"One Body":
The Ground of Gathering
– J. N. Darby, J. B. Stoney, F. E. Raven

It is clear that the perfection of the body of Christ, united to the Head, will be in glory. This has been contested, however, on the plea that Scripture never speaks but of the body on earth.

• But it seems to me that the end of Ephesians 1 clearly teaches the supremacy of Christ over all things as Head of the body, as the counsel of God in this respect.

• That was one extreme;* the other is, that the unity of the body is not on earth, but only in heaven.
  [* There is really only one church spoken of in Scripture, though the state be different in heaven and on earth; but of this further on.]

The tract confounds the kingdom with the church, quoting Matthew 13, as to tares being among the wheat.

• But this would deny all discipline; both are to grow together till the harvest. Final judgment would be the only putting out.

• This I may dismiss. It is simple nationalism or popery, no present gathering of saints at all.

• It also confounds the house and husbandry of 1 Corinthians 3 with the body, which is not spoken of at all.

• We have a temple, that is, where God dwells, but in which there is no union with Him who dwells there. Here we have three cases

1. He who builds with God's materials;

2. he who, himself a saint, builds with bad, and loses his labour;

3. and he who seeks to corrupt and will be destroyed; but no thought of the body.

• The writer tells us the word church, or assembly, denotes in their collective character those who profess to have obtained salvation, as when Paul addresses his epistle to the church of God which is at Corinth.

• The example is an unhappy one, because the apostle states what he means by the church, and makes the difference of those who profess, though these are assumed to be genuine unless proved otherwise. The address of the apostle is as follows:
  • "To the church of God, which is at Corinth, the sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus".

• That is, universal profession and sanctified ones are clearly distinguished, the former looked at as composing the assembly at Corinth, and that by God's calling. And the difference is maintained in the epistle; it is only in chapter 10 that the apostle comes to speak of the body.

Again we are told that in Acts 20, Paul speaks of grievous wolves entering into the church. Nothing of the kind.

• The church of God spoken of, is what is purchased with His own blood, I suppose the true church which belongs to Christ for ever, and which He will present to Himself.

• All we have is, that wolves would not spare the flock, from which true members of Christ might suffer, if they could not be lost.

• I suppose, feeding God's assembly was on earth, yet it is viewed as purchased by the blood of Christ.

• Now the church or assembly of God, here, though set up in perfection by God, was, as man, as Israel, as everything God has set up, placed under man's responsibility; and man, as he has already done and that the first thing, has failed.

• But that failure was not the principle on which it was set up, any more than sin was the principle of man's standing in creation, nor disobedience and idolatry the principle of Israel's standing under Sinai.

• In each case it was man spoiling what God had set up. Even in Matthew 13 – which I do not refer to as the church – it was an enemy's doing, while men slept.

• The opposite doctrine is what Jeremiah so sternly denounces: "We are delivered to do all these abominations".

• What the Lord did is clearly stated, Acts 2: 47,
  • "The Lord added daily such as should be saved".

Why does Paul say in the passage on which C.E. relies, "after my decease," but to shew that spiritual energy preserved what God had set up, as long as it was there?

• C.E. with his independent churches, and others, and I holding the unity of the body, all believe that the church on earth has been corrupted, and that in the last days perilous times would come.
  • That is not the question; but, is that corruption part of the divine principle of meeting, or a corruption which makes us guilty? Is it a part of the divine intention or man's fault?

• What I find in Scripture, in the seven churches C.E. refers to, is, that it ends in the terrible judgments of Thyatira, and being spued out of Christ's mouth as nauseous to Him, and the threat of judgment if they did not repent so soon as they left their first works.

• But what the author cites of Jude teaches us the same truth; certain men had "crept in unawares"; but creeping in unawares was not the principle upon which the saints were gathered, was not accepted as the order of the place.

• They were spots in their feasts of charity, feasting with those among whom they had crept. Enoch had prophesied of them.

• Nothing can be clearer than that they had nothing to do – their being there had nothing to do – with the principle of the gathering; they had crept in. Jude writes to them that are sanctified by God the Father.

• In John they were not in the assembly at all, but antichrists who had been in it, and were to be manifested that they were not of it.

Another objection, which is not new to me, is more plausible, and goes upon a certain borrowed acquaintance with Scripture, namely, that the unity of the body was not known till Paul taught it.

• Now, there was a time of transition of God's patience with the Jews, and Paul, called specially out to be the minister of the Gentiles, was the instrument in God's hands for unfolding the mystery of the union of Jews and Gentiles on the same footing.

• But God took care that it should not be a new, separate thing in its nature and essence. After Paul was called he was not allowed to begin the introduction of the Gentiles, and Peter insisted on this in Acts 15. He, not Paul, was the means of introducing Cornelius, and C.E. confounds the existence of the thing and the development of the doctrine.

• Paul was the great instrument, both of promulgating the doctrine, and carrying it out in practice; a dispensation was committed to him. But God graciously took care to guard against the mistake of C.E. by employing Peter to begin publicly that work as a fact, and securing its stability by not allowing Paul to make good at Antioch the truth he had received; and the church remained one from the beginning.

• But what is its essence is much more important. The union of the body subsists from the day of Pentecost. It was established as to Gentiles, before Paul's ministry, at Caesarea in the bright and godly centurion, and Paul, in God's wisdom, was not allowed to secure it among the Gentiles. That was to be done – where it was important to do it – among the Jews at Jerusalem.

