With the expanding and
strengthening of this ministry there is an increasing
enquiry and request for some concise statement as to its
spiritual history and nature. This need seems also to be
accentuated by a growing misunderstanding and
misrepresentation of it. Under considerable pressure,
therefore, and with the desire to help all concerned, I
am seeking, in as small a compass as possible, to make
available this explanation.
"A Witness and a
Testimony" is a small paper in which we seek to
minister to the Lords people every second month
such spiritual food, light, and instruction as He gives.
At the time of writing, the paper is nearing the end of
its thirty-third year of issue. Very much ground has been
covered in that extended period, and what we write here
can be but a very brief intimation of the main features
of the ministry.
Behind the written and
printed ministry there is a body of people which has
grown from a small company to a very considerable family.
This is true locally and world-wide. Most of what has
been published has first been given in spoken ministry,
either to the local company or in the periodic
conferences held usually five times each year. Some
books, however, have been written direct.
It is necessary to say
this, because we want it to be understood that everything
is vitally related to the actual and growing need of the
spiritual life of a representative body of Gods
people. Indeed, it is the people who have made it
necessary, given meaning to it, and drawn it out. This is
surely God's way of giving! This, then, is not just
booky, cloistered, or studied matter, but ever the call
and answer of living conditions.
During the years there
have been changes and developments in measure and form,
in emphasis and presentation, as there should ever be
where there is life and growth, provided that the
essential foundation remains true and unchanging.
Adjustableness in the presence of fuller light or better
understanding is an essential to true and proper growth,
and we have ever sought this grace, and shall seek it to
the end. It is not for us to speak of the appreciation
which has grown and been given such wide expression, but
we may speak of the help which we have received from the
Lord and by which we have been enabled to continue to
this day. When we say that, we say very much, for, had it
not been so, we could not possibly have survived the
many-sided effort of Satan to end this ministry, and the
so great antagonism of many who have thought that they
were doing God service in opposing it and us.
Before proceeding to
outline the message, may I make this further emphasis. It
is not truth in any merely technical or doctrinal sense
that we are wanting to propagate. We can truly say with
Paul, although now only in a secondary sense
(that is, through the Scriptures), "I received
it not from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through
revelation of Jesus Christ." It has been by being
taken into deep and painful experiences that we have come
to see God's Son in the greater fulnesses of His
significance, and that we can truly say that every fresh
ray of living light has been born out of dark and bitter
travail. So we would have it; for if there is one thing
more than another from which we would be saved, it is
from having our teaching not in vital relation to our
experience. God forbid that we should ever decline into a
mere 'teaching'! We desire to know no more truth than is
experimental. It is an axiom or fixed principle that
spiritual and eternal values can only be ministered as
they have proved to be living power in those who
minister. We can only comfort others with the comfort
wherewith we ourselves have been comforted of God.
Others can only really be helped by what has been the
power of life in the would-be helper. Information, by
itself, however correct and orthodox, however strongly
held in conviction and passed on in passion, will lack an
essential and indispensable quality or value for
spiritual constitution. Hence it has ever been God's way
to raise up a vessel, personal or corporate, in which His
message has been wrought by fiery ordeal. The messenger
must not only have the message in him, but he must be in
the message: not only in mind and feeling, but in
experience and being.
This being the way of
life, in setting forth the nature and content of this
particular ministry I shall follow the course of our own
spiritual history and growth, rather than work backward
from the present position. As we have said, the various
books which have come into being through the years have
been but the expression of the progressive and many-sided
emphasis in our hearts, and these embody the history of
God's dealings with us in experience and illumination.
Their value will only lie in their being able to touch
the Lord's people at that point of experience and need
which was the occasion of their being produced. Unless
there is such felt need, they will be nothing more than
words.
No one should imagine
that we think of what follows here as a 'special
revelation', or regard our experience as unique. We
positively repudiate the charge that we claim to have a
special revelation. Nothing that we may set forth is
new in itself, but all of it can be found in the Word of
God. It is only new as things are new when they come with
all the impact of a revelation to those concerned, although
others may have seen them long before. It is not the
things in themselves, but the power and life with which
they break upon us as if by revelation, that
constitutes a ministry. Therefore, no one will expect to
find here a new 'revelation', but it may be that what is
here will come to some - as it came to us - like a new
revelation. (In using the plural, 'we' and 'us', in
this statement, I refer to the company, here and
scattered world-wide, of whom I know these things to be
true.)
