as a flock, and the whole character of the injunctions given to
them, indicate that the phrase is used there simply of the local
company.
THINGS THAT DIFFER
Similarly in his instructions given to Timothy as to the character
and qualifications of a bishop, he says, "If a man knoweth
not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church
of God?" (I Tim. 3:5). Again, the Epistle is written that
he may "know how men ought to behave themselves (lit., 'how
it is necessary to behave,' i.e., for all in the assembly) in
the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar
and ground of the truth" (verse 15). The description of the
kind of person referred to is general, but the application is
to any given local assembly, as is clear from the facts that Timothy,
who had been at Ephesus, was exhorted in the same Epistle to stay
there for a time, and that the Apostle was hoping to come shortly
to him there (3:14). If we speak of the whole Church, the Body
of Christ, as "the Church of God," we confuse things
which Scripture differentiates, and we miss the import and teaching
conveyed by the term, which has to do with local responsibility
and testimony.
The plural, "churches," is used in other descriptions
of such companies, besides that already referred to. They are
spoken of as "churches of Christ" (Rom. 16:16), "churches
of the saints" (I Cor. 14:33), or, topographically, as churches
of a particular country (I Cor. 16:1; 16:19; 2 Cor. 8:1; Gal.
1:22), or, ethnographically, as "the churches of the Gentiles"
(Rom. 16:4). None of the phrases containing the word "churches"
is used with reference to the entire Church, the Body of Christ,
and this for the obvious reason that the Church which is His Body
is one and indivisible and to it the plural would be inapplicable.
SCRIPTURAL TERMNOLOGY
The importance of having regard to the Scriptural use of these
terms lies especially in this, that deviations therefrom support
unscriptural organizations, sectarian views, racial antipathies,
and merely human traditions concerning the true Church. The application
of the word "church" to the Christians or to the churches
in a whole country, as, e.g., "the Church of England,"
"the Indian Church," or "the Church in China,"
or again, to any section or branch of professing Christians, is
unwarranted by the Scriptures.
Hence the importance even of guarding against the term "Indigenous
Church." The expression is subversive of the maintenance
of that true and spiritual position and relationship the realization
of which is necessary for our fulfillment of the will of God.
A believer of Chinese nationality is as much a foreigner spiritually
as the missionary from Europe or elsewhere who brought him the
gospel. Plants of the Heavenly Father's planting are not "indigenous"
in the spiritual realm; they have been transplanted by the Holy
Spirit (cp. Col. 1:13). Churches of God as such should know no
racial distinctions.
We have already pointed out that it is contrary to the teaching
of Scripture to use the word to designate all believers now living
in the world, or for any religious system to apply the term to
all its adherents in the world. The phrase "the Church on
earth" finds no support in the Scriptures. The Church is
heavenly in its constitution and organization; its seat and centre
are in Heaven, where its one and only Head is. The Word of God
does not countenance any organization or amalgamation of churches,
whether in a locality or in the world at large.
A SANCTUARY
The terms "churches of God" and "churches of
Christ" indicate that they are each His possession, a possession
purchased by His blood. As "churches of the saints"
they consist of those who, by the operation of the Spirit of God,
have been set apart to Him for His glory. Not only so, they are,
in each case indwelt, as churches, by the Holy Spirit, and hence
are I as each one a temple, of God. To the church in Corinth the
Apostle writes, "Know ye not that ye are a temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man, 4**Uoycth
the temple 4 of God, him shall God destroy; for
the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (I Cor. 3:16,
17, R.V.). The word used for "temple" here (as also
in 6:19, and again in 2 Cor. 6:16, of the body of the believer
and of the whole Church in Eph. 2:21) is naos, which is derived
from a word meaning "to dwell." The earthly temple in
Jerusalem was most frequently called hieron ("the divine
or dedicated place"). That term was applied to the whole
building, and is never used in the New Testament in the figurative
sense, as in the passages in the Epistles just referred to. Naos,
while occasionally used of the whole earthly temple, more frequently
signified the inner sanctuary, the holy of holies." [20]
| [20] It was the naos into which
Zacharias entered (Luke 1:9, 10), while the people were without
in the hieron. Into the naos the Lord did not enter during His
ministry on earth. He drove out the money changers from the hieron,
not from the naos. Zacharias was slain between the temple, naos,
and the brazen altar, which was outside. The priests alone went
into the naos, and there Judas in his despair entered and cast
down the money before them. |
Many circumstances in connection with the Temple, as with the
Tabernacle, find their spiritual counterpart in a local church.