• No doubt the union of Jew and Gentile was of importance, especially in those days; but it was not the essential principle of the body or its unity. That was union with Christ, the Head, by the Holy Ghost. That was what made the body and unity, and each Christian, so sealed, a member of Christ.

Was there no body of Christ till Paul spoke about the mystery?

• Yet, if the confusion made by C.E. between the existence of the body, and the knowledge of the mystery be accepted, there could not have been.

• Thousands have come into communion amongst those whom C.E. attacks, who know nothing but to cry Abba, Father, as sealed with the Spirit, and learn the mystery there. It is much to be desired that they should be intelligent as to it, and that they should know the place they are in.

• But I never heard of such being a term for communion. I suspect a very large number would have to be put out.

• That it is as such the assembly meets, that the truth as to this is found in tracts and writings, is quite true. The writer does not mean to say that we should meet as if there were two churches of God on earth. Meeting on that principle, as an expression in common use, means quite a different thing.

• We cannot meet as being the one assembly, because a great number of Christians are outside of us, but we meet on the principle of that unity. It is this unity of the whole body on earth which C.E. denies.

• What a new believer is introduced into, is that unity which unquestionably existed in the beginning, and which we seek to realise as far as we can.

• Supposing I was to say that we meet on the principle that holiness becomes God's house. C.E. seems hardly to think so, but who would say that could not be the bond of union?

• Unity with the Head by the Holy Ghost is the only bond of union, but that produces the unity of the body of which we are thus all members.

• We meet with the conviction that the gathered saints were at the beginning the body of Christ, and members one of another, and as such all one on earth – does C.E. mean to say they were not? – and that we ought to seek to realise it.

• To be of the assembly as having the Holy Ghost, and to understand and explain it, are two things; to deny it, which is C.E.'s place, is a third.

• But his statement goes further. God formed the church – for it began down here – on the ground, according to his system, of there being evil in it, tares. They hold the church met on that principle; not that men crept in unawares, but that it is the principle they are united on.

• Now holiness is not what binds us, nor the principle of unity, yet the assembly meets as composed of those who are sanctified, called saints, sanctified in Christ Jesus, on that principle, and as all one – all saints are one body – and we seek to realise it as far as we can.

• The principle or ground of gathering is that of all saints being one in Christ, and as such forming the one church of God on earth. Christians had lost this principle, and it has been recovered; hence much, and rightly, put forward.

I shall now shew, that what Scripture presents to us is a body on earth, formed on earth as Christ's body, the Head being in heaven, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.

• Let my reader look at 1 Corinthians 12: 12 to the end. It is perfectly impossible for a man in his senses not to recognise a body on earth. The apostle compares it to our natural body: we have body and members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body; the body is not one member, but many.

• But C.E. will say that this is in heaven. But, unfortunately, it is by one Spirit we are baptised into one body: now this was on earth.
  • "Ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence".

• They were to tarry at Jerusalem for the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon them. It was one of the two great characters of Christ's work. He it is that baptised with the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God came down to earth and formed one body before Paul was called.

• If anything need be added, it is found here, verse 25: and there was to be no schism in the body, the members were all to have the same care one for another; if one member suffered, all the members suffered with it, or one member were honoured, all the members rejoiced with it.
  • "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular; and God hath set some in the church, etc …".

• Will C.E. tell me which of these gifts are to be exercised in heaven? The whole passage is as clear as language can make it, that there is a body on earth formed by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and recognised on earth with these words, "so also is Christ".

• Chapter 10: 17 does not refer to the connection of the heathen with idols, or Jews with the altar. It is used in reference to this as the basis of the argument.
  • "For we, being many, are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread".

• The same principle is recognised as known truth in Romans 12,
  • "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another".

• And all that follows applies to the saints down here exclusively. It is now – Ephesians 3: 10 – that the manifold wisdom is to be made known by the church to principalities and powers in heavenly places, the Gentiles being a joint body.

• So in chapter 4, the very verse cited by C.E. It is exhortation to us now to endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit, and what we are called to is still a hope, as the verse itself says.

• It will be said, 'But the hope of the calling is glory with Christ above'. Undoubtedly, but it will then have ceased to be a hope; it is when we have been called and have it as a hope – for we are saved in hope – that there is one body and one Spirit; there is that, as there is one faith and one baptism.

• The whole passage plainly shews that it is the present time, the time when the Spirit is personally down here, and faith has its place – hence the apostle speaks of the edifying of the body of Christ, "till we all come …".

• Hence C.E. cannot speak so; He has given these ministries, not for the edifying of the body, as Scripture speaks, but "the members of His body on earth".

• He has lost the great truth, that God has revived in these last days that presence of the Holy Ghost down here. He confounds the kingdom of heaven with the church and the body of Christ, and so will have tares in it, and tares to remain in it till harvest. In Scripture, "an enemy has done it".

I find in this same passage, Ephesians 4: 15-16,

• "Speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love".

• A husband is to love his wife as the Lord loves and cherishes the church, for we are members of His body.

• The only other passages, as far as I am aware, are Colossians 1: 18, and 3: 15. The former does not help us one way or the other, saying Christ is the head of the body, save as far as shewing, a remark that has its importance, that the apostle does not make the difference C.E. does.

• The latter passage clearly applies to earth as a present exhortation to peace; it shews clearly, as I said, that as to the unity of the body the apostle makes no distinction between the calling of God in its responsible effectuation now, and its sure divine effectuation when all is complete in result.