It was after years of
Bible teaching, evangelical ministry, missionary
enterprise, and varied Christian activities that the Lord
brought us, in His own effective way, to see, as we had
not seen before -
The
Fuller Meaning Of The Cross
This was the first stage
in an altogether new life under an open Heaven. As we
came to see subsequently, the Cross (or its type - the
Altar) was ever God's new starting-point in the
realization of His full thought. Starting-point, we say;
for Calvary is not an end in itself, but the beginning of
everything. As to the objective meaning of the Cross,
there was no need for any adjustment. The great values of
the Lamb slain, as related to the first stage or phase of
Christian experience, were there, thank God. Deliverance
from the judgment resting upon the world; deliverance
from condemnation and death; deliverance from the tyranny
or the bondage of an evil conscience - all in virtue of
the righteousness which is by faith in that Righteous One
who offered Himself without spot to God for us: this was
where we stood, by His grace. What Christ by His Cross
was and is for us was our anchor-ground. The
apprehension and appreciation of all that has never
ceased to grow, and is deeper, fuller, stronger to-day
than ever.
Moreover, we know quite
well that this basic position is an object of Satan's
unending assault and bitter antagonism. And it will be so
to the last. He knows quite well that everything else is
jeopardized and frustrated if he can shake a believer's
position as to what Christ is for him or her. Who
is of any use to God or men, in eternal values, who is
not settled as to his or her acceptance in the Beloved?
Who can count in any realm spiritually who has not a
settled assurance that in Christ Jesus they are
accounted righteous, whatever they may be in themselves?
Every fiery dart of the evil one will get home if the
breastplate of righteousness and the shield of this faith
is not firmly apprehended and appropriated. Yes, the
objective meaning of Calvary - Christ crucified - is of
unspeakable importance in the matter of a believer's
standing, and we can never cease to keep this in full
view and hammer it home.
But, when we have taken
account of this and have it well settled, it may
only relate to deliverance from "Egypt". For it
is clear that all that we have said and referred to so
far is connected with translation (or
transference) out of the power of darkness into the
Kingdom of the Son of God's love. It was a mighty thing
that happened in Egypt, in virtue of the slain Lamb and
shed and sprinkled blood, and it had abiding elements and
values. But there was much more needed. While an outward
bondage was destroyed, that is, the bondage which meant
being involved in the doom of the world, there still
remained an inward bondage. Israel in the wilderness
represents the dominion of the natural life, the
self-life, the "flesh". God's people, yes!
Redeemed, yes! In the Kingdom, yes! Heirs of promise,
yes! But not getting very far; ineffective, unfruitful,
up-and-down and round-about: and always at the mercy of
the life of sense. They even, sometimes, imagined that
they might have a better time back in Egypt. A strangely
contradictory state for those who, in their better
moments, were so sure that they had been redeemed by God!
This wilderness life represented much expenditure of
energy, much laborious effort, much longing and
aspiration, much service and much religious devotion and
activity, but it never got through, and it was one big
circle, coming back, in effect, to where they were
before.
Well, it was at some
such point that the fuller meaning of the Cross was made
to break upon our greater need. It is a part of the
nature of things that we never learn in a vital way by
information. We really only come into the good of things
by being "pressed out of measure". So the Lord
has to take much time to make spiritual history. When at
length our eyes are open, we cry, O, why did I not see it
before! But everything else had to prove insufficient
before we could really be shown, and that takes time.
Thus it was that we were turned in that dark hour to
Romans chapter six, and, almost as though He spoke in
audible language, the Lord said: When I died, you
died. When I went to the Cross I not only took your sins,
but I took you. When I took you, I not only took
you as the sinner that you might regard yourself to be,
but I took you as being all that you are by nature; your
good (?) as your bad; your abilities as well as your
disabilities; yes, every resource of yours. I took you as
a "worker", a "preacher", an
organizer! My Cross means that not even for Me can you
be or do anything out from yourself, but if there is
to be anything at all it must be out from Me, and that
means a life of absolute dependence and faith.
