We
expressed the feeling that, while many would agree with
the statement that a general renewal of spiritual life is
very much needed at this time, there might not be such
agreement that what is needed specifically is “a new
cruse”, an instrument conformed to the mind of God,
solely upon the basis of sympathy with the Holy
Spirit’s order and requirements. If there were
pictured some new exclusive body; some select company;
some iconoclastic movement; some spiritually superior
class - such reservations would be justified, and might
lead to suspicion, fear, apprehension. Such an attitude,
though quite unjustified, and betokening the
“flesh” and the activity of the Spoiler - the
Adversary - might lead to much unnecessary loss, and make
things more difficult for the Lord than they need have
been.
Now, we
need to recognise the fact that in the history of the
Divine reactions the instrument has always been a
definitely related or relative one, not exclusive and
isolated. Although it may have been comparatively small
in itself, it was representative and linked with the
whole company of the elect.
RELATIVE
AND REPRESENTATIVE MINISTRY
Did Esther
represent an instrument brought to the throne “for
such a time as this” - the occasion of a Satanic
plot for the death of God’s people and the wiping
out of His testimony from the earth? Then her life and
the life of the whole company - although they were in
captivity and ‘out of the way’ - were one,
however privileged and exalted may have been her calling.
She was involved in the testimony, and this brought her
into a travail concerning the whole chosen race. We shall
have more to say about Esther.
This same
relative and representative function characterized Daniel
and his brethren. They took the condition of the whole
captive nation upon their hearts, and entered into what
we might call a vicarious repentance for the sins of all
their brethren. They themselves were the
‘overcomers’ of that time, but all their
experience, revelation, and victory was in a deep
relationship to the people of God, though apostate.
When
Hezekiah was instrumental in turning back the awful
idolatry and wickedness made so complete by Ahaz, he
first of all instituted a sin-offering “for ALL
Israel” (2 Chron. 29:24), and then sent letters
throughout all Israel to call them to the Passover at
Jerusalem (30:1-10). This is striking when we remember
that Hezekiah was king over Judah, not Israel; the
kingdom being rent, and entirely schismatic, with Israel
much more idolatrous even than Judah, Hezekiah’s
heart went out to all, and did not allow the grossest
idolatry to create a spiritual abandonment of his so
greatly erring and sinning brethren.
This
principle of relationship and representation can be
traced throughout the Word, and it is a most important
one. There is no such thing as a ‘section’ of
the Body of Christ. “The body is one”, but
there are “bands” and “joints of
supply”, fulfilling special related and
representative functions or ministries. All the
“members” may not be in equally good health,
development, life, fellowship, but they are not thereby
cut off. Christ will never have a mutilated Body.
We are not
unaware of the greatness of the difficulty and problem
with which we are here confronted. At the same time we
make bold to tackle it for the Lord’s glory. If only
certain principles are recognised and established, there
is hope of improvement, at least to some extent. We must,
therefore, in the first place keep clearly before us that
it is only the really born-anew children of God, in whom
there is something of the Spirit, who are in view - not
the vast accretions to ‘Christendom’, or
‘organized’ and traditional Christianity, of
‘mixed multitudes’. However bad may be the
spiritual condition of the former, they are not to be
excluded from the SPIRIT of fellowship. That
does not mean fellowship in work or that which is wrong,
but it does mean earnest and loving solicitude for
recovery therefrom. How patiently and diligently and
ingeniously has many a surgeon or doctor worked to find
some point of contact with life in a patient whose hold
and interest was practically imperceptible! Should it be
less so with us in this so much greater battle with
spiritual death?
But the
main point is this. The Lord must have an instrument
which He has formed in the fire and to which He has given
peculiar knowledge of Himself. This instrument will
have to stand upon a peculiarly pure basis of life in
God. Whatever the rest may do, it dare not take its lead
from them. Its methods, means, and standards must be
those which have shed the less mature elements. Of some
it would stand as God’s plummet to reveal that which
is out of the straight; that which is short of God’s
best - or God’s better; for who would claim to have
reached God’s best? A much greater cost will have to
be met by such an instrument; and there will be little
place left, if it is spiritually constituted as against
mentally apprehended, for spiritual pride.