• There is one passage which speaks of it in this result, that is, takes in this view, Ephesians 1: 22-23, but even so – looks at the church as an existing thing.

• I have not to complain of the spirit in which the leaflet is written, but I am surprised in realising the complete loss of truth by those to whom the writer belongs.

I add a few supplementary words, to shew how this evil system destroys the whole idea of the church of God.

• First I would remark, that Christ gave Himself to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. Now I admit that this is not properly the body. John never speaks of the body.

• But it is unity, and it is down here, for those who were scattered will all be one any way up in heaven. Their being scattered abroad down here makes no difference as to that; there is no scattering there; yet whereas they were scattered, they were now to be gathered.

• This unity is ignored by C.E. The word 'church', says C.E., denotes in their collective character those who profess, whereas in Scripture it is certainly not so at the founding of Christianity. There the Lord added daily* such as should be saved.
  [*I do not add "church," as the reading is generally rejected. I quote for thee character of those gathered, also who were the gathered.]

• Further, who added? The Lord. Did He add mere professors? That such crept in ere many years were past we know. So later,
  • "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed".

• C.E. does not believe in a divine gathering at all at any time. God does not gather professors. And here the language is not quite honest. The writer says: "they – who profess to have obtained salvation – compose the assembly or assemblies". Which? for they are not the same thing.

• Hence the assembly is slipped out directly, and we read, "the church of God which is in Corinth," "the seven churches in Asia". Hence we read – page 3 – that Christ, in His love and care for the members of His body on earth, provides for their edification, through various ministries and gifts of the Holy Ghost.

• But this does not alter the character of the assembly, whether in Corinth or Ephesus. He then speaks of evangelists as having their service outside the assembly, while gifts of healing were intended to meet the physical needs of men as men.

• All very well if we do not go to Scripture, but the assembly is wholly lost, save to say that the service of the evangelist is outside it. But where were the gifts, whether their service were in or out of the assembly, or for men as men? Here is the answer of Scripture:
  • "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular; and God hath set some in the church, first, apostles; secondarily, prophets; thirdly, teachers; after that, miracles; then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues",

• not all in a church, but in the church – the assembly. Nothing can be more clear or definite. Evangelists are not there. The gifts are viewed simply as the power of the Spirit.

• In Ephesians 4 we find only gifts of edification, and they are attributed to the gift of Christ, in His care for the church, His body. There, there are evangelists:
  • "He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ"

• – even the evangelists, for though they served in the world, they did not leave the fruits of their service there; they were brought into the church, never into a church, but into the church.
  • And then pass on to verses 15-16, "but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love".

• Can anything be clearer or more definite?

But this passage leads me to the remark that this distinction, of what is here from what is in heaven, is destructive of the whole nature of Christianity, and the holiness that belongs to it.

• I have clearly shewn from Scripture that the word of God speaks of the body on earth, that its unity is there, its members are Christ's members,* and members one of another.
  [* I have not cited the latter part of Ephesians 5: 30, as probably the words are not genuine. Nor "to the church" – Acts 2: 47 – for the same reason.]

• But I go further, and add that while, as was predicted, the church on earth has corrupted itself, the blessing that God had established being confided to man in responsibility,* yet to separate the two in faith is to destroy not only the scriptural idea of a church, but the whole divine principle of holiness, individually and collectively.
  [* So it ever has been since Adam, the first thing man has always done being to fail, while God's patient goodness has continued till the time of judgment came.]

• Our calling is heavenly, our hope is heavenly, our standard of walk only heavenly. Not seeing this was the source of the folly of the perfectionists. There is no goal, no measure of attainment down here.

• They took the deliverance of Romans 8 for perfection. The Christian has no goal of attainment but Christ in glory. If faithful, he does that one thing, runs to win Christ, and by any means to attain to that first resurrection; that produces the effect, so far as it operates, of walking like Christ down here.

• The believer's conversation – his living associations – is in heaven; he looks for Christ to change his body and conform it to Christ's glorious body. We say therefore, with Paul to the end,
  • "not as though I had already attained",

• but we have no other measure of attainment, and he who best knows Christ, best knows how far he is from having attained. Every step of progress enables him to see more clearly what Christ is and how far he is from it.

• But there is no other goal, no other measure known or given. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the first-born among many brethren. He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one.

Now it is the knowledge of this glorified Christ by the Holy Ghost which is the formative power of holiness. This I proceed to shew from Scripture.

• God chastises us – Hebrews 12: 10 – that we may be partakers of His holiness.

• Hence, in a very remarkable passage in 1 Thessalonians 3: 12-13,
  • "and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: to the end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints".

• Where is the difference for faith between our responsible state here and our presentation before God our Father there? How far we realise it, is another and important question; but the measure and principle is the same, or rather, blessed be His name, all one.

• And this is wrought by the revelation of Christ to our souls by the Holy Ghost, and Christ as He is in glory. Hence He says:
  • "For their sakes I sanctify myself" [set myself apart as the glorified man in heaven] "that they also might be sanctified through the truth".

• And this is as clearly taught as possible.
  • "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure", 1 John 3.

  • Again, "We, beholding with open" [unveiled, alluding to Moses' veil] "face the glory of the Lord, are changed from glory to glory, into the same image, as by the Spirit of the Lord".

• All this is as clear as possible. There are not two holinesses; we cannot say, any of us, that we have attained, but our conversation is in heaven; and as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall bear the image of the heavenly.

