THE
ASSEMBLY OF GOD,
IT’S
PRESENT STATE,
AND THE
DUTIES THAT RESULT
1.
THE LORD'S
DESIGN
OF THE FAITHFUL
HERE BELOW
It is the desire of our hearts
and, we believe, God's will for this economy, that all the children of God
should be gathered together as such, and consequently outside the world. Jesus
died, "not for that nation only (the Jews), but that also He should gather
together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." This
gathering, then, was the immediate object of Christ's death. The safety of the
elect was as certain before as after He came. The Jewish economy which preceded
His coming into the world had in view, not to gather the assembly on earth, but
to display God's government by means of an elect nation. Now the aim of the Lord is to
gather as well as save; —to realise unity not only in heaven, where the
counsels of God shall assuredly be fulfilled, but here on earth by one Spirit
sent down from heaven. "For by one Spirit were we all baptised into one body."
This could not be denied of the assembly as it is presented in the word. It may
be proved that hypocrites and wicked men crept in; but the conclusion cannot be
evaded that there was an assembly into which they crept. The gathering of all
the children of God into one body is evidently according to God's mind in His
word.
2.
POSITION OF
NATIONALISM
As to nationalism, its
existence cannot be traced higher than the Reformation; such an idea is found
nowhere before.
The only thing in the least analogous, the Gallican
privileges and the voting by nations in certain general councils, differs too
much to call for discussion. Nationalism, that is, the division of the assembly
into bodies made up of such or such a people, is a novelty which dates little
beyond three centuries, though in this system are many dear children of God.
The Reformation did not touch directly the question of the true character of
God's assembly; it did nothing directly to restore it to its primitive estate;
it did what was much more important—it put in evidence the truth of God as to
that which saves souls with far more clearness and with a far more powerful
effect than the modern revival. But it did not reestablish the assembly in its
primitive powers; on the contrary it brought about its subjection generally to
the state in order to get free of the pope, because it counted the papal
authority dangerous, and considered all the subjects of a country as
Christians.
3.
POSITION OF DISSENT
We are then agreed that the
gathering of all the children of God in one is according to the Lord's
intention expressed in His word. But I ask in passing, Can we believe that the
dissenting " churches," such as they are in this or any other
country, have attained or are at all likely to attain this end?
This truth of the gathering of
God's children scripture shews us realised in different localities; and in each
central locality the Christians residing there formed but one body. The
scriptures are perfectly clear on this. Objections are raised on the
possibility of this gathering; but they present no evidence drawn from the
word. How could this be in London or Paris? It was practicable in Jerusalem,
where more than five thousand saints gathered; and if they met in private
houses and upper rooms, they were none the less but one body led by one Spirit,
with one government in one communion, and they were owned as such. Hence at
Corinth or elsewhere a letter addressed to the Assembly of God would have
reached a known body. I can go farther` and say that evidently we ought
ardently to desire pastors and teachers to guide and instruct these
congregations; and that God did raise them up in the assembly as presented to
us in the word.
If these important truths are
owned, first, the gathering of all God's children, and, secondly, this in the
same district; if it is owned besides, that they are clearly so brought out in
the word of God, the question might seem settled.
But wait.
It cannot be denied that this
fact affirmed by the word (for it is a fact, not a theory) has ceased to exist.
The question then to settle is this: How ought a Christian to judge and act
when a state of things described in the word has ceased to exist ? You say,
Restore it. Your answer is a proof of the evil; it supposes power in
yourselves. Understand the word, I reply, and obey the word as far as it
applies to a like state of ruin. Your answer supposes, first, that it is God's
will to restore the economy after its failure; and, secondly, that you are
capable of restoring it and sent for the purpose. I doubt each of these
pretensions.
Suppose a case: God made man
innocent God gave man His law. Every Christian will confess that sin is an
evil, and that one ought not to commit it. Suppose one convinced of this truth
should undertake to accomplish the law, or to be innocent, and so to please
God. You will say at once that he is self-righteous, he trusts in his own
strength, and does not understand the word of God. A return from the evil which
exists to what God first established is therefore not always a proof of
understanding His word and His will. Nevertheless, to own what He originally
set up was good, and that we have departed from it, is evidently at least a
sound judgment.