Now the
chief difficulty, as history has shown, is how to realise
such a ministry, constituted by knowledge of the Lord
through suffering, and how to hold it in relation to ALL
the Lord’s people, avoiding separation in spirit,
schism in the Body, exclusiveness and
‘watertightness’. It is the easiest thing to
withdraw to some given point and look down on all others,
as though to say: ‘We are THE people - you
must come to us.’ The Lord will lose much this way.
No; while in PRACTICAL matters, for
consistency’s sake, there may HAVE to be
withdrawal, as also where error predominates, yet the
preservation of what there is of God must be diligently
sought in spirit. While there can be no official link
with what is wrong, there can and must be a reaching out
in spirit to keep the door open for the “more
excellent way”.
The next
thing is to apprehend the Divine meaning behind the
creating of this instrument. Surely it is twofold.
Firstly, to
have for Himself in the earth that which is as close an
approximation to His own mind as possible; that it should
not be true that there is nothing which is in any real
way an expression of the Lord’s mind. Thus, further,
He would have that which cleaves a way through for
others. So it ever was in battles of old. The specially
trained and disciplined troops broke through for others.
Secondly,
that there may be that which gives the Lord His point
toward which to work. As He creates a sense of need in
His people, and leads them on thereby, He would have that
which can be His means of meeting that need in spiritual
knowledge. That the Lord directs hungry ones to those who
know Him through special dealings is a principle not far
to seek in the Divine record. We remember how
Cornelius was brought into touch with Peter (Acts 10),
Apollos with Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18), and so on.
There is such a thing as election to special service, and
there ought to be mutual recognition of this. When the
Lord Jesus took Peter, James and John into the more
inward activities and revelations of His life, especially
up to the Mount of Transfiguration, He was not guilty, in
principle, of an act of schism in the Body. What the
others thought or felt we do not know, but in the long
run we know that ministry was in view, not personal
preference, He was not making of them a specially
privileged and separate company. A great need was coming,
and this was His method of providing for the need which
would one day be created.
The
appreciation of what He did and what they knew had to
tarry until that need arose. There will never be an
appreciation of special resource without conscious need,
but such need will justify God’s methods, and prove
His wisdom sound. God has from the beginning of the world
always had His escape ready before the fire broke out -
His lifeboat before the wreck - His store before the
famine - His Cross before the curse. His peculiar ways
with some are in view of a coming need which will give
them a peculiar ministry. There are those who are out on
a general basis of activity with the Lord, going all the
time in a continuous stream of good works. There are also
those who are cut off from anything great as to measure,
and are reserved for what the others cannot do; less in
bulk, but perhaps of indispensable worth and service in
emergency, and beyond a certain general point of
attainment. The latter have to bide their time in
patience, but when their time does come it is THEIR
time in the Lord, and no one else can do the work.
Let us
return to our main principle, namely that REMNANTS
ARE RELATIVE. The remnants of which we spoke in our
first chapter were not something conclusive in
themselves. Sometimes a remnant of only a couple of
tribes is referred to as “all Israel”, showing
their representative character. While in the first
instance the movement was on the part of a few,
comparatively, there was from time to time a trickling
after them, as there was that to which such tricklings
could come. The remnant was not conclusive.
We must
keep clearly and strongly before us the fact that, while
the Lord must have His testimony maintained in the earth,
and while He desires all His people to enter into the
fullness of light and truth, and while there are clearly
seen to be different companies of His people in Heaven,
both as to time and as to position, the main
characteristic of any company which may be termed ‘a
remnant’ or ‘overcomers’ is that of
vocation: that is, they stand in a vocational
relationship to all other really born-anew children of
God. It is something which they are called to be and to
do which is preparatory for the rest. They have, amongst
other things, to ‘pass over armed before their
brethren’ (Deut. 3:18), to cleave a way and take the
first shock of spiritual antagonism.
Now, before
defining the nature of this instrument, we will say just
a little more on this matter of fellowship. We have
recognised two things, namely, that fellowship is limited
to the measure of life and of the Spirit, and that for
fuller fellowship there must be progress in the life of
the Spirit; and then that, inasmuch as every true child
of God has SOMETHING of Himself in them, there
should be care and diligence in discovering, unearthing,
and fostering that. We have now to see that, no matter
how we may seek to go on with the Lord, there can only be
TRUE BUILDING UP of the Body on the ground of
fellowship and love.
A
SATANIC MASTER-STROKE
Perhaps one
of the most SIGNIFICANT things to any who are
“not ignorant of his (Satan’s) devices” is
that there never has been a specially spiritual movement
of God in the earth, calculated to serve Him in a
particularly useful way, but what Satan’s animosity
thereto has been manifested along the line of division,
schism, discord, separation, and a breaking down of
fellowship. And how often has the real sting and stigma
been modified by a feigning love unbroken and preserved,
when the divided parties should have no association with
each other in the things of God. Love, let us again say
emphatically, is incumbent upon the Lord’s people
toward “all men”, whether of the
“household” or otherwise (Gal. 6:10), but
fellowship is something more. It is the most spiritual
things which suffer the greatest shocks in this matter,
and again we say this carries its own Satanic
significance.
The methods
of the enemy are numberless, the “wiles”
unfathomable by human wit. A suggestion of suspicion, if
it finds lodgment, is enough to completely paralyse the
work of God and spiritual progress. Have a doubt and you
are done. There never was a time when positive spiritual
work was more jeopardised by suspicion than now. It would
seem that hell is largely employed in issuing forth
smoke, clouds, vapours, mists of suspicion, question,
reservation, in order to infect with uncertainty,
mystification, prejudice, fear, discrediting, distrust,
aloofness. It is in the “heavenlies” that this
is most registered; that is, the higher ranges of
spiritual things. It is an ATMOSPHERE, and it is
everywhere. You sense it wherever you go. In some places
it is stifling - there is no clear breath of the Spirit,
and a word of life is almost choked back.
Of course,
this is no new thing, although now so intensified. The
New Testament is full of it. The Lord Jesus met it - not
in spiritual people, only in religious people. John met
it. Paul met it in every direction. It was made to circle
round his person, his methods, his character, and his
message. Even some members of the mother assembly at
Jerusalem showed suspicion and lack of cordiality toward
him. Paul’s setting aside of the Law, for instance,
seemed to them to go beyond even the Lord Himself, who
had not openly abrogated it. Then Paul appealed to
“visions and revelations” (2 Cor. 12:1), but
they asserted that these were dubious, or at best they
could only serve to ratify his own personal convictions.
Again, both Paul and his opponents appealed to the Old
Testament, but the letter of the Old Testament seemed
undoubtedly to favour the literalists, and his
‘attempt to read new meanings’ into the old
revelation seemed to them mere cleverness. They looked on
it as barefaced denial of the Divine Word. To them it
looked as though he did not believe the Bible. They
regarded his innovations as morally dangerous.
Of course,
this in SUBSTANCE ought to have no parallel
today, but it has in spirit. There is nothing added
by revelation to the Scriptures since the New Testament
was closed, but there is much to be RECOGNISED in them by
the enlightenment of the Spirit. There is no new meaning,
but there is much new RECOGNITION of the meaning.
CAUSES
AND PRECAUTIONS
The point
is, not that there never was or never will be an absence
of this Satanic enterprise of smoke to prevent or destroy
fellowship, but - what is to be our attitude in such
circumstances?
It would be
vain to try to deal with all the secondary causes.
Sometimes the ground of the adversary’s success,
either in ourselves or in “them that oppose
themselves”, is that we may be living in certain
respects in some proximity to the “flesh” and
the “natural man”. Some secret pride may make
possible jealousy, criticism, envy,
‘hurt-ness’, fear of loss, self-pity,
comparison, or a wish to be out of the place of
difficulty. Sometimes it may be immaturity; sometimes
imperfect knowledge or understanding – ‘seeing
through a glass darkly’. There are worse things than
these, too; but there are also such things as are either
utterly imaginary, or real only because they seem real to
those who register them. That is, the enemy can set up
situations which are utterly false in themselves - they
have no foundation in FACT. They are phantoms -
but how terribly real phantoms can be!
How shall
we meet all this? It seems so hopeless, and would almost
drive us to ultra-individualism. Let us not abandon hope
until we have been faithful to the exhortations,
‘Give diligence to keep the unity of the
Spirit’ (Eph. 4:3), and "Prove all things"
(1 Thess. 5:21). The final test will, of course, be - Is
the Lord present in blessing? If so - and we ought to
have spiritual discernment - then up to that point we
ought neither to oppose nor to refuse all fellowship.
But before
we are so general, perhaps we have a duty which costs a
little more.
Seeing how
great was the matter involved - no less than the Holy
Spirit’s presence and ministry - Aquila and
Priscilla might easily have labelled Apollos as in error,
altogether wrong and wanting, and left him and the
assembly of which he was ‘pastor’. But they saw
the lack and lovingly took him and in a humble spirit
helped him to see it (Acts 18:24-28). There is a fine
record of the man after this. It could so easily have
been a breach and a loss.
We must
always be sure that those who seem to us to be wrong are
not capable of being helped on those matters which are
absolutely vital to fellowship. What have we done and
what do we do in the matter? To come to a conclusion and
forthwith to abandon those from whom we differ is a
positive violation of scriptural method and instruction.
This is often great loss to the Lord when there might
have been gain. It would seem from the Word that the
grounds of separation, WHEN ESTABLISHED, are
brought within a small range as to number, though of
course outweighing all others in importance. They are:
the denial of the person of Christ, that He is truly God
come in the flesh (2 John 7, 10); the denial of the
necessity for and sufficiency of His death for
reconciling men to God (Gal. 1:6-9); the practice of
moral evil (1 Cor. 5:9); the defying of the united
judgment of the whole assembly in a matter of wrong doing
(Matt. 18:17); and, finally, the refusal to accept the
authority in the house of God, of the Apostles and their
writings (2 Thess. 3:14-15). All else is gathered up in
these.
It would
seem necessary to say again here what we have said
earlier, that we are not dealing with the matter of
co-operation in doubtful methods and on an unspiritual
basis, or of a compromise on truth. There will ever have
to be separation in these matters. Our point is the SPIRIT
of fellowship - that we should not close ourselves up, as
though we were apart from and superior to all others.
Many of us have to confess to a time when our
lives were by no means conspicuous for their
spirituality, and we owe much to the spirit of fellowship
on the part of others. If so be we feel that, in the
mercy of God, we have been given something more than
some, we must be out to help, to win, to cherish. Above
all, we must keep our hearts open and our spirit pure. It
is terribly possible to get to a set place where no one
can teach us, but we can teach others - they are the ones
who are not going on with the Lord. This is entirely
fatal to fellowship.
Now we must
close this chapter, but with one important reminder. A
great safeguard and security to that fellowship without
which there is no building and progress in the House of
God is to RECOGNISE, and bear continually in
mind, that the master tactic of the enemy is somehow, by
hook or by crook, to get in between the Lord’s
people and cause strain and break. Our
‘diligence’ must be along the lines of
‘proving all things’; refusing the opinions and
judgments of others - even the most spiritual; not
listening to gossip or criticism; not going by
appearances; and always keeping a very close walk with
the Spirit and listening to Him on all matters.
When the
Scripture says that we are to ‘prove all
things’, we should apply that especially to the
things which could serve the evil powers in their
propaganda of suspicions, leading to divisions.
We should
prove whether our judgment of persons and things is
absolutely right. We should prove whether the things said
by a person, by word or writing, are what we have taken
them to mean, or whether they might not mean something
that we have not recognised.
We should
prove whether a person about whom we have a question is
not open to being helped from the Word of God to see
differently or better than he now sees.
We should
prove whether love has no influence with such, and
whether he is 'PROVED' to be bigoted, proud, and
unapproachable.
Have we
adopted such lines, or hurried to destroy by open attack
or by the spread of suspicion?