• There is no other goal after which we run: our object is to grow up to Him who is the Head in all things, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. And note well here, this is not the question of our acceptance in Christ. There, there is no growth. As to that we say, "As he is so are we in this world".

It will be said, 'But this is individual'. I admit it. I quote it to shew the principle on which God deals with us as regards our responsible state in this world.

• Being made partakers of the divine nature, having the risen and glorified Christ as our life, and the revelation of this glorified Christ by the Holy Ghost, we cannot look at anything as goal of attainment but that glorified Christ; and as He could say being a divine Person
  • "the Son of man who is in heaven"

• – making, and in Him perfectly, His life, what it was down here, so we

• – united to Him in glory, sitting in heavenly places in Him, and the Holy Ghost revealing what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor entered into the heart of man to conceive

• – take the affections, spirit, self-denial, practical realisation of what answers to Him in glory, as the motive and measure of a holy walk here; and thus, he that saith he is in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked. Hence it is said
  • "Be ye therefore imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us and given himself for us, a sacrifice and offering to God for a sweet-smelling savour".p>
  • "Hereby know we love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren".

• And in this chapter of the Ephesians referred to, the other essential name of God is taken, Light, and we are declared to be light in the Lord, and are to walk as children of light; and if our poor eyes have drooped in sleep, and we are lying among the dead, we are called to awake from sleep and Christ shall give us light.

• Our life is hid with Christ in God; we have no other measure than what He is.

There is not one holiness for heaven, and another for this world, as 1 Thessalonians 3: 13 so remarkably teaches.

• We have our treasure in an earthen vessel, know in part, see through a glass darkly, but the treasure, what we know and what we see, is one and the same.

• Eternal life is the end, but it is eternal life we have, but that life is Christ, the present Christ.
  • "He that hath the Son, hath life";

• then we shall have it as He is, but it is not another.

• I repeat he who is nearest to Him by faith, in whose heart Christ dwells, knows best how dear he is to Him, but how far he is from Him as an object of attainment. But he has not two Christs, but one. This is the principle of Scripture.

• We are in Christ as to acceptance, and Christ in us as present life, and the hope of glory before us; our path, as we are yet in the body, is always to bear about there the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body.

This principle would involve the church on high and below being but one, though here hindered by weakness in a responsible condition as individuals are.

• There is really no difference, but happily we are not left to draw conclusions on the subject. The word of God is formal and positive on the subject.
  • "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish".

• C.E. may say this means the members. Of course it takes place in the members, though collectively too; but the church that was loved, and that will be presented to Christ without blemish –

• the assembly that was loved and for which He gave Himself, the church that will be presented without a wrinkle by Christ to Himself – is the church that He has sanctified down here in time by the word.

• The same thing is expressly taught in chapter 4 already quoted, except that it is also called His body, Christ being the Head, to whom we are to grow up; verse 16 specifically presenting the present operation in grace, and the increase of the body by the effectual working in the measure of every part;
  • so that it is impossible to separate that body of which Christ is the Head, from that which grows and edifies itself here – and the whole body, and an edified and increasing body. There is but one. Nothing can be more specific, positive, and formal.

Even as to a particular assembly, this as owned of God, is not as C.E. states. As such its members are not viewed as professors, but as to be presented blameless before Christ.

• In Corinth, blamed in all its ways, so bad that the apostle could not go there, he says,
  • "Ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall confirm you to the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ".

• That was their present calling, that their final state, called into His fellowship – koinonian, to partake of His state – now, and blameless in it there.

• The beginning of the epistle to the Ephesians largely confirms this principle. In chapter 1, from verses 3 to 8, what time is it that is presented to us? When are we holy and without blame before Him in love? It is evidently the thought of God about us. Is it something else we are to realise now?

• And is what is here, the spiritual blessings with which God hath blessed us, only for the heavenly places, and our calling different now?

I admit surely the difference of realisation in human responsibility by the power of the Holy Ghost, and the perfect accomplishment by divine power when Christ shall come and change our body of humiliation, conforming it to His glorious body, when we shall be to the praise of His glory; but there are not two things.

• It is spoken of in itself: "to the glory of His grace" now, "to the praise of His glory" when all is perfected.

• And so in what follows as to the church. It is presented as in the purpose of God, with this much accomplished that Christ is set at His right hand in heavenly places, and the result is there stated as part of the same thing;
  • "though we see not as yet all things put under him".

• But in what follows He takes care to shew that
  • "we are quickened with him",

• according to the same power which raised Him from the dead where He lay for our sins in which we were dead,
  • "raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ".

• Is this present or not? he does not say "with Christ," but "in Him," but this is to shew in the ages to come the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

• Is that of which He speaks, as shewing in coming ages the exceeding riches of His grace, a different thing from that which He has wrought now? But this is identified with
  • "head to the church, his body".

• I admit fully it will be accomplished in glory. We have the spirit of adoption now; we wait for the adoption, to wit the redemption of the body. But I close.

The word of God is perfectly clear, and the identity of what is revealed and discerned by the Holy Ghost with what will be revealed in us, is seen to be of the very essence of Christianity, as Scripture presents it in its fulness.

• It is the very meaning of the phrase
  • "we are saved in hope," and "though now we see Him not, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified, receiving the end of our faith, the salvation of [our] souls".

• A church of professors denies that it is the church of God. He does not form one of the professors, that is quite clear. The thought is next door to blasphemy.

