READING: Isa. 52:1, 7-8, 14-15; Acts 2:5, 7-11;
10:11-16, 34-35. Let
us remind ourselves that Jerusalem, in the Word of God,
especially stands for the Church. It is an inclusive and
comprehensive representation of the Church; and what we
are seeking to see is the spiritual constitution of the
Church, what the Church really is according to the Word
of God, and what the Church's vocation is.
It does not require
very much profound or energetic thinking to recognise
that universality runs in very close relationship to
spirituality and heavenliness. The heavens are always the
symbol of universality. That is very clear. When you get
into the heavens you get away from the narrow limitations
of life, all the geographical confinement, and you are
out in what is absolutely universal. The same is true in
the matter of spirituality. When you get into the realm
of things spiritual, there again you have left behind all
that is small, and limited, and restricted; you have
broken all ties.
So that
heavenliness and spirituality lead us very definitely and
distinctly into the universal, and one thing which is of
the greatest importance for the Lord's people to be sure
about is the universality of the Church. It is necessary
to define that. It is necessary to have a very clear
apprehension of it. Such as are really concerned with
that great Divine object, that which has been in the mind
of God before the world was, that which is the preeminent
object of God in this dispensation, need to have a clear
and definite grasp of its nature; and when we speak of
its universality we want to be careful, to be quite sure,
as to what we mean by that.
The
Exclusiveness and Universality of the Church as
typified in Jerusalem.
When you come to the
Word of God and study Jerusalem you find two things which
seem, on the surface, to be mutually exclusive; that is,
these two things are difficult of reconciliation; they
appear to be contradictory.
On the one hand, Jerusalem
is a clearly defined and distinctly bounded city. Jerusalem
has a wall, and that wall goes right round: and Jerusalem
has gates; and the purpose of walls and gates is to
exclude and admit, to govern, therefore, in the matter of
who shall be in the city and who shall not. So that
Jerusalem is very strictly defined, and, in a sense,
appears to be both inclusive and exclusive; that is, it
says to a certain company, You are of the city! and it
says to another company, You are not of the city, and
have no place in it!
On the other hand,
there is the fact that Jerusalem is represented as
being universal. You touch many universal elements
when you read the history of Jerusalem. You find that all
nations are touched by Jerusalem, and touch Jerusalem,
that its relationships are comprehensive, extensive. The
only word which adequately expresses it is
"universal." It is set down in the midst of a
country which can never be said for a moment to be of one
fixed and exclusive aspect. Palestine is marked by two
extremes, with every shade between them. At a certain
time of the year you can sit at a particular point in
Palestine and boil in a temperature of a hundred, and
from where you sit thus perspiring with intense heat you
view the snows of Hermon. You can stand upon a point and
at one time see palm trees and pine trees, speaking of
two extremes. At the southern part of the Jordan valley
you have a sub-tropical climate; in the northern part of
the Jordan valley you have a sub-Alpine climate; and
there is every phase, and every degree, between these two
extremes in the land. In some parts you find the
shepherds wearing sheepskin cloaks, which speaks of cold;
in other parts you find them doing everything to keep out
the heat. These are geographical and climatic features
which are illustrative and typical of the universality of
the land. Jerusalem is set down in the midst of that
land. Hardly a nation on this earth has failed at some
time or other to have some kind of relationship with
Jerusalem, and with Palestine, and we know that there is
yet to be history in which all nations are gathered into
that land, and will be met by the Lord Himself in battle.
What is true
historically of the earthly Jerusalem is made clear as
being true spiritually of the heavenly Jerusalem. All the
nations are going to be related to it. The kings of the
earth will bring their glory into it, the leaves of its
tree will be for the health of the nations, and it will
occupy a governmental position in relation to the rest of
the universe. The universality of the heavenly Jerusalem
is made perfectly clear in the Word of God with a very
great deal of evidence.
All this points to the
Church, and says quite simply and definitely that the
Church partakes of these features in a spiritual way. On
the one hand, there is the distinctiveness and
definiteness which amounts to exclusiveness, and, on the
other hand, there is the universality which brings into
relation with the whole world, with all the nations. As
we have said, we must get a matter like that quite clear
in our hearts and minds. How do you reconcile the two
seemingly opposing factors? We shall seek to do so as we
go along.
This
Two-fold Character of the Church seen in and
derived from: - (a) The Head.