Of this we speak more fully later. How solemn and yet what a high
and holy privilege it is to be a naos, a sanctuary, a dwelling-place
for God, a house of God (oikos, from oikeo, "to dwell")
as the local church is called in I Tim. 3:15! "Holiness becometh
Thine House, 0 Lord, for evermore." Evil doctrine, evil association
and evil practice are to have no place there. Where such exists
it is to be judged and put away. It is a place where God's honour
dwells (Ps. 26:8, lit., "the place of the tabernacle of Thy
glory"). There the honour of the Name of Christ is to be
maintained, and those who name His Name are "to depart from
iniquity." It is a place of worship, and worship can only
rightly be offered in "the beauty of holiness." It is
a place of witness for God, where the testimony to His attributes,
His character and His Word are to be maintained; for the house
of God, the church of the living God, is "the pillar and
ground (or stay) of the truth," and the witness is to be
that not only of oral testimony but of Christian character and
conduct. Those who belong to it are to live "in righteousness
and holiness of truth."
CONSISTENT CONDUCT
It is with that in view that the Apostle, in the passage just
referred to, says that the object of his Epistle is that Timothy
may know "how men ought to behave themselves in the house
of God" (R.V.). That is to say, instruction is given concerning
the believers who form a local church, in regard to their general
life, conduct and service, so that the assembly itself may be
a living testimony for God.
Both in doctrine and practice, our spiritual foes are constantly
and assiduously set against such a testimony. Collectively as
well as individually, we need to be much in prayer and intercession
and ever on the watch, lest the Lord's Name should be brought
into dishonour, and the witness He designs be marred by our inconsistencies.
CHAPTER TEN: "JESUS IS LORD"
That part of the first Epistle to the Corinthians which treats
specially of the distribution and exercise of spiritual gifts
in a local church, is introduced by a declaration concerning Christ
Jesus as Lord: "No man speaking by the Spirit of God saith,
[21] Jesus is anathema; and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but
in the Holy Spirit" (I Cor. 12:3, R.V.). The test of the
witness is the due acknowledgment of Christ. The two utterances,
"Jesus is anathema" and "Jesus is Lord," were
the battle cries of opposing spiritual forces. Readily would the
words of execration spring to the lips of hostile Jews. "Anathema"
designated that which was devoted to God for destruction under
His curse. That was how the rulers of the Jews, and the people
after them, regarded and treated Jesus of Nazareth. That was how
they instigated Gentiles to do the same, and the utterances became
the glib expression of Satanically-inspired antagonism, whether
on the part of Jew or Gentile, to the gospel and the Person whom
it proclaimed. Doubtless, upon occasion, when testimony was being
given by the preachers of the gospel, or in the midst of an assembled
church, the witness would suddenly be interrupted by the blasphemous
cry "Jesus is anathema," uttered by opponents of the
truth.
| [21] The words "speaking"
and "saith" stand for two different words in the original,
laleo and lego. Laleo signifies an utterance of human language
in contrast with silence; it stresses the fact that speech is
being uttered. Lego represents a statement or discourse in its
orderly reasoning; it stresses the meaning and substance of what
is spoken. |
THE GREAT ESSENTIAL
"Jesus is Lord;" that was the witness of the faithful.
It sums up the doctrines of the gospel. It was the great central
truth. It formed, therefore, an essential part in the ministry,
'not only of gospel testimony itself, but of the foundation thereby
laid in the formation of local churches.
The acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord marks the beginning of
the life of a believer. It is an element of that faith by which
he is saved and becomes a child of God: "If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom.
10:9). [22] That is, "the word of faith" which is preached
(verse 8).
|
[22] The confession of Christ as Lord is put
first, presumably, for the following reasons:
1. It is appropriate to the order, mouth and
heart, verse 8.
2. The order is in agreement with the order
in verses 6 and 7, verse 6 speaking of Christ's present position
in Heaven, verse 7 of His resurrection.
3. The confession of Jesus as Lord provides
a distinctive and evident difference between those who have been
justified by faith and those who are seeking righteousness by
their own works.
|
With a special significance this passage in Rom. 10, which
deals with the basic ministry of the preaching of the gospel,
stresses His title "Lord." "The same Lord is Lord
of all" (verse 12, R.V.), that is to say, of Jew and Gentile
alike, "and is rich unto all that call upon Him; for whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." The
acceptance, then, of Christ as Lord as well as Saviour is essential
for faith, and the proclamation of Christ in both respects is
the responsibility of the evangelist.
THE FULL COMMISSION
That the work of the preachers of the gospel was not simply
that of evangelization, is clear from the narrative of the Acts
and from the Epistles. The service in which they were engaged
had wider responsibilities. Gospel ministry was designed to issue
in a corporate testimony. Hence, by means of the gospel they preached,
evangelists are spoken of as laying the foundation of churches
(I Cor. 3:10).
The commission given by the Lord Himself intimates this wider
scope. "Go yeand make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded
you" (Matt. 28:19). The incorporation of believers into local
companies had been definitely inculcated by Him. Besides His intimation
concerning His formation of His entire Church (16:18), He gave
unequivocal instructions as to His design for the existence of
communities, gathered in His Name, conditioned by local circumstances,
and enjoying His spiritual and continued presence (18:17-20).
These were not already existent Jewish companies, as has been
supposed. The teaching given by the Lord as recorded in the context
makes clear that He had in view not only His disciples but those
who would become so by their instrumentality.
APOSTOLIC METHODS
The record in the Acts of the Apostles relating to the founding
and formation of local churches is significantly in keeping with
the Lord's instructions in His commission regarding making disciples
and teaching them to observe all that He commanded. No sooner
do we read of the effects of the gospel in Antioch in Syria on
the part of the scattered members of the church at Jerusalem,
than we learn that a church has been formed in the northern city;
so that those who go there as servants of God are able to gather
together "with the church" (11:26), and the believers
so gathered are spoken of as "disciples."
So again, as the gospel spreads, not only are churches formed
in every place, but the saints are described as "disciples."
They were "disciples" who stood around Paul after his
stoning at Lystra (14:20). At Derbe he and Barnabas preached the
gospel and "made many disciples" (verse 20, R.Y.). From
thence they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch "confirming
the souls of the disciples" (verses 21, 22), and after arriving
back at Antioch in Syria they are said to have tarried there with
the disciples.
"Go yemake disciples," said the Lord. Now while believers
are spoken of as "brethren" in relation to one another,
they are designated as "disciples" in relation to Christ
as their Master and Lord. Disciples are those who have learned
His Will and seek to carry it out in that relationship. "Ye
call Me Master, and Lord; and ye say well; for so I am. If I then,
the Lord and Master, have ... ye ought also to.. ." (John
13:14). In Acts 9:1 believers (not simply the Apostles) are distinctly
called "the disciples of the Lord."
COLLECTIVE ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Since, then, confession of Christ Jesus as Lord marks believers
from the time of their conversion, and their life as His disciples
gives proof of their recognition of their relationship to Him
in this respect, so in their collective capacity, as constituting
churches, it is their high privilege and responsibility to acknowledge
Him as Lord by the fulfillment unitedly of all that He has commanded.