• The system denies Christian responsibility, and that the professing church will be judged for its unfaithfulness. It falsifies the nature of holiness, and Christ's present relation to the church.

• There is no bride to say "Come!" No purity according to what there will be then, as in Thessalonians, or according to what Christ is now as in 1 John 3.

• No recognition of the predicted corruption of the church, for even now we have to walk with those who call on the name of the Lord out of a pure heart.

• If it were to be a church of professors, and God would have it so, how many are to be allowed? That such may creep in unawares nobody denies, but the theory is that this is what God owns, His church on earth; that we are not to purify ourselves from vessels to dishonour, or go outside the camp.

For one thing I am thankful to C.E.: he has clearly brought out what has been really at stake in the painful questions which have lately exercised the saints he blames, in London, and which all have felt.

• It is because this was in question, without my having an unkindly feeling toward a human being, that I took my stand in the matter.

• The whole testimony of the unity of the body, and even of our heavenly calling was at stake, and in great danger, I admit too.

• Many of the brethren were much more immediately in the conflict than myself, and I thank God for giving them to be faithful in it; and while, I dare say, all was not perfect wisdom, God sustained them in grace. I speak thus as personally distinct, because I was almost all the time out of the country.

• But C.E. by his tract shews what was at stake, the whole special testimony of God as distinct from gospel truths as to pardon. As to this I say no more.

• If my reader wished to see where man's responsibility is taught, where the church is viewed as the house or temple, he must turn to 1 Corinthians 3,
  • "Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon!"

• I should never have replied to this tract, but that it offered an opportunity of shewing from Scripture the real character of the church now, and its identity for faith – though placed here under man's responsibility, save God's infallible grace – with the church and spouse on high;

• and that Christians were bound to recognise and act on this, and so responsible for the state C.E.'s church of professors is in; and that even present individual holiness cannot be separated in its measure from what it will be in glory.

• All that is there, is brought down here now, as that which we are in the new creation and by the Holy Ghost, and according to which we are to live, and seek withal the unity of the Spirit.

I recognise that the brethren in question were well nigh in utter failure. I trust, humbled before Him, we may be allowed to maintain better than ever the holy testimony of God.

• As to the one who gathers, it is a present power here, the Holy Ghost. As to the centre to which they are gathered, it is Christ; but that makes all saints one, and on that principle they meet.

The great central purpose of God before the foundation of the world, was the church – the body of Christ.

• In the garden of Eden it came out in type, when Eve was formed out of Adam, and he said,
  • "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,"

• and so all along the course of God's dealings with man, until the secret was divulged.

• Rebekah conducted across the desert by Eliezer was a gleam of it in Abraham's day, when he had turned his back on man's city, in the plains of Shinar, to look for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And God has prepared for them a city, and that city is the bride, the Lamb's wife.

• Joseph finding a wife in Egypt is another type of it in his day; while Moses marrying a Midianite was the type of it in his day. Thus Ruth in another day, and Solomon's wife was an Egyptian.

• The great central company, the body of Christ, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all, must cast its light on every time and dispensation, though forming no part of it. Hence, when our Lord comes, He speaks in parables of this great circle; the treasure hid in the field and the pearl of great price.

• As soon, then, as our Lord was completely rejected – first, in His humiliation; and secondly, from glory – then the great secret was divulged. In Acts 9: 4 it is for the first time told out in the words,
  • "Why persecutest thou me?"

• the Christ was here on earth in His body. Was this ever true, and is it not now true? Has God given up His purposes? Has Satan succeeded? Satan's great effort has been directed against Christ being here on earth.

Herod the king sacrificed every feeling of kindness and humanity, in order to cut off Christ from the earth. What a sorrow he entailed! Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they are not.

• But when the Lord was definitely rejected, then the time was come for the declaration of the secret, when every power had combined to prevent His being here bodily, then God had ordained and brought to pass that His body should be here;
  • and any one who refuses and ignores this fact that Christ's body is here, falls into the grievous snare that Satan has set for the feet of every believer. God only can preserve one from it.

• All Satan's force and machinations have been from the beginning directed against Christ being on the earth; and since God has signally defeated him in calling out from the man who rejected Him under the influence of Satan, members of His body on the earth, Satan's effort all along has been to frustrate it.

• True, in Romanism, it was imitated, but there is no surer way of lessening the value of a real thing than by counterfeiting it, so much so, that the simple truth of Christ's body being here was unknown for centuries to christian writers,
  • until about the last half century, when God in His grace has been pleased to revive the truth to His people;

• but the opposition to it has not ceased, and the effort of the enemy to ignore it is as great this day as ever it was.

• But, blessed be God, He is as able to protect His own counsel, and preserve it to His dependent people in this day, as ever He was.

Many are the ways that it has been opposed in my remembrance, and in some cases by those who outwardly professed the truth as received among us.

• One party of disaffection, great in numbers and social influence, held that the church would pass through the judgments, and that it had not a heavenly position.
  • They soon betrayed that they were not led by the Holy Spirit in His acknowledged place in the assembly, and as the One by whom all were baptised into one body.

• They became independent, and thus declared that they were not practically in the truths of the one body and the one Spirit. Heresy of the worst kind eventually exposed the evil of this system.

• Independency must be the result of not seeing that Christ's body, one great whole, is on the earth.

• The art of Satan to blind saints as to this great central truth is very marked and continual. A system called 'Holiness by faith' diverted some from it. This so engrossed one with one's own state, that there was no time nor inclination to apprehend the great reality of union with Christ.