What is it that makes
the Church on the one hand exclusive, and on the other
hand universal? The answer is: That which makes it
universal makes it exclusive, and that which makes it
exclusive makes it universal. To begin with, that which
gives it its universal nature and character is the Person
Who is supreme in it, and in the heavenly Jerusalem, the
Church, the Lord Jesus is the central and supreme Person,
and His Person is a universal Person; that is, having
become Son of Man, He has come in a living way into touch
with man as a race. It is not said that He is Son of
Englishman, or Chinaman. He is Son of Man; and that is
all-embracing, that touches man of every nation, and
clime, and kindred, and tongue. So that the contact with
man in any part of the world, no matter what his make-up
may be, what his history may be, what his language may
be, what his outlook may be, the contact of the Lord
Jesus with man, of whatever stock he be, has a living
appeal, a living meaning. He is different altogether from
any other man who has ever been. One of the marvels of
the Lord Jesus is that He has a living appeal to man, no
matter how you find man, or where you find him. He is the
Saviour of all men. His salvation applies to every race,
and every tongue, and every make-up. That cannot be true
of any other man. When we go with the Gospel to other
countries, very often what is met with is this: Oh, you
are English (if it be an Englishman), and your way of
thinking, your outlook, is altogether different from
ours, and you cannot expect to put us into an English
mould of thought, and disposition, and outlook. The door
is closed, if the Gospel be presented on that level. Such
a procedure affords no hope. It has proved to be
disastrous again and again, when the Church has been
brought out of its heavenly realm down on to an earthly
level, and people of other nations have been striven with
to take that mould of the Church that has been brought to
them from another country. It cannot be done.
The Lord Jesus can
constitute in any place on this earth a company of those
who take their character from Him, and in so doing form
what is universal. That is to say, He supersedes all
national distinctions, and all differences of temperament
and constitution, so that there comes about, by reason of
a vital union with a central Person, a universal,
spiritual Church which is above the nations, and so
heavenly, spiritual, and universal. It is the Person with
Whom the relationship is brought about Who occasions the
universality of the Church. But unless Christ is kept in
the central and the supreme place, and the one object of
pursuit is conformity to Christ, you can never realise
the Church of the Word of God. But with Christ given His
place, and His getting really into the life and into the
heart, all the other problems solve themselves, and the
Church comes into being. Put anything in the place of
Christ, even the Church itself, or what may be called the
Church, and you destroy its universality and make it
something local, something national, something earthly,
and therefore something limited in its spiritual value.
The universality of the
Church, as brought about by the Person, and living
relationship to Him, creates the exclusiveness. That is
not a contradictory but a complementary statement, for no
one can enter into the Church except by coming into a
living relationship with the central Person, the Lord
Jesus Christ, and immediately, Christ is found to be a
boundary as well as a universal centre. This fact will
further be seen to affect not only the matter of entrance
into the Church but also that of spiritual development in
the Church. We can only grow as we are members of the
spiritual Church, the Body of Christ, and the Church
itself as a whole can only grow and develop in a
spiritual way in so far as Christ becomes its life. Our
difficulty is that we get mental pictures of a certain
defined circle, when we really ought to be seeing that
this is a spiritual matter, and that the Church is not
only an area marked off, and you may be in it or outside
of it, but that the Church is a spiritual state rather
than a place, and that "state" determines how
far we are livingly in the Church, and the measure of our
conformity to Christ.
For my part, I believe
that is why we have the distinction in the Word of God
between Zion and Jerusalem. While the words are
interchangeable, and are very often used of the same
place, nevertheless there is a distinction between them.
Zion is Jerusalem ideally, as God thinks of Jerusalem.
Zion is the word used when God's full Church is in view.
Jerusalem may fall short of Zion, may be less than Zion.
Jerusalem may represent things as you find them; Zion
represents things as God would have them. That difference
is very marked in the Word. So that if Zion represents
the full thought of God, God's desire is that Jerusalem
should take its character from Zion. Bringing that into
our own lives, it means that we are partakers in God's
thought for Jerusalem just in so far as we are conformed
to God's ideal as represented in His Son, the Lord Jesus.
Churchmanship is not a matter of coming within a certain
defined limit; Churchmanship is a matter of relationship
with the Lord Jesus, and of spiritual condition. Failure
to have come to that relationship and spiritual condition
means exclusion from the Church. You see how destitute of
truth the common idea of the Church is, the idea that you
can belong to the Church if only you give assent to
certain doctrinal propositions, and go through certain
rites or ordinances. It is a completely false conception
of the Church. The Church is Christ in corporate
expression, and membership of the Church is membership of
Christ, and our value as members of the Church is
determined by the measure of Christ to which we have
come. Christ is universal in His Person, and therefore
the Church, related to Him, becomes universal, in the
sense that it touches life at every point, and in every
condition, in a living way; not in a formal way, but in a
living way; as an application, an appeal, and a living
touch, by reason of Christ being expressed in and through
it.
(b)
The Cross.
Another thing which
constitutes its universality, and at the same time its
exclusiveness, is the Cross of Christ. The Cross of the
Lord Jesus was a universal thing. No realm has been
untouched by that Cross. Is sin proved to be a universal
thing? Then the Cross is universal; it touches sin
universally. Is man's fallen condition universal? Then
the Cross is vitally related to that. All that the Cross
stands for is found, and proved, to be of universal
application, universal meaning. The only way into the
City is by way of the Cross. That means that the Church
is universal in its value, in its testimony, in its
appeal, in its call, in its invitation; none need be
excluded, though at the same time it is impossible to be
in it except by way of the Cross. It is universal, and at
the same time exclusive.
(c)
The Life.
The third thing which
bears the same feature is the life which Christ gives to
His own. That is a universal life. It is not like other
kinds of life. There are other kinds of life, which are
limited in their range. Human life is limited. It belongs
to man. No one else has human life but man. There is
animal life in the lower sense. Life which animals have
is a lower order of life; it belongs to animals. There is
vegetable life, a still lower order of life; it belongs
to that kingdom. These are watertight kingdoms, and the
vegetable cannot pass through into the animal, and the
animal cannot pass through into the human. So far as the
life is concerned, they are exclusive, self-contained.
Divine life is another kind of life. When it is given,
and becomes the basis of man's life, there is something
which he has in common with all children of God, whatever
the differences are. He has a common foundation. It is
that common foundation which makes fellowship possible,
and makes everything real in relation to the Lord; that
mighty, working, Divine life, energising, springing up
within, gravitating backward to its source in God; and as
it gravitates backward to its source it takes its object
with it. It is the working of Divine life that brings men
out of all nations, and all tongues, and all kindreds,
and all temperaments, into a oneness, a universal Church.
It is the Divine life in every member, making one Body.
(d)
The Holy Spirit.
What is true of the
Head, and the Cross, and the life, is true, in the fourth
place, of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, Himself
indwelling all who are in Christ through the Cross,
constitutes a universal Church. The universality of that
Church is only maintained in its expression as the Holy
Spirit is allowed to govern and dominate. Immediately man
begins to rule in the Church its universality is upset,
and it becomes something legal, a divided thing. But
while the Holy Spirit has free course, and absolute
dominion, He maintains that principle of the universality
of Christ, and preserves the Church as a thing without
barriers, without those hindrances to full fellowship
which come about when man takes the place of the Holy
Spirit.
These things, as you
see, bring the balance, the harmony, of the two factors,
universality on the one hand and exclusiveness on the
other hand, because none can ever enter into the Church,
into the heavenly City, save as he comes under the
government of the Holy Spirit.
The
Counterfeit of the Truth.
This great fact of the
universality of the Church is so tremendously important
as to have provoked every kind of effort on the part of
the enemy to destroy it, and he has moved mainly along
two lines. Firstly, he has wrought along the line of
counterfeit universality, and then along the line of
earthliness, resulting in divisions, and a false kind of
exclusiveness.
As to counterfeit
universality, this operates in every realm. It is seen in
the social realm under the name of the brotherhood of all
men. Behind that there is this subtle, evil work of the
enemy to bring about a false universality. You can see it
in Babylon. When they went to work to build Babylon it
was in that manner: "Let us build us a city, and a
tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make
us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of
the whole earth" (Gen. 11:4). What was the object?
It was a universal brotherhood, to maintain the power of
dominion by unity. That is Babylon: and Babylon is an
evil thing.
The same thing works in
the industrial world. It works, or seeks to work, in the
political world, the confederation of nations. It also
seeks to work in the religious world, in the great union
of the Churches. But it is a counterfeit and false
universality. It is not the oneness of Christ and of the
Holy Ghost.
Then there is not only
the counterfeit side, but there is that earthly side,
where spiritual things, the things of God, are dragged
down to an earthly level; handled, gripped, manipulated
by man, with the result that you get divisions. All the
divisions amongst the Lord's people are the result in
some way or other of man's interference in the things of
God. Then you get an exclusiveness amongst these
divisions, which is a false exclusiveness, and not the
exclusiveness of the Cross.
These are Satan's
oppositions, activities, against the great universality
of the spiritual and heavenly Church of Christ. We shall
only know and maintain that universality as we keep away
from the earth in a spiritual way; as we allow the Holy
Ghost to do the governing; as our teaching is not the
teaching of man, but the teaching of the Spirit; as the
Cross continually operates to keep out all that which is
not of God. The heavenly City is universal, but it is
exclusive. That then is the Church, but for its real
value it must remain heavenly and spiritual in a
practical way.