Only as an assembly owns Christ as Lord, can it be built up and
ordered according to the Divine will. Only when Christ has His
rightful place in a local church can it be constituted according
to God's design. Only adherence to what is taught in the Word
of God will meet with His approval.
That Jesus Christ is Lord betokens the authority committed
to Him by the Father, who has made Him "both Lord and Christ."
The measure in which His authority over a local church is recognized
by it is the measure of its spiritual vitality and power. In virtue
of His authority He has Himself appointed the ordinances and exercises
His prerogative in the provision of spiritual gifts in each assembly
and in the functioning of each member in the power and operation
of the Spirit of God.
THE EFFECT OF THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The genuine acknowledgment of Christ as Lord will keep the
saints f4ithful in their adherence to the Scriptures in these
matters, and in the recognition of the presence and work of the
Holy Spirit in matters of worship and service. They will be likewise
kept separate from the world's religions as well as its principles
and ways, its ambitions and follies. The fulfillment of the will
of their Lord will be their consuming ambition, if they are indeed
true to Him, and this will involve their repudiation of the traditions
of men, of human accretions to the faith "once for all delivered
unto the saints" (Jude 3), and of all that undermines its
doctrines as they are set forth in the Scriptures of truth.
The craft of Satan is ever at work to beguile us from allegiance
to our Lord. We need, then, to receive the exhortation He gave
to His disciples in this matter, when He warned them against lip
confession, against mere profession of faith, and the imagination
that service is being rendered to Him while all the time His revealed
will is being ignored. His words demand our careful attention.
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father
which is in heaven" (Matt. 7:21). His will is not far to
seek. It is set forth with such clearness in the Holy Scriptures
that none who genuinely seek to know His mind need err therein.
Let us beware of substituting our own predilections, or the traditions
of men, or matters of our own convenience, or even the bonds of
human associations, for what He has enjoined upon us, lest, in
setting aside or ignoring His authority over us, both in our private
life and in our church capacity, we are after all found wanting.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: SPIRITUAL GIFTS
In the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, after the introductory
statement that the acknowledgment that "Jesus is Lord"
is due to the operation of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle takes
up the subject of the provision of spiritual gifts and their exercise,
with special reference to the local church. The uniform confession
of Christ as Lord produces multiform effects. The source, the
distribution and the operating power are Divine, not human: "Now
there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there
are diversities of ministrations, but the same Lord. And there
are diversities of workings, but the same God, who worketh all
things in all" (verses 4-6).
The essential element of harmony and unity is pointedly stressed
by a sevenfold mention of "the same," first as to the
Triunity of the Godhead, "the same Spiritthe same Lord ...
the same God," and then a fourfold repetition of "the
same Spirit," in verses 8-11. So in Ephesians 4, with reference
to the whole Church, the Body of Christ, stress is laid upon the
essential unity--a sevenfold oneness; there not only of the Trinity,
but of details of a basic character relating to the church.
There is a threefold diversity, first as to possession of the
gifts, then as to forms of service, and then as to their exercise:
diversity of "gifts," of "ministrations,"
of "workings." Firstly, the differing gifts are distributed
to be possessed according to the individual capacity as Divinely
prepared. Secondly, there are the varying kinds of ministration
of service. [23]
| [23] Not "administrations,"
as in the AN. The exercise of rule is not in view here. The word
is diakoniai, "ministrations," i.e., forms of service.
The gifts are charismata, gifts of grace (expressive of their
utility); they are energemata, "workings" (expressive
of their activity). |
Two enumerations of gifts follow, one immediately, in verses
8-10, the other in verse 28. The former has to do with the functions
discharged, the latter more particularly with the persons who
exercise them. The lists are not formal and exhaustive. The order
sets forth, to some extent, their comparative importance, but
the great object for which they are mentioned is to keep before
us their Divine origin, and the purpose for which they are bestowed.
"To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit withal"
(verse 7). Their rightful exercise gives evidence of the power
of the Spirit of God acting through the