Apply this to the assembly. We
all (for it is such alone I address) own that God formed assemblies; we own
that Christians, in a word the assembly in general, have sadly departed from
what God set up, and that we are guilty therein. To undertake to restore it all
on its original footing is or may be an effect of the same spirit as that which
leads a man to restore his own uprightness when lost.
Before I can accede to your
pretensions, you must shew me, not only that the assembly was originally such,
but that it is God's will to restore it to its original glory, now that men's
wickedness has spoilt all that and it has gone astray; and, further, to come to
facts, that the gathering of two or three, or of two or three and twenty, has
the right to call itself God's assembly, for this was the assemblage of all the
faithful. You must shew us, moreover, that you
have received of God the mission and the gift to gather the faithful, so that
you can treat those who do not answer to the call as schismatics [heretics]
self-condemned, and as strangers to the assembly of God.
And here let me insist on a
most important point overlooked by those bent on making " churches."
They have been so pre-occupied with their churches that they have lost 'sight
of the church or assembly. In scripture all the gathered saints compose the
assembly; and the church or assembly in a given place was just the regular
association of what formed part of the entire body, that is, of all the body of
Christ here below. He who was not of the assembly where he lived was not at all
of God's assembly; and he who says that I am not of God's assembly where I
reside has no right to allow that I am of God's assembly at all. There was no
such separation of ideas between the little assemblies of God in a given
district and all the assembly. Each member of Christ was in the assembly where
he lived. Nobody imagined himself to be in God's assembly if outside where he
lived. Making " churches " has separated the two and almost destroyed
the idea of God's assembly.
Returning to the case already
before us, let us now suppose the man's conscience touched, and life received
by the Spirit of God: what will be the effect? In the first place it will make
him acknowledge his state of ruin by sin and the utter lack of uprightness; in
the next place he will feel an entire dependence on God and submission of heart
to His judgment on such a state.
Apply this to the assembly
and all the economy. Whilst men slept, the enemy sowed tares. The assembly is
mined, plunged into the world and lost there, visible if you will, whilst it
ought to present as from a lampstand the light of God. If it is not in this state of
ruin, I ask of our dissenting brethren, Why have you left it? If it is, confess
this ruin, this departure from its primitive state. Alas! it is too evident.
Abram may receive men-servants and maid-servants, oxen, camels, and asses; but
his spouse is in Pharaoh's house!
What then is the effect of
the Spirit's operation? what the fruit of faith ? To own the ruin-state, to
have the conscience exercised by faith, and to be humbled in consequence. And
shall we who are guilty pretend to restore all that? No: it would but prove
that we are not humbled. Let us rather search with humility what God in His
word says of such a state of things; let us not, like a child who has
broken a precious vase, attempt to put together the broken bits in the hope of
hiding the damage from the eyes of others.
4.
CAN MAN
RESTORE THE FALLEN ECONOMY ?
I press this on such as
pretend to organize assemblies. If they exist, they are not called to make them. If, as they say, they existed at the beginning and then, ceased to exist, in this case the
economy is ruined and gone from its original standing. Their pretension then is
to restore it; and this is what they must justify: else they have no foundation
for their attempt.
It is objected that the
assembly cannot fail, Christ having promised that the gates of Hades shall not
prevail against it. I agree, if it be understood thereby that the glory of the
risen assembly will triumph over Satan, God securing the maintenance of the confession
of Jesus on the earth till He comes. This however is not the question, nor the
safety of the elect, which was sure before there was an assembly, gathered. But
if people mean to assert that the present economy cannot fail, it is a great
and pernicious error; and if so, why have you separated from the state around?
If His economy in the gathering of the assembly subsists without failure, why
are you making new " churches “? Popery alone is consistent here.