• Then again, the gospel so exclusively occupied the minds of saints that the ministry of the church was entirely overlooked. This has wrought an indifference and disregard of the body of Christ in a very strange, but yet distinct way. A company of saints gathered by an evangelist seldom is sound in principle.

• The success of interest in this work has tended to exalt those engaged in it, at the expense of those who, interested in the church, had little or nothing to show for their labours, and hence even those who professedly had accepted and embraced the truth of the body of Christ on earth – they had in heart slighted it – came out in their true colours when a question arose which could not be solved but by a member – however unintelligent – of the body of Christ.

• A member has a spiritual sense. It requires no profound information, but simple faith, and the consequences flowing from it, of being by the Spirit united to Christ and to one another.

• When a saint pretends to be what he is not, some day or other he will be found out, and his real state exposed. Thus it is with many now whose want of faith was concealed by the position they occupied, while greatly commended because of their zeal in gospel work;
  • and they are now only discovered as not only ignorant of being on the ground of the one body, but in some instances they actually assert that it is untenable and impracticable to meet now on that ground, and surely this is tantamount to saying that the body of Christ is not on the earth

• This class seem never to get beyond the truths which minister to their affections. Hence what Christ suffered and wrought for us is their only theme. Everything to feed the affections, and this is most necessary;
  • but when exclusively so there is no progress, and very often only relieving the conscience of indulged inconsistencies.

Another variety of opposition to this great truth has yet more recently arisen. It comes from those who profess to see the heavenly position of the saints.

• They assume to be led by the Spirit in their meetings and teaching, in fact, every truth connected with the body of Christ, and yet they deny that they can meet on the ground of the one body – that everything of a corporate character has passed away, that there are disjecta membra, twos and threes here and there, but no witness to the fact that Christ's body is here.

• Of course, men might be deluded enough to say the sun was not here while they were walking in the light of it. These assert that they are in the enjoyment of the properties and privileges of the body,
  • but that the body is not here, and that the Holy Spirit does not keep any number of the members in the principle and order of it on the earth because of failure and dislocation.

  • Could not part of a natural body be released from paralysis to the great and solid benefit of the rest of the body?

• If the body be not here, how do these religionists reach a heavenly association with Christ, which is their great aim and teaching?

• If the body be not here there is no union with Christ, for that is corporate, and though it is quite true that the ministry of the gospel does confer heavenly hope and heavenly joys on the believer,
  • yet there is no union with Christ in the ministry of the gospel;

• and hence if this association with Christ be sought for as a matter of attainment, which – though never spoken of in Scripture – it must be, if not by union with Christ, and it cannot be by union, if as they say, there is an end to the corporate thing;
  • well, if it be so, this association so much spoken of and pressed cannot be enjoyed at all and is simply a myth as they teach it, and it is still more evident that they are not enjoying union,

• for if they were they would have the unmistakable mark of union, that is, identity of interest with Christ, where both the affections are deepened and full association is known, and this identity of interest cannot be acquired in any other way, because it is from our union with Him – a consequence of relationship.

In conclusion let me add the statements in Scripture establishing beyond question that the body of Christ is here. Where is the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made known to all the nations for the obedience of faith? See Romans 16: 25-26.

• If the body of Christ be not here, where is the ministry of the church in Colossians 1,
  • "the mystery of God", chapter 2: 2,

• which the apostle so earnestly sought should be understood by the saints? To what purpose is Christ the Head in heaven,
  • "from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God", if the body be not here?

• How do we obtain association or place with Christ in heaven, if it be that as His body we are all raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him, if the body be not here?

• How can Jews and gentiles be one if there be not one body?
  • "That he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby", Ephesians 2: 16.

• What is the work of the Holy Spirit on this earth if there be no body? How are saints bound to one another if they be not baptised by one Spirit into one body?
  • "All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ", 1 Corinthians 12: 11-12.

  • "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular".

• For what purpose are the gifts, if there be no body to edify?
  • "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry; for the edifying of the body of Christ", Ephesians 4: 11-12.

• And lastly, how can the body edify itself which it is required to do if it be not in existence?
  • "From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love", Ephesians 4: 16.

Can anything more surely establish the inability of the human mind to comprehend a spiritual fact, than that a subject so distinctly and variously presented and insisted on in Scripture, should by even zealous and devoted christians be opposed and denied, while in simple faith apprehended by the youngest?

• The Lord anoint their eyes with eye-salve that they may see.

The truth of the one body is of all moment as affecting our conduct here as individuals.

• We cannot possibly be intelligent as to our conduct as individuals unless we recognise that we are one body in Christ and members of one another.

• In Romans we have the simple fundamental principle of Christianity, and to a very large extent that which is individual in Christian life.

It is important to remember that each one has an individual path; but on the other hand there comes in this truth, which to a certain extent affects that, namely, that

• "we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another".

• This is the first presentation of the truth of the body. Then we have an advance in light upon it in Corinthians, Colossians, and Ephesians.

In this chapter we have two thoughts as to the Christian:

1. we are here for the will of God

2. and we are members of one body.

• Both act as a check upon independence. Man naturally does not like being fettered by such bonds; he would prefer to be a kind of Ishmaelite, independent and free of everything.

• The Christian has to recognise that he is here for God's will, not his own, and that he is a member of the body.