At this point,
therefore, we awoke to the fundamental principle of our
Lord's own life while here, and it became the law of
everything for us from that time. That principle was:
"nothing of (out from) Himself", but "all
things of (out from) God".
The Son can do
nothing of (out from) Himself, but what He seeth the
Father doing: for what things soever He doeth, then the
Son also doeth in like manner' (John 5:19).
"I can of Myself
do nothing: as I hear I judge" (John 5:30).
"My teaching is
not Mine, but His that sent Me" (John 7:16).
We saw that this
explains so many strange and - naturally - perplexing
things in His behavior: acting and refusing to act; going
and refusing to go; speaking and refusing to speak.
Later, we came to see that this is the whole meaning of
life in the Spirit, and that it is an altogether
different life from the natural ways of men, even of
Christian men (more on this later). At the time of
this seeing, it was a matter of this law becoming
basic, absolute, and ultimate, and it was something
totally different from what had been in all our ideas and
activities in Christian life and work.
Such a revelation, if it
is to be a staggering and breaking thing, so that there
is no strength left in us, requires a background of much
vain effort. But then, it carries with it a great
implication. While an end is written large in the Cross,
and while that end is to be accepted as our end
indeed, so that there can be no more of anything
so far as we are concerned, Jesus Lives! and that
means boundless possibilities.
Thus we came to see that
the Red Sea and the Jordan are but two sides to the one
Cross. Both symbolize the spiritual death and
resurrection of the believer, but the latter carries it
into another realm. Jordan sees the deliverance from
judgment, death, and doom, carried on to deliverance from
self; it is the practical disconnection of what is
dead from what is risen. In the first it is my sins; in
the second it is my self At the crossing of the Jordan a
monument of twelve stones, a type of the Israelites
themselves, was left buried in the bed of the river, as
if to signify that the self-life of the wilderness was to
be henceforth reckoned as judged and ended as absolutely
as was the bondage to Pharaoh. And then another memorial
of twelve stones was taken from the bed of the
river and placed on the Canaan shore, as a type of
themselves, as risen not only to newness of life, but
also to a perpetual and practical separation from their
dead and buried selves. All this is as by union with
Christ crucified and risen: for the priests stood in
mid-stream with the Ark and its blood-stained Mercy-seat
on their shoulders, type of Christ as in death, yet
triumphing over death in virtue of His Blood: for the
first set of stones were laid in the exact spot where the
priests' feet had stood.
Israel after the flesh
in the wilderness, and Israel after the Spirit in Canaan,
while both having known the blessing of salvation from
judgment, are like two different peoples. So it was with
us. The difference is unspeakably great. Someone who had
been prominently in Christian work for many years
described the difference - when at length he knew it - as
even greater than when he first knew salvation, and that
was great. We will not attempt to set down all the
differences, but there is one phrase that puts so much of it all into expression -
an open heaven'. How the life of nature
blocks the way to the life of the Spirit! How doing, or
attempting to do, work for God in our own natural energy
closes the way to the energies of the Spirit! How our
mental strivings and intellectual labours to apprehend
spiritual truth lock the door to illumination by the
Spirit! Yes, we know something of this, but, blessed be
God, we know something of having that "natural
man" put away, and Christ in greater risen and
ascended fulness taking his place.
There is a double
tragedy that may be associated with this subjective or
experimental meaning of the Cross. On the one side, there
is the tragedy of the ignorance of so many of the Lord's
people, leading to or resulting in a wilderness history
in life and service. A tremendous amount of energy,
expenditure, effort, and strain, with spiritual results
so incommensurate. The wilderness is ever a bounded
place; limited by the horizons of sense; never
characterized by the realization of the limitless
fulnesses of the heavenly emancipation from nature.