But what says the word? That
the apostasy is to come before the judgment (2 Thess. ii.); that in the last
days perilous times shall come (2 Tim. iii.), when there should be a form
of godliness without the power. It adds, "From such turn away." And
the idea that the economy cannot fall away is treated in Rom. xi. as a fatal
presumption which leads the Gentiles to their ruin. The Holy Spirit condemns
those who so think as wise in their own eyes, and teaches us on the contrary
that God would act toward the present
economy exactly as He did towards the past; —that if it continue in His
goodness, His goodness would continue toward it; if not, the economy must be
cut off. Thus the word reveals, not restoration, but cutting off in case of
unfaithfulness. To set about remaking the assembly and the assemblies on the
footing they had at first is to own the ruin, without submitting to the witness
of God as to His mind in reference to such a state of ruin. It is to act
according to our own thoughts and to rely on our own strength for realizing
them and what has been the result?
The question is not, whether such assemblies
existed at the epoch when the word was written, but, after that by man's
iniquity they ceased to exist and the faithful were scattered (and such are the
acknowledged facts), whether those who have undertaken the apostolic work of
restoring them on the original footing, and thereby re-establishing the entire
economy, have understood God's mind and are endowed with power to accomplish
what they have taken on themselves—questions widely distinct. I do not believe
that even the most zealous of those who, with a desire ever so sincere (and
David was sincere in his desire to build the temple, though this was not God's
will for him), have sought to restore the fallen economy, are in a condition to
do so, or that they have the right to impose on my faith as God's assembly the
little edifices they have reared. Nevertheless, I am far from believing that
there have not been assemblies when God sent His apostles for the purpose of
establishing them; and it appears to me that he who cannot distinguish these
two states of things, what it was of old, and its present condition, has not a
very clear judgment in the things of God.
5.
IF RESTORATION CANNOT BE
WHAT IS TO
BE DONE ?
It will be said that the word
and the Spirit abide with the assembly. This is true, God be praised; it is
this which gives all my confidence. To lean thereon is just what the assembly
needs to learn. Therefore do I ask what the word and the Spirit say of the
state of the assembly when fallen, in place of pretending to claim competency
to make good what the Spirit has said of the primitive state of the assembly. I
complain that people have followed the thoughts of men imitating what the
Spirit describes as having existed in the primitive assembly, instead of
seeking what the word and Spirit have said of our actual state.
The same word and the same
Spirit which by Isaiah bade the inhabitants of Jerusalem remain quiet and God
would deliver them from the Assyrian, said by Jeremiah that he who would go out
to the Chaldeans would save his life. What was faith and obedience in one of
these cases was presumption and disobedience in the other. Will it be objected
that this embroils the simple? I answer that those who would re-organise the assembly
ought to be well taught in the word and to abstain from pleading such
simplicity. The humbleness which feels the true state of the assembly, it may
be added, would have been preserved from a pretension which reaches forward in
an ill-founded activity.
The truth is that even those
scriptures, which have been cited already, prove that the state of the economy
at its close will be entirely opposed to that of its beginning. And the passage
quoted from the Epistle to the Romans (xi. 22) is positive that God will cut
off the economy, instead of restoring it, if it has not continued in His
goodness. The passage "My Spirit remaineth among you; fear ye not"
(Haggai ii. 5) is a very sure and precious principle. The presence of the
Spirit is the key-stone of all our hope. But this prophetic encouragement of
Haggai never led Nehemiah, faithful to God when Israel returned from captivity,
to pretend to do the work of Moses, who had been faithful in all His house
(Heb. iii.) at the beginning of that economy. No; he owns in the clearest and
most touching terms the fallen state of Israel, and that they were " in
great affliction." He does all that the word authorised him to do in the
circumstances wherein he found himself; but he never pretended to make an ark
of the covenant as Moses had done and because Moses did so, nor to establish
the Shechinah which God alone could do, nor Urim and Thummim, nor to arrange
the genealogies as long as they had not Urim and Thummim. But we are told in
the word that they enjoyed blessing which had not been since Joshua's time,
because he was faithful to God in their actual circumstances, without
pretending to do again what Moses had done and what Israel had spoilt. If he
had done so, it would have been human confidence and not obedience.
Obedience, not imitation of
the apostles, is as to this our place. It is much more humbling; but at any
rate it is more humble and sure; and this is all that I seek and ask—that the
assembly be more humble. To be content with evil as if we could do nothing is not
obedience; but no more is it to imitate the apostles. The conviction of the
presence of the Holy Spirit delivers us at the same time from the bad thought
of being obliged to abide in evil, and from the pretension to go beyond what
the Holy Spirit is working at this moment; or from considering one or other of
these positions a state of order.
Am I asked, Do you wish our
arms to hang down and ourselves reduced to do nothing till we have apostles? By
no means. I only doubt that it is God's will for you to do what the apostles have done; and I say that
God has left to faithful Christians directions sufficient for the state of
things in which the assembly is found. To follow His directions is to obey far
more truly than if one try to imitate the apostles.
6.
DIRECTION
OF THE SPIRIT
FOR THE PRESENT
STATE OF THINGS
Besides, I say that the Spirit
of God is always present to strengthen us in this way of true obedience. God's
Spirit, who foresaw all that was to befall the assembly, has given in the word
the warnings and at the same time the helps that are needful. If He warns us
that difficult times would come in the last days, and if He describes the men
of those times, He adds, "From these turn away." If He says to me,
"Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers " (2 Cor. vi. 14),
and this warning is for all times; if He tells us that " We, the many, are
one body, for we are all partakers of the one bread"; and if nevertheless
I do not find a like union of the saints, He tells me at the same time that,
where two or three are gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, He is in the
midst of them.
Those who would form
assemblies appear, though with a good desire, to have entirely forgotten the
need of power as well as of directions. When they tell us that all the directions
for the assemblies are for all times and all places, I ask if they are for
times and places when assemblies do not exist. And we always come back to •
this question: If the economy is in a state of ruin, who is to make assemblies?
Once more, Is the direction, given by the apostle for the exercise of the gift
of tongues, for our times? Undoubtedly if the gift exists; but this condition
is surely a very important modification of your rule, and the very
turning-point of the question.
7.
DOES THE WORD OF GOD AUTHORISE
THE NAMING OF PRESIDENTS OR PASTORS ?
Those
who are so strong for making and organizing assemblies quote with the most
perfect confidence the Epistles to Timothy and Titus as serving for direction
to the assemblies in all ages, whilst they were not addressed to any assembly
whatever. Observe, that the quotations from God's word on matters of most
moment for those who organise assemblies, such as the sanction of elders,
deacons, etc., can be drawn from these Epistles only. And it is remarkable
enough that the confidential companions of the apostle were left in the
assemblies, or sent to them, when they already existed, to make these
selections for them: a clear proof that the apostle could not confer that power
on the assemblies, even when assemblies existed which he had formed himself.
And yet this is presented as guidance for the assemblies in all ages!
8.
THE
CHILDREN OF GOD HAVE ONLY TO MEET,
To what end have I then
pleaded? That nothing should be done? No; but in the desire that there should
be less presumption; that there should be more modesty in what we pretend to
do; and more sorrow at the state of ruin to which we have reduced the assembly.
If you tell me,' I have
abandoned the evil which my conscience disapproves and which is contrary to the
word,' well and good. If you insist on what the word of God wishes, that the
saints should be one and united, on what it says, that, where two or three are
gathered together to the name of the Lord Jesus, He is in the midst of them, I
repeat, well and good. But if you tell me that you have organised an assembly,
or that you have united with others in order to do so, that you have chosen a
president or a pastor, and that thus you are the assembly of God in the place,
I would ask you: Dear friends, who has authorised your doing all that? Even
according to your principle of imitation (though to imitate power is a very
ridiculous idea, and " the kingdom of God is in power "), where do
you find all that in the word? There I see no trace of the assembly having
elected presidents or pastors. You say, For the sake of order it must be so. I
answer that I cannot abandon the word or swerve from it. " He that
gathereth not with me scattereth." To say that it must be is only human
reasoning. Your order, constituted by the will of man, will soon be found to be
disorder before God. If two or three only are gathered together to the name of
the Lord Jesus, there will He be found. If God raises up in your midst pastors,
or if He sends them to you, it is well; for it is a great blessing. But, since
the day when the Holy Ghost formed the assembly, nothing is found in the word
as to the assembly choosing them.