I want you to notice the expression, "one body in Christ". It is not that which could be effected by the association of men, it is in Christ.

• We all have our individual path in the flesh, as the apostle said
  • "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me", Galatians 2: 20.

• That was his own path, and his individual faith; he does not there look upon himself in the light of a member of the body.

• So we all have to do with the concerns of daily life, and have to take up a variety of things here, one being a servant, another a master, but all this has nothing to do with our being one body in Christ.

The body is not a religious or outward organisation. There are such organisations, as Popery, the Church of England, Wesleyans, Good Templars, and the like,

• but they are in the flesh, they are not "one body in Christ".

The truth of our being members of one body does not add to our privileges, but really depends upon the privileges which are ours.

• It hangs upon two thoughts, which go together, that is,

1. that Christ is in the saints,

2. and that the saints are in Christ.

• If you apprehend these two points you have the basis of the truth of the body.

• "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification".

• This verse is fundamental, for the great idea is presented to us of One having been raised from the dead representatively; that is, He has been raised for our justification.

• No one can understand the truth of being in Christ who does not first understand this. Just as He was delivered for our offences, so has He been raised for our justification.

1. The first thing is "faith in his blood"; I can actually meet God by His blood.

2. The next ray of light is that He was raised again for our justification;

• I am justified in Him. He represented His people upon the cross, and He represents His people in resurrection. I am completely cleared from everything which lay upon me, cleared according to the truth of Christ.

• God has not yet liberated me from every effect of sin, but Christ has been liberated. He was made sin, and died, and God has freed Him from every consequence of sin.

• I am not so liberated in my own person, for if the Lord tarries I shall die, but I am liberated in Christ, I am justified in Him. The measure of my justification is Christ.

• This brings the light of Christ into my soul. I have got a link with Him which cannot possibly be broken. When it says, "our justification", I think the word includes the whole Christian company.

Now I go on to chapter 6: 9-11, where we have a further point, we pass out of death into life. We reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

• In these verses it is not simply the fact that He is raised, but He lives unto God, and we reckon ourselves alive unto God in Him. Christ describes what we are in the presence of God. We cannot know what a believer is in the presence of God except as we find it out in Christ.

• If we could suppose that Adam had not failed, a man might have said that he was alive unto God in Adam. The truth is, "In Adam all die". We reckon ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

• What Christ is describes what the Christian is, and you cannot learn the place and privilege of the Christian except as you learn it in Christ. He lives unto God for God's eternal satisfaction. God has found His perfect rest in a Man now.

• We learn what we are to God as we see it in Him. And this is the description of what all Christians are in the eye of God. I wish you to notice this because I am leading on to the truth of the body. We are all justified in Him, and we are all alive in Him. One Man, that is Christ, describes what all are in the eye of God.

In chapter 8 we reach the other side of the truth, the subjective, that is our side of the truth.

• "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you …", verses 9-10.

• When it is said "alive unto God in Christ Jesus", it is position. Christ's position before God belongs to the Christian.

• The other side of the truth is that Christ lives in the believer by the Spirit. He could not live in us except by the Spirit. The two thoughts are brought together in these verses,
  • "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his", then, "if Christ be in you".

  • Christ lives in us. "Not I, but Christ liveth in me"

• Christ lives in principle in all Christians. It is only one Christ for our position before God, and one Christ living in all Christians by the Spirit. There may be thousands of Christians who have part in the Spirit, but there is only one Christ.

• This leads up to the great truth in chapter 12,
  • "We, being many, are one body in Christ".

• Our being one body does not add anything to the privilege or dignity of the Christian; it is a necessary consequence of our being alive unto God in Christ Jesus, and of Christ living in all Christians.

People take up the body as a distinct truth, but no truth in that sense is distinct or separate in Scripture, because truth is one complete whole, all parts being interdependent.

• I am convinced that you must learn the truth of the body on the line I have indicated.

1. You must first learn that Christ was raised from the dead for our justification;

2. then that we have passed out of death into life, for we have a new position in Him in the presence of God;

3. then that He lives in us in that position.

• "The Spirit is life". What is that for? For the position we have in the presence of God. I see that there is a Man there to the perfect satisfaction of God; we are in Him and He lives in us.

• For example, we talk about a Christian being a child of God, but Scripture speaks of the children of God; it is always plural.

• The apostle does not say, "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon the Christian", but, "upon us, that we should be called the sons" [children] "of God".

Our life and pilgrimage in the wilderness is all individual, in which each one has to be faithful, but when we come to our being alive in Christ, and Christ living in us, it is what we have in common.

• When I come to take up my daily duties down here I do so in my natural life, and according to the ability which God has given me. That is my life in flesh, it is not a question of Christ living in me; I live by faith of the Son of God.

• If Christ lives in me it is for the position which I have in Him before God; and this is true of the whole company of Christians. Thus are we one body in Christ. And then another thing comes out, we are members one of another.

Now in chapter 12 I want you to notice two things, the first of which is that the Christian is to be here for God both in body and mind. He is to present his body a living sacrifice, and he is transformed by the renewing of his mind.

• The body is the material part of man, the mind is the intelligent part. The body is not renewed, it is yielded up, it is devoted, for that is the idea of sacrifice in Scripture, something devoted which cannot be recalled. The Christian's body is to be offered up as a living sacrifice that cannot be recalled.

• Then the apostle speaks of the renewing of the mind, though he could not speak of the renewing of the body. It flows from this, that God has become a factor, and the most important factor in the Christian's existence.