On the other hand, there
is the tragedy that this meaning or application of the
Cross is positively refused and rejected by so many of
the Lord's people. There is a very large body of
Christians who just will not have the Cross on its
subjective or experimental side. This amazes us, but it
explains very much. If the "natural" man (not
the unregenerate man, necessarily) still exerts an
influence in the realm of Divine things, there is bound
to ensue a static system of teaching, a fixed horizon of
vision, a legal bondage to tradition, a fear of man, a
deadening domination of the "letter" as
separated from the "spirit", and many other
unhappy situations of spiritual death, endless divisions,
and spiritual pride. Paul's remedy for traditionalism and
legalism in relation to Christians, was
Christ Crucified, as see Romans and
Galatians. The same remedy was resorted to
for all the painful fruits of carnality amongst
believers, as see Corinthians.
Perhaps the repudiation
of this application of the Cross is due to the fear of a
too great subjectivity: that is, a turning of people in
upon themselves. It is true that introspection is a sign
of weakness and can lead to certain paralysis - indeed,
it can breed very many evil things; but introspection is
a misapprehension of the subjective side of the
Cross. It would indeed be unsafe and disastrous for
anyone to 'take up' such 'teaching', were they not
already settled and established in that objective aspect,
which settles once and for all the question of "all
righteousness" and acceptance in Christ through
faith in His perfections as for us. No; Israel in Canaan
did not represent introspective self-occupation and
morbid engagement with how much more they personally had
to be crucified. They were free, and free to do the
Lord's business. The 'Jordan' meaning of the Cross,
carrying, as it does, the Red Sea aspect into
the realm of self-life, means freedom from self, and it
is only a contradiction of the Cross to be still
engrossed with self-crucifixion. But 'Jordan' is a big
crisis, with an abiding application and progressive
outworking.
The crisis is like the
touch upon the sinew of Jacob's thigh. The strength of
nature is definitely and permanently crippled, so that
"Jacob" will carry that veto to his last day,
when he will still be "leaning upon the top of his
staff". The progressive outworking will be in the
discovery of how much there is that we cannot do -
are not allowed to do - of ourselves, because
of that basic forbidding of the Cross. This may take us
as far as it took Paul, who in one unparalleled
experience said:
"We were weighed
down exceedingly, beyond our power, insomuch that we
despaired even of life" ("despaired"
here means there seemed no way out for life'):
"yea, we... had the sentence of death within
ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in (upon) God which raiseth the dead" (II
Cor. 1:8-9).
The working of the Cross
here is a subjective-objective matter, and has nothing to
do with our standing or acceptance, but rather with the fulness
of Christ. Because the importance of this crisis and
process has to be emphasized to Christians, many have
allowed it to enter into the wrong realm and almost carry
them back into Egyptian bondage. If the Lord
brings us to the despair of Kadesh-Barnea and then shows
us Romans 6, or Galatians 2:20, we must capitulate
to our death position with Christ as to ourselves, just
as we did as to our sins; and we must have a faith
understanding with the Lord, firstly that the thing is
so, whether we immediately realize it or not; and then
that He is going to take us by the way that will reveal
what the new position is and implies. We shall
undoubtedly discover that there was far more included in
the 'death' than we had any idea of; but the new position
will mean enablement to acquiesce.
We have said that this
'Jordan' experience of the Cross is a crisis - and what a
crisis it is! It is not only the end of one realm, it is
the opening up of and entering upon a new one. So it
proved to be with us, as with Israel. Through this
experience we entered into a great expanse of spiritual
life, light, and liberty. But then several major things
began to come into view. Of course, the first of these
was -
Life
In The Spirit
We do not mean that
there was no knowledge or experience of the Spirit before
this. As with Israel, the very deliverance from Egypt and
government in the wilderness was by the Pillar of Cloud
and Fire; so we had known that sovereignty and grace. But
Jordan marked a development in this matter. Joshua stands
for ever as a type of the energies of the Holy
Spirit in relation to the full thought of God.
These energies stood over against the poor fruitless
energies of man's own soul.
For us this had a
definite subjective meaning: it meant that the Spirit's
sword or knife cut clean in "to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit". There came about the
recognition of the fact that the soul is one thing and
the spirit is another, and that it is the latter through
which the Holy Spirit realizes all the purposes of God.