What is to be done then? you
will say to me. What faith is always to do; that is, to recognize its own
weakness, and to put itself under dependence on God. God is enough at all times
for His assembly. If you are only two or three, gather together; you will find
Christ in your midst. Appeal to Him. He can raise up all that is necessary for
the blessing of the saints, and most surely He will do it. It is not pride and
pretension. to be something when we are nothing which will assure us blessing.
In how many places has not the blessing of the saints been injured by choosing
presidents and pastors! In how many has not. this been the occasion of the ruin
of the presidents themselves! In how many places would not the saints have
assembled with joy in virtue of the promise made by Christ to two or three, if
they had not been frightened by this pretended necessity of organisation, by
the accusations of disorder (as if man were wiser than God), and if this fear
had not made them continue in a state of things which they recognised to be
bad! And in these bodies which man had thus organised, one often ruled alone or
several disputed. That which the. church particularly needs is the sense of its
ruin and of that which it lacks—a sense which makes. it take refuge in God with
confession which separates itself from all known evil, recognising the Spirit
of Christ as the only government of the assembly, and each of these He sends
according to the gift He has received, and that with thanksgiving to Him who,
by this gift, makes such and such a brother the servant of all.
To recognise the world as
being the assembly or to aim at re-establishing the assembly are two things
equally condemned by the word and destitute of its authority.
If you say to me, What is to
be done then? I answer, Why are you always thinking of doing something? To
recognise the sin which has brought us where we are, to humble ourselves
completely before the Lord, and, separating ourselves from all we know to be
evil, to lean upon Him, who is able to do all that is necessary for our
blessing, without aiming ourselves at doing anything above that which. His word
authorizes us to attempt: —this is indeed a position truly humble, but, in
proportion, blessed of God.
A point of the greatest
importance, and one which those who wish 'to organise assemblies seem to have
entirely forgotten, is that there is such a thing as power, and that the Holy
Spirit alone can gather and edify the assembly. They seem to believe that, the
moment they have a few passages of scripture, all they have to do is to follow
them. But, under the appearance of faithfulness, there is this most fatal
error: they put aside the presence and power of the Holy Ghost. We cannot
follow the word but by the power of God. The constitution of the assembly was a
direct effect of the power of the Holy Spirit. To lay aside this power while
pretending to copy the primitive assembly, is strange self-deception.
I know that those who consider
these small organised bodies as the church of God, view every other meeting of
God's children simply as an assembly of men. As to this there is a very simple
answer. These brothers have no promise which authorises them to re-form the
assemblies of God when they are divided; whilst there is the positive promise
that where two or three are gathered to the name of Jesus, He is in their
midst. Thus there is no promise in favour of the system which organises
assemblies, whilst there is one for the despised gathering together of God's
children.
And what is the effect of the
pretensions of these bodies? It is to nourish pride in their presidents and in
their members, and to disgust and repel those who compare these pretensions
with the reality. And this hinders the desired result, which is the union of
the children of God. In such or such a locality the gifts of the pastor may
produce great effect; or it may happen that all the Christians are united, and
there will be much joy. But the same thing would take place where there is no
pretension to be the Assembly of God.
9.
SUMMARY
(1)
The object to be desired is
the gathering of all God's children.
(2)
The power of the Holy Spirit
alone can effect this.
(3)
Any number of believers need
not wait till that power produces the union of all, because they have the
promise that, where two or three are gathered together to the name of the Lord,
He will be in their midst; and two or three may act in reliance on this
promise.
(4)
The necessity of ordination in
order to administer the Lord's Supper nowhere appears in the New Testament; and
it is clear that it was to break bread Christians came together on the Lord's
Day (Acts. xx. 7; I Cor. xi. 20-23).
(5)
A commission from man to
preach the gospel is unknown to the New Testament.
(6)
The choosing of presidents and
pastors by the assembly is altogether unwarranted by the New Testament. The
election of a president is merely human and quite unauthorised. It is a mere
intervention of our willfulness in the concerns of God's assembly, an action
pregnant with evil consequences. The choice of pastors is a daring encroachment
on the Holy Spirit's rights who distributes according to His own will. Alas!
for him who. does not profit by the gift which God grants to another. When
elders were appointed, it was either by the apostles, or by those whom they
directed for the purpose to the assemblies. If the assembly is in ruin, even
for such a state God is sufficient; who will lead on and guide His children if
they walk in humility and obedience, without setting about a work to which God
has not called them.
(7)
It is clearly the duty of a
believer to separate from every act that he sees to be not according to the
word, though bearing with him who unintelligently does so. And his duty
requires this of him, even though his faithfulness should cause him to stand
alone, and though, like Abram, he should be obliged to go out, not knowing
whither he goes.
10.
CONCLUSION
My
design in these few pages has not been to shew, either the ruined condition of
the assembly, or yet that the present dispensation cannot be again set up, but
rather to propose a question which usually is altogether misapprehended by
those who undertake to organise churches. The ruin of the assembly has been
briefly considered in another tract. But as a brother, to whom these pages were
read, felt that this question of present ruin was awakened in his mind, and desired
to have some proof to satisfy such as were in like manner exercised, I add a
few sentences.
(a) The parable of the
wheat-and-tare field gives us the Lord's judgment on this point—that the evil
wrought in the field where the good seed had been sown was not to be remedied
but to continue until the harvest. Let it be borne in mind that the parable has
no thing to do with discipline among God's children, but relates to the
question of a remedy for evil brought in by Satan whilst men slept, and to the
restoring the economy to its primitive footing. The question is decided with
summary authority by the Lord in the negative; for He tells us that
throughout its course no remedy shall be applied to the evil,--that the time of
the harvest, or the judgment at the end of the age, will extirpate it, and that
till then the evil is to go on. Let us here call to mind that our separation
from evil, and the enjoyment of Christ's presence with the " two or
three," are altogether distinct from the pretension to set up again this
economy now that the evil is come in. The former is both a duty and a
privilege; the latter is a fruit of pride and neglect of the word.
(b) Rom. xi., already quoted, expressly tells us that the present
dispensation shall be dealt with like that which went before it, and that if it
continued not in God's goodness, it would be cut off, not restored.
(c) 2 Thess. ii. teaches us that
" the mystery of iniquity" was already working, and that, when an
obstacle which then existed was to be taken out of the way, the "wicked
one would be revealed, whom the Lord is to consume with the breath of His mouth
and to destroy with the manifestation of His coming. Thus the evil that began
in apostolic days was to continue, ripen and manifest itself, when it would be
consumed by the Lord's appearing.
(d) 2 Tim. iii. shews the same
thing, that is, the ruin (not the restoration) of the dispensation; for in the
last days perilous times are to come and men be lovers of their own selves
(from whom the Spirit calls us to " turn away "), evil men and
seducers waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
(e) Jude also shews that the evil which had already crept into the
assembly would be the object of judgment when the Lord came (compare verses 4
and 14); and this awful truth is confirmed by the analogy of all the ways of
God with man. For man has perverted and corrupted what God had given him for
his blessing; and God has never repaired the evil, but brought forth something
better after judging the iniquity. And this better thing had been in its turn
corrupted, until at length everlasting blessing is brought in. When the economy
was a revelation to sinners, God gathered a feeble remnant of believers from
among the unbelieving, and transferred them to that new blessing which He
established instead of what had been corrupted; as for example the residue of
Jews into the assembly at Pentecost," and so on. So in Rom. xi. we are
taught that the Lord will similarly deal with the present dispensation.
(f) The same thing is seen in the Revelation. As soon as " the
things that are," or the seven churches, are brought to a close, the
prophet is taken to heaven: and all that follows has to do, not with anything
acknowledged as an assembly, but with divine providence in the world.
I have done no more than refer
to a few express passages; but the more God's word is studied, the more do we
find this solemn truth confirmed. I say then, Do all that you can, but pretend
not to do what exceeds that which the Lord has given you, which would but
betray the pretensions and the weaknesses of the flesh. Humility of heart and
spirit is the sure way not to be found fighting against the truth; for God
giveth grace to the humble. May His name of grace and mercy be forever blessed.
JND