• An unconverted man lives entirely without God. He may acknowledge God in a formal way, but his soul does not know what it is to have to do with God.

• When a man is converted the practical effect of it is that God becomes a great reality to that man. He comes to know God, not as Adam knew Him before man had departed from Him, but as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in Christ. He turns to a living God.

The Thessalonians turned from idols to serve a living and true God; that is, One who had proved Himself to be living and true, for He had revealed Himself. I delight in a thought that has been present to me lately, namely, that

• God's great answer to the ruin of man by Satan is that He has displayed Himself in a man. In Christ, who took the form of a man, dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

• If you want to know all the thought of God toward man, you see the full display of it in the Lord Jesus. Now that is the God to whom we turn.

• We are made acquainted with what He is, we live in divine light, in the light as He is, and our hearts are made acquainted with His love; it is made personal to us by the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us.

• That produces the mightiest revolution possible in man's mind. I have no doubt at all it is the work of God, but that, I judge, is how the renewing of the mind is brought about.

A man lives for his own will until he is converted, now he is here to prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God, and to be here for that will by the renewing of his mind.

• An unconverted man thinks he is doing his own will, but he is really doing the will of Satan. No man has free will. The fact is that man is dominated by sin and that subjects him to Satan.

• When he is delivered there is the renewing of the mind, and he recognises that a great check has come upon his will, he is here for God's will.

• It is a very great thing to apprehend that your place before God is what He has given you for His own pleasure. If you have the place of a son, He has given you that place for His own pleasure. Well then, we are down here for His pleasure, to prove His good and perfect and acceptable will.

Now I come to the second great point in this chapter: we are to recognise that we, being many, are one body in Christ.

• I cannot therefore take an independent course, for it must be shaped with regard to this truth. I must think soberly.

• In our unconverted days we thought something of ourselves, and had an idea of independence; now all that must be dropped, for we are members one of another.

• We are divested of the thought of independence, because we did not put ourselves in the body; God has put each into the place which He has seen fit. What we have to do is simply to exercise the particular function which we have in the body.

• A man may say, I would like to be a leader; but whether he is to be a leader or not depends on the place which God has given him. We have gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, and each one has to wait on the gift. If I have the gift of teaching, I have to wait on it; and so with ministry, exhortation, etc.

• I have to concern myself to carry out the function which is allotted to me in the body in the very best way I possibly can.

• I think no one can fail to see what an immense difference it makes when I recognise the fact that we are one body in Christ, and that God has given to each a place and function in this great scheme.

So we have these two great checks upon the Christian

1. first, he is devoted to God, body and mind; he is given up to Him, and is here for His good and perfect and acceptable will;

2. and then, secondly, he is to think soberly of himself because he can only think of himself according to the measure of faith.

• I believe the measure of faith to be the light which God has given me as in the body and as to the function each has to exercise.

• If every member of my own body thought something of itself, there would be a good deal of schism; it is because every member naturally keeps its place and does its own work that the body goes on harmoniously.

• The truth of the body is intended to have the very greatest influence upon saints down here.

• Another time, if the Lord enable me, I will show the place which it has in regard to the saints gathered together; I only speak of it now in regard to the Christian in his individual path in this world.

• It is a great thing to know that I have a function in the body, even if it be a very unimportant one. I have to wait on it and to carry out diligently that which God has been pleased to assign to me in connection with the place which He has given me in the body.

The two great principles here are faith and grace.

• Faith is light, and grace enables me to act on the light which I have got by faith.

• May God give to us to see the truth that leads up to the body. It is in Christ we are justified, so that He becomes a great living reality to our hearts. Then His position is ours, and He is in us for the position which God has given to us.

• When this is understood it becomes clear that we are here, body and mind, for God's will, and that we are one body in Christ.

It is important to remember that all the teaching in this epistle is of an elementary character.

• The apostle does not unfold to the Corinthians the wisdom of God, but confines his instruction to first principles.

• In this chapter the divine thought in the body is not given. There are only two verses in it which speak of the body: verse 13,
  • "For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body";

    and the statement in verse 27,

  • "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular".

• The intervening verses introduce the natural body in the way of illustration.

In Colossians the important point is the revelation of the mystery, which is God's mind in regard of the body. That is a great advance upon the mere statement that the saints are the body. The apostle says there,

• "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory".

• That is the divine idea in the body. You will never understand the body if you do not get to that point.
  • The idea in the body is not ecclesiastical, if you understand me, but moral. It is Christ's body, and in every place in which it is mentioned in Scripture the truth is brought in as light to bear upon the saints.

• They had their church formation before the truth of the body was revealed. They were gathered in fellowship, and had the Lord's supper before they knew anything at all of the body.

• They were in fellowship in a sense before the Spirit descended. There were those in Jerusalem who had been gathered by the testimony of the resurrection of Christ, and the Spirit descended and constituted them the house of God; that was the beginning of the church.

• A long time after that the truth came out that they were Christ's body.
  • I believe no more serious mistake can be made than to look upon the body as giving the idea of ecclesiastical formation.

• The great thought of the body is that it is Christ's body, and so it comes in as light for the saints.

In Romans 12 we are just brought up to the point of the one body. All the epistle tends in that direction.

• God is revealed in grace and righteousness; then there is the great truth of the resurrection of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. So you reach the point that Christ is in the saints, and the instant you reach that you have got the one body. We are all one, because we are partakers of one Spