Its Importance and its Values
It would be
difficult to say things too strong or too great in connection with the
importance of the assembly and the House of God. There is only one danger, as
far as we can see, in that connection, and that is that mentally we might put
some "thing" in the place of "Someone", but inasmuch as we have been occupied
with the "Someone" and recognise that if it is "something" that emerges, it
issues from the knowledge of the "Someone". We make that safeguard to warn our
own hearts about that peril. It remains true that it is difficult to exaggerate
the importance of the House of God and of the local assembly.
Realising the Divine Purpose
In the first
place, the House of God is a divinely appointed means and method of realising
the divine purpose. We would put a good deal of emphasis upon the importance of
the divine purpose. We should not minimise or belittle that, but we must
remember that God has His own way, His own method, His own means of reaching His
end and for realising His purpose. And if God has appointed that, fixed that,
established that, then the means and the method take importance, and the House
of God is the divinely ordained and appointed means and method of realising the
divine purpose.
We must assume
that you know the Word of God. We could go right through the Old Testament and
the New Testament proving, gathering the data, to establish what we have said,
that the House of God is something ordained, fixed as God's means and method of
realising His end. You have a great deal immediately coming to your mind as such
things are said. So we assume your knowledge of the Word.
Again, the
House of God is -
A Spiritual and Heavenly System
A lot of people
are afraid of that word "system", and, put in a wrong realm, we might well be
afraid of it. Nevertheless, God is a God of order, God is a God of arrangement,
of design, of plan. There is a fixed economy with God, and the House of God is a
spiritual and heavenly order. It is fixed, it is divinely governed. To violate
it is to run great risks, is to be in peril. It means loss, calamity. If the
Holy Spirit, Who is here to preserve that divine order and to have it recognised
and established, really has His way, He will bring us into the knowledge of what
that order is and require it of us, that we recognise and we accede. Herein, of
course, is the importance of the Holy Spirit being sovereign amongst the Lord's
people, because we do not know. The majority of the Lord's people do not know
the heavenly system, the heavenly order and the thoughts of God.
This is not a
hard thing. It is a very blessedly simple and easy thing. Given that one's
condition is of absolute yieldedness to the Holy Spirit, the established
sovereign government of the Spirit of Christ, we shall spontaneously come to
know. Of course, that yieldedness to the Holy Spirit means a very great deal
more than it sounds in a statement of that kind, such a comprehensive statement.
We have to learn that there is still so much of the domination of our own ideas
about the Lord, the Lord's things and the Lord's ways. There is that strong
inheritance from a system which has perhaps run in the stream of our blood for
generations. All sorts of things count, and very often it means a very big
upheaval, a terrific break with a past, with what seems to be very
constitutional with us, in order to come under that absolute government of the
Holy Spirit so that He can reveal to us something which perhaps may be
altogether contrary to our deepest and fullest and most long established
convictions. It takes time; nevertheless the truth is that as the Spirit gains
the upper hand we are bound to come into the knowledge of the heavenly things
according to the mind of God.
Just for the
moment the point is this, that God is a God of order, and the House of God is
that in which God's order is set up. The opposite of order is anarchy, and we
know that outside of the House of God that is what obtains.
Then again, the
House of God is -
A Necessity to God and to His People
I suppose we
could take it for granted that if God appoints things, ordains anything, He does
not do so just by a whim. He is not playing at something, He is not pretending.
He does that thing because it is essential to Him. If it is true that God has
chosen and appointed that that which is called His House should be His means and
method of realising His purpose, then that thing is necessary to Him. Let no one
say that this is something which is optional, something which is quite extra to
a normal Christian life. It is nothing of the kind. We cannot play with divine
things as though the Lord were making a pretence, that the Lord was in a realm
of fancifulness and without any serious meaning saying these things, and
bringing in certain ways and means. God is above all that sort of thing, and
with Him this is essential. If that is so we may take it that we shall never
reach God's full end until we recognise the absolute necessity for God's method
and God's means.
Now, all that
we have said is general concerning the House of God. The assembly is intended by
Him to be the local expression of that. The local expression is therefore as
necessary as the whole thing. That is, the thing as a whole can only have an
expression by local means.
Divine Purpose is Related
We now come to
some of the values of the assembly as the local expression of the House of God.
We said that all divine purpose is bound up therewith, but we must go further
than that and recognise that all divine purpose is related, so far as believers
are concerned, as to
a) Knowledge
We mean by that
that the divine purpose cannot be wholly attained unto and realised in a
detached, isolated, separated or fragmentary way. Divine purpose includes all
saints, and all saints together, not as parts, fragments, separated or detached.
Divine purpose is an indispensable whole, and requires the whole House of God.
We can explain that as we go on. Divine purpose, being related, being one, being
bound together so far as believers are concerned, can only be known by all
saints. To make that quite simple, if you or I as individuals should be born
again, and then in detachment from every other born again child of God should
live our life in some isolated place, we as individuals could never know the
whole purpose of God. We might know a fragment, but we could not know the whole.
The full knowledge of God's thought is given to the church, not to any one
individual, and not to the individuals as separate, isolated units.
The working of
that truth is quite clear, that when you have an assembly that is moving under
the Lord's headship by the Holy Spirit's government, you have a wonderful range
of divine illumination, instruction and revelation. It is wonderful what a
fulness the Lord unveils of Himself to a spiritual company, and it is that
company that draws it out, so to speak. The company is the Lord's opportunity,
the Lord's occasion. He gives fully, in great fulness, and great ranges of
revelation of Himself to spiritual companies who are moving on with Him. So that
the very knowledge of divine purpose is a related knowledge. It requires the
assembly.
b) Growth
The same thing
holds good with regard to spiritual growth, just as to spiritual knowledge.
Fulness of spiritual development does not take place in isolation. Fulness of
spiritual growth takes place in the related lives of the Lord's people. We owe
more than perhaps we realise in our spiritual enlargement to our fellowship with
the people of God. That is a tremendous factor. It is a divinely ordained
factor. If Thomas goes outside the circle he will simply remain an arrested
unit, going round in his own little circle, and never getting anywhere; but if
he will come in with the others, he gives the Lord the opportunity and the
occasion that He is waiting for of giving him a new revelation of Himself. Take
yourself off, and you will begin to go round in a very small circle, and there
will be no advance and no growth until you come back again, because the Lord has
ordained this. You cannot set aside something that the Lord has established
without loss. For spiritual growth, divine purpose is therefore a related thing.
c) Vocation
The same thing
is true as to vocation. If you prefer you can call it service, though vocation
is a bigger word and covers more ground. No one can ever fulfil the whole of the
divine purpose in service in an isolated way. Take account of things as far as
you have any knowledge and experience, as to whether it is not true that where
relatedness does not obtain, there is limitation and arrest in the knowledge of
the Lord, in spiritual growth, and in the service of the Lord according to the
Lord's whole purpose.
Let us see some
of the effects on both sides.
The Assembly is a Necessity to
a) Fulness
No one member
can come to the Lord's fulness on his own. The greater measure of the Lord's
fulness requires a company, and the entire measure of the Lord's fulness
requires the whole church, not just a local assembly. That word of Paul in
Ephesians 2 may apply to local assemblies, it may apply to individuals. In
either case the principle is the same. "Each several building, fitly framed
together". That may be the individual as a separate building. There is much
in the Word to indicate that the individual believer is a building of God. It
may apply to the local assemblies. The law is the same in either case that the
several building fitly framed together, whether they be individual or local
assemblies, are required unto the full end, a habitation of God through the
Spirit. Now you reach the crux of the whole matter. In what does God dwell in
fulness? Not in individuals and not in local assemblies, but in the whole House.
No individual, no assembly, can know the fulness of the divine indwelling; it
takes the whole, it is related. So, therefore, we can only know fulness in a
related way.
b) Balance
Balance is not
an unimportant thing. It is a thing of very great importance. When we speak of
balance we are speaking of measure. We are needed in a related way for the
government of our individual measure. I should help you to your fulness, but I
also ought to keep you within the bounds of your measure, and if you try to get
beyond your measure and still remain in fellowship with me, you do damage to
that fellowship.
Now spread that
over the assembly. We have often illustrated this from the human body. You can
take an organ from the human body, and separate it from all its associated or
related organs, and by artificial stimulation you can keep it alive, and you may
even develop it beyond its ordinary proportions or measure; but you have done
great damage to it, and to the rest of the body. The result is that you get
something detached from its right connection but it is quite abnormal. What has
happened? All those other related organs and tissues are essential to keep it
within its measure but also to help it to fulfil itself to its measure. All
related organs are essential to its normal life both within its bounds and up to
the full measure of its bounds. You and I are organs in that sense, in a great
organism.
Now put that to
the test again. If any individual, or any company of individuals, become a law
unto themselves, detached from the rest of the Lord's people and run on their
own, on the one hand there is spiritual loss, and on the other hand there is
abnormality and loss of balance. It is always so. It is impossible for a true
Holy Spirit assembly to become unbalanced. A true assembly according to God can
never be departmental, it can never have one line of teaching only, it can
never have one line of activity only. An unrelated organ becomes unbalanced.
Now, if you set up a company of the Lord's people and say that their whole work,
their entire work - and they must touch nothing else - is evangelism for the
salvation of souls, you have not got an assembly. You may have a Gospel Mission,
but you have not an assembly. If you constitute a company of the Lord's people,
and say, "Now our whole and our entire and exclusive purpose is teaching, we
must not touch evangelism, we must not touch anything else!" you have something
unrelated and abnormal and unbalanced. Wherever that sort of thing obtains you
have an arrest of development somewhere, you have an unbalanced state, you have
not got fulness, and sooner or later that abnormal condition produces a lot of
trouble.
You have set up
a line of "holiness teaching", for instance, and let it always and ever be that.
Call yourself a Holiness Movement, and have nothing else to say than about this
thing. Sooner or later you will get a lot of people into trouble, and the world
is strewn with people who have got into an awful mess because of an undue
emphasis upon one thing. You can get the purely evangelistic or Gospel line.
What happens? As a rule, after fifty, sixty or a hundred years you have a whole
company of babes, who have been born again for fifty years or so and are still
babes. That is abnormal. A true assembly can never be departmental in that way.
A true assembly is marked by fulness. It has the full-orbed revelation of
Christ. You are never allowed unduly to remain along one line. You think you
have sometimes reached the apex of revelation, and there is nothing more to be
shown, and then the Lord breaks in and you find yourself with something more
coming through from Him than you never thought of. So you go from peak to peak;
that is, when the Holy Spirit has the matter in hand.
This is
connected with the assembly, with the House of God. Such as have not assembly
training spiritually both lack and come short in the matter of spiritual fulness,
knowledge, growth and serviceableness to the Lord, and are unbalanced, having
preponderances. All freelances are abnormal. Sooner or later, whether they be
individuals or companies, they will be abnormal, or perhaps we ought to say
subnormal. They either fall short or go beyond. Perhaps both are true. One of
the unfortunate things about such people and such companies or institutions, is
that they are more right (so they think) than anyone else, and everybody else is
less right than they are. They are blind to anything else. If there is anything
else they do not see the need of it, and they despise it, set it aside as
something unnecessary, and think that what they are on is the necessary thing.
A true
relatedness amongst the Lord's people brings us to the place where we see the
value in everything that is of the Lord, and we are grateful for everything in
the world that is of the Lord. We appreciate it, we do not despise it, in so far
as there is something really of and for the Lord, a truly balanced believer
appreciates it and never sets it aside.
The Assembly
Builds Itself up in Love
Herein lies the
values of the assembly. One course, one direction of assembly life is that it
builds itself up in love, it edifies itself. Its increase, its maturity is
mutual, and it is by its maturity that it makes its increase. The assembly, on
the other hand, checks everything that is abnormal, keeps down every
preponderance. If you are going to live a true life according to assembly
principles, no one will be marked by an importance greater than their due.
Everyone will be given their due importance, but no one will be marked by an
importance which does not belong to them. You cannot set up people on
natural grounds to take precedence and to be important people in a true
assembly. Those things go. It does not matter what they are according to nature,
be it social, be it intellectual; in the assembly their measure is spiritual,
and nothing else. Their place is according to spiritual measure, and the
assembly simply makes it impossible for them to be anything else. If they do not
accept that, they have a bad time about it, and say, 'These people are not
taking account of who I am and what I am, of my social status and my tradition,
my position and my acquirements.' They are not taken account of, and they feel
offended; they will go, and they had better go!
Yet the
lowliest according to this world, the humblest, the poorest, the least having
spiritual measure will be recognised and will gradually come in that spiritual
recognition to a place of usefulness and helpfulness. The assembly governs. It is
not that there is a law projected, and put upon people; it is simply the very
state of things. You are in a spiritual state, and all that you take account of
is what is spiritual, and people cannot breathe in the presence of such if they
are not spiritual in a spiritual assembly, and they know that if they have got
to remain, they must go on with the Lord. It takes all responsibility off of us;
it is Holy Spirit governed. Spiritual government takes responsibility of an
official kind away from us, and a good deal of anxiety. We must leave that with
the Lord.
There is all
that value in true fellowship, and it makes for spiritual increase. It is
mutually helpful in enjoyment of what is spiritual, and in the holding unto its
measure under spiritual government of what is not spiritual, so that in a
related way we fulfil our function to the full, but we never get into the realm
of what is untrue, unreal, artificial or false by becoming abnormal. There is no
place like a spiritual fellowship, a true assembly, for making unrelated
falsehood and artificiality manifest. It comes out, and you feel that you are
all false, it is all artificial, it is not real, and you have got to let go, it
cannot thrive.
Many questions
will arise from what we have said, and one of them will be, What about those who
have no local assembly? The answer is quite ready, and, I believe, quite a right
one provided that you are not out of fellowship because you are an awkward
person, but because of a true case; not that you are expecting every other
believer to be up to your standard or you want a certain line of teaching and
you want a certain measure before you could associate with that. Provided there
are true children of God seeking to walk with Him, you should be associated with
them as far as possible. But given that there really is nothing, that there is a
barren desolation, there are no children of God but geographically you are
really cut off, what are you going to do? We have said that the assembly is
essential for all these purposes and how you can learn the assembly in truth, in
spirit, in principle yourself in relation to all the Lord's people. We are not
necessarily speaking about people who are actually in assemblies, but those who
have an assembly background, an assembly understanding, that you must know the
truth of the relatedness of everything of God and never cut yourself off and be
a law unto yourself, a freelance; but that, given a spiritual knowledge of the
revelation of the church which is His Body, you can move according to the laws
and principles of the church as the Body wherever you are.
Some will have
to go to different parts of the world, where they find nothing of this actually
existing, but the assembly being something which is primarily the Holy Spirit's
business, can mean a very great deal to us wherever we are, in spirit we can
enter into that. We can by faith appropriate the fellowship of the Lord's people
and derive great benefit therefrom. We can stand by faith into the prayers of
the people of God who are praying for all saints. They may not know us, either
by name or in any other way, but they are praying for all saints, and that
includes us, and a faith appropriation of that which is universal so far as the
church is concerned, brings benefit.
Then again, we
must remember that any decisions that have to be made, any work that has to be
done, is not something that belongs to us. It is not our work, our mission, our
particular line of things. We have to bring that to the Lord, to have everything
of a related kind, and get the personal element entirely out of it. You must see
that failure to recognise that means a petering out of things sooner or later.
Take anything that has been built up and around individuals. What happens? It
goes on while that individual is alive, and for a little while after. Then
artificial respiration has to be brought in to keep it going, and the thing has
got to go on by its own momentum, and the momentum has got to be produced by
itself somehow. That is not how the true church has gone on through the ages.
God has looked after that, and maintained a testimony in the earth. He has taken
responsibility. Anything of man always goes that way, and anything that is of
man usually becomes something in itself and more or less unrelated to the whole
thing that God is doing. Somehow or other it seems impossible for man to have
any other mentality than that and, however well he means, in the long run the
issue is that it is his thing.
We have so
often heard people saying about certain pieces of work that this is God's work
and not theirs, and they are out for the interests of God, that is all. Then you
have touched their piece of work in some way, and there has been a furore, and
you have said, 'But you said it was for the Lord and it was not your work, that
you are out for the Lord.' 'Oh, yes', is the reply, 'but you interfered with
us.' Now, with all the good meaning in the world, until the Cross has slain that
which is personal, it becomes something of man and it will have to be carried on
by man sooner or later. The thing which is of the Holy Spirit must be carried on
by the Spirit, but it does demand the Spirit and the principle of the whole Body
of Christ; that is, that everything is related to the whole.
That should be
a kind of spiritual mentality with us, that wherever we are we never for a
moment accept isolation, detachment or independence, or be freelances, but we
must always recognise that we ourselves and all that we are in, and all that we
are doing is but a part of a whole, related in the Holy Spirit, and has got to
be maintained as that. So that God has His complete thing, His many-sided thing,
His diversity in unity. The trouble is that man has taken the diversity and
destroyed the unity. So that the evangelist has no room for the teacher, and the
teacher despises the evangelist, and so on. That is not the House of God. In the
House of God all these are equally divinely appointed. If God gave these gifts,
who shall say that any one of them is unimportant? They are all necessary.
May the Lord give us this spiritual
mentality of fellowship, not the technique of the church but the spiritual
mentality of fellowship with all saints.