The soul is ourselves in intelligence, will,
feeling and energy. It is not in our souls or ourselves
that the Holy Spirit dwells, but in our spirits, and the
renewed and indwelt spirit is the organ of Divine
knowledge, purpose, and power. Life in the Spirit is only
possible as this distinction is made. We have covered the
ground of this distinction in a book entitled "What
is Man?" and our object now is only to indicate the
steps of spiritual progress. This life in the Spirit,
then, means a new realm of spiritual knowledge and
understanding, which is closed, very largely, even to
Christians, if they have not known the meaning of death
and resurrection union with Christ in its relation to the
natural man, man in his natural constitution. Such may
have the information which is given by the Scriptures on
all matters, and even teach these things - so did we; but
there is all the difference of life and death between
this and being in the living good of the truth. Life in
the Spirit, then, means another life, another knowledge,
another energy, another capacity.
Then, of these
outstanding features of the new sphere, one that very
quickly came into view was the inclusive fact that life
was thenceforth "in the heavenlies", and this
was nothing abstract and mythical. It was to involve us
in the most practical issues.
Once again, Israel's
history was in the course of being repeated spiritually.
In their case there was a development, even with Joshua.
True, he represented - and continued to represent - the
energies of the Holy Spirit, but now another feature
appeared as peculiarly associated with the new place.
This is described thus:
"And it came to
pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his
eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a Man over
against him with His sword drawn in His hand: and Joshua
went unto Him, and said unto Him, "Art Thou for us,
or for our adversaries?" And He said, "Nay; but
as Captain of the host of the Lord am I now come."
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did
worship, and said unto Him, "What saith my Lord unto
His servant?" And the Captain of the Lords
host said unto Joshua, "Put off they shoe from they
foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy."
And Joshua did so" (Joshua 5:13-15).
The new feature which is
brought in at this point is that of Sovereign Headship in
the heavenlies in relation to spiritual warfare. The
"Lord's host", the "Captain", and the
"sword drawn" are very significant words. What
is signified is that the Holy Spirit is not just abstract
or unrelated power, neither is He present in His own
name. He and His energies are related to, and are the
servants of, a Sovereignty, a Throne. The Lord Jesus has
been exalted to the right hand of the Majesty in the
heavens. He is said to have been given that place till
His enemies shall have been made the footstool of His
feet. All authority has been given unto Him in heaven and
on earth. There is a mighty hierarchy of evil occupying
the heavenlies and making war in countless ways against
that heavenly Kingdom of God's Son. Paul's well-known
description is:
"Principalities...
powers... world-rulers of this darkness.... spiritual
hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies"
(Ephesians 6:12).
It is precisely in
relation to the destruction and ultimate casting out of
this system of evil powers and intelligences that the
Holy Spirit is here. He and God's Son are one in Godhead,
and therefore in Divine Person, and He is here as Christ
in the captaincy of the Lord's host. He is the mighty
energy of that "all authority", that Throne.
His it is to lead and energize the people of God against
the spiritual opponents of God's purpose.
Thus, it was not long
after our coming into the fuller meaning of the Cross, as
to the self-life, that there broke upon us this great
fact that life in the Spirit is life in the heavenlies
and life in the heavenlies is meant to be a life of
reigning and dominion. Again, this is a life of warfare;
but in this realm and in this work it is a
case, not of appealing to the Throne, but of operating or
functioning as from the Throne. It is bringing that
Throne to bear upon the enemy in his hold and his
devices.
Whenever the Lord has
brought in livingly something of His heavenly order,
either initially or by recovery, He has done so with such
evident tokens of it being of Himself that you never
forget. For us, when this broke upon us, there was a
period in which the tokens were so clear and many as to
keep us in a state of wonder. The impact of the Throne
was brought - through prayer - to bear upon all kinds of
situations in which the enemy was very definitely
implicated, and those situations were released. We are
concerned now with spiritual principles, not with
examples. Through the years there has been much spiritual
education, and the battle has been carried into deeper
realms, more and more away from the surface to the great
ultimate spiritual issues of life and death, but the
truth and principle remain the same, and we remain there
in the positive testimony to the absolute Lordship of
Christ in the universe.
But we were to learn
more yet of the Divine mind, and so, in keeping with the
Scriptures, we found the Lord bringing a further matter
to bear upon us. Each fresh step included what went
before and carried it further. The next thing, into the
spiritual value and significance of which we found
ourselves being led, was:
The
Heavenly Nature, Vocation,
And
Destiny Of The Church
As The
Body Of Christ
That which the Lord had
done in us through the deeper work of the Cross had,
among other things, resulted in a strange detachment in
spirit from the earthly aspect of things
religious. We found ourselves lifted spiritually from the
forms and systems, the titles, designations, divisions,
and orders of Christianity as here known amongst men; and
our concern was for "all saints" without
discrimination. But the Lord very definitely took us in
hand to show us in a positive way the meaning of what He
had done. We saw later how much this was in keeping with
His Word throughout. The Altar always leads to the
House; pointing on to the fact that Calvary leads to the
Church. There can be no Church until there has been an
Altar, but the very object of the Altar - the
Cross - is the Church. And so, with steadily increasing
clearness and fulness, there opened to us the reality of
the Church as the Body of Christ. Its aspects or meanings
are various.
Firstly, there is the
fact that Christ's exaltation and reign is not just a
personal matter where He is concerned. When, at length,
Satan and his hosts are dispossessed of the heavenlies
and cast down, it will be done through and by the Church
in union with Christ as its Sovereign Head, and it will
be that Church - Head and Members - that will take the
place of that deposed kingdom to fulfil the governmental
purpose which they have usurped and evilly exercised in
God's universe. The Lord Jesus will reign and govern through
His Church in that age to come.
Then, as being
all-of-a-piece with this inclusive purpose, several other
things became clear to us.
It is the Church which
is of primary concern to the Lord in this dispensation.
Everything is related to that in His mind and activity.
This means, among other things, that all unrelatedness
and independence, all that is merely personal, sectional,
exclusive or separate must certainly fail to reach God's
full end or to have His seal upon it beyond a certain
point. It must inevitably stop short and be spiritually
limited. Every Divine provision is unto the
securing and perfecting of the Body (Eph. 4:14), and
individuals can only reach fulness in a related way. If
this is true then other things follow.
The Church must be on
heavenly, not earthly ground. Earthly ground will provide
contradictions of some sort. Anything which is, by its
position, interest, relationship or title, on
earthly ground, as distinguishing between the Lord's
people, is a contradiction of the Church as the Body of
Christ. None of this obtains in the heavenlies, and its
existence here means spiritual weakness in face of the
spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies. It was borne
in upon us with increasing clearness and strength that
consistency with this light demanded that we must forsake
all partisan or sectarian ground - indeed, all ground
other than that of Christ universal in all
born-again children of God - and take the position, with
all artificial barriers down, that all such are
"one new man in Christ". How could we
honestly stand upon and for that affirmed fact and then
expect people to join some particular historical
section of Christians, when the Church is not
historical but eternal, issuing from the eternal counsels
of God and continuing unto "the ages of the
ages"?
The change of position
involved us in immediate and misunderstandings,
misconceptions, misrepresentations, ostracism, and
"evil report", being "everywhere spoken
against". The first thing said, and which cost us
the loss of some valued friends, was that the way that we
were taking put all those who did not take the same
course in the wrong. This was, of course, rather a
superficial and cheap way out of a difficulty, for the
same could be said of anyone or anything that departed
from tradition or common acceptance in any realm
whatsoever, and not least of the Lord and His apostles.
For many years we
adhered to an imposed silence and refusal to try to
explain, lest such a course should seem like
self-vindication or self-defense.
As time has gone on and
the ministry has spread so extensively, making us so
widely known, the mis-apprehensions have gained in
measure and strength. Hence, largely in response to the
appeal of friends and the necessity of the situation, we
are seeking herewith at least to clarify the position,
and, if possible, correct mistaken conclusions to which
some have come, either by reason of their own inability
to grasp the true situation, or, maybe, because of the
way in which we ourselves have put some matters.
So we return to, or
pursue, this matter of the Church. Taken out of the
general or immediate context certain paragraphs in our
books could be made to mean quite the contrary to our
intention. To begin with, we have always made the
comparative the basis of any statement. That is, we have
always made the matter one of comparison and contrast
with what God would really have if He had His full way.
Few would contend that the situation in Christianity is
as God would have it. If He had His mind
expressed, what so many Christian leaders call our
unhappy divisions, and what the World Council
of Churches has described as these man-made
divisions and mans disorder,
would not exist.
We have pronounced this
situation as wrong and not according to God's mind, and
have said - and do say - that these denominational
divisions are a menace to spiritual fulness and a
hindrance to the full purpose of God. They mean positive
spiritual limitation. We believe that this situation
would never have come about but for a low and weak level
of spiritual life. When the tide is full the dividing
'breakwaters' disappear and lose their meaning. When it
is low, they stand out stark. The difference between the
natural and the spiritual is that in the one they are a
necessity, in the other an exposure of tragedy. If, for
some reason - an evangelistic campaign, or a
spiritual-life convention - the tide rises, then we
forget, for the time being, our divisions.
When Christ becomes the all-dominating Object, then things
lose their importance. We have said that this is how
it ought to be normally and not extraordinarily.
But when we have said
this, and all that we could say of this kind, there
remain some other points which call for explanation. They
mostly come under and out of the matter of Church order.
We have intimated that
behind this ministry, and largely as the occasion and venue
of it, there is a company of the Lord's people who
regularly meet at Honor Oak, London. We believe that the
'order' of gathering, procedure, and ministry is as near
to what the Apostles sought to have as our present light
permits. We do not claim to have "yet
attained", neither do we account ourselves as
"yet perfect", but, being open to the Lord, we
are adjustable to any further leadings of the Holy
Spirit. But here again is a matter which to us is of
great importance, although it denotes another difference.
We have never followed a
pattern discovered on earth. Either we were in culpable
ignorance, blissful blindness, or providential innocence,
but we knew not of the same order obtaining already. So
far as we were concerned it seemed as though the
Lord was beginning with us at zero. Neither had we
studied the New Testament with the object of trying to
formulate a New Testament church or its order. We
have since come to believe that the New Testament does
not give a full and final pattern for reproduction and
imitation.
Thus, having set aside
all the former system of organised Christianity, we
committed ourselves to the principle of the organic. No
'order' was 'setup', no officers or ministries were
appointed. We left it with the Lord to make manifest by
'gift' and anointing who were chosen of Him for oversight
and ministry. The one-man ministry has never emerged. The
'overseers' have never been chosen by vote or selection,
and certainly not by the expressed desire of any leader.
No committees or official bodies have ever existed in any
part of the work. Things in the main have issued from
prayer. We are very conscious that mistakes have been
made, but the result of these has only served to
re-emphasize the above principles.
Baptism of believers by
immersion has clearly become the only way by which
testimony to union with Christ in death and resurrection
can truly and rightly be given. The Lord's Table is seen
to be the combination of all the Christian testimonies,
i.e., Christ's death for us; our death in Him; the
oneness of all believers in and with Him as "one
loaf' (I Cor. 10:17); and the "blessed hope" of
His coming again.
We also feel that the
Spirit's way of bearing testimony to the oneness of the
Body of Christ is by a simple act of 'laying-on of hands'
by representative members ('elders') of the Church,
particularly in the case of the newly baptized. This is
what we believe the Scriptures mean in this connection.
Reverting to the matter
of Church association or connection, let two
things be said with strong emphasis. One: we sincerely
recognise the sovereignty of God over all that we do not
believe to be His first and full will. While the
sects and denominations, 'missions' and
institutions are a departure from the Holy Spirit's
original way and intention. God has undoubtedly blessed
and used these in a very real way and has sovereignly
done great work through faithful men and women. We thank
God that it is so, and pray that every means possible of
use may have His blessing upon it. This is not said in
any patronizing or superior spirit; God forbid. Any
reserve is only because we feel that there has been much
delay, limitation and weakness due to the departure from
the first and full position of the first years of the
Church's life, and because of a heart-burden for a return
thereto. We cannot accept the present 'disorder' as all
that the Lord would or could have, and this may involve
us in the charge of being 'reactionary'.
A second thing is that,
believing so strongly, as we do, that everything must
proceed from the Lord by the Spirit and not be of man, we
could never advise or influence people to leave their
'church', 'mission', or connection. This we have never
done, but have carefully avoided doing. Some have
mistakenly felt that we meant that they should do so, and
have done it. Others have acted under very definite
exercise before the Lord. We feel very strongly that this
matter must be one which involves the spiritual
life, and that it should have no less an issue at stake
than the walk with God. On the same principle we have
never felt that it was our business to try to duplicate
or reproduce this spiritual 'order' by bringing into
being churches in other places. This could easily have
been done, but we have held back. Churches, we believe,
must be the spontaneous result of a work of the Spirit
and must be born just as the individual
believer is born from above. We may yet have to have
clearer light and further leading on this matter, but
this is as far as we have seen at present.
One other practical
point must receive a mention. It is true that we have
always believed that the main purpose for which this
ministry was raised up was the feeding, instructing,
and helping of the Lord's people, so that they might do
His work more effectively. This has proved to be true,
and the Lord has wonderfully enabled and supplied unto
this. But let it be clearly understood that, however true
this may be, we recognize without question that a great
and essential part of the Church's business is that of
bringing Christ to the unsaved. If unsaved ones were not
continually being brought into the Kingdom
among us and through this ministry, we should be most
distressed, and should seek earnestly that the Lord would
show us the reason why. Hence we do seek, by very
definite ways and means, both at home and in other lands,
to bring souls to the Saviour. Many have gone from us,
during the years, into many parts of the world with this
specific burden on their hearts. But, even so, evangelism
is a related matter and not an end in itself. We repeat:
It is the Church which is the primary and inclusive
concern of the Lord in this dispensation.
As the years have passed
we have found that, without premeditation, we have been
increasingly occupied with God's one end - the fulness of
Christ, and the ministry in all its aspects has had this
as its focal centre. What an immense range and wealth
there is in that clause: "to sum up all things in
Christ"! Yes, it is Christ and His fulness! An
adequate apprehension of Him will emancipate us from all
smallness, earthboundness, and time-serving.
There are other aspects
of this ministry which have given rise to
misapprehension, but I trust that this much that has been
written here will - at least - show that there is
a meaning to it which is not that given by some, and a
meaning of no small importance to all who seek the truth.
To sum up, we feel very
strongly and positively that the Word of God throughout
shows that God would have that at the end which
corresponds with His thoughts at the beginning. There is
ever and anon a call-back to "first love",
"first works" and beginnings. With
Israel this is the clear burden of the Prophets. Before
the Apostles had gone they were under obligation
to re-emphasize first principles and to warn regarding
departure. This, surely, is the burden of so much that
they wrote. It is impossible to read John's letters and
the first chapters of the Revelation, and to miss this
meaning. The Lord never finally abandons His first
position and revealed full mind. He may, in sovereignty,
use all that He can as fully as He can, but if what
obtains is other or less than that which He has
shown to be His mind, there will be severe
limitations and weaknesses.
Such limitations should
give deep exercise of heart and lead to serious enquiry,
and we believe that there are in fact many indications of
such exercise and concern at this time. If the Bible is
to be our guide, and if we are to take Church history
seriously, then both of these make one thing clear. It is
that, however long the Lord may bear with or sovereignly
use the less, He at length forces the issue of the
absolute by suffering and shaking and overthrowing, and
by compelling to the essential, the spiritual, the
intrinsic, and the full. This may be the great lesson
that China should teach, and it will - at the end - be
much more far-reaching. The fulness of Christ; the
full and accurate thought of God; the true way of the
Spirit - these are not ultimately optional. The
vindication may await the time of the big testing and
shaking, but it will as surely come, as did that of
Jeremiah, Paul, and others; some even in our own
generation.
What we have written
above has been but our testimony. We do not give it as a
Statement of doctrine, 'Principles and Practice', to
which we expect anyone to conform, or as a basis of
fellowship. The Spirit of God must bear witness to the
truth in any unprejudiced and open heart, and we are
quite content to have it so.
First published as an Editor's Letter and then reproduced by Witness and Testimony Publishers as a booklet in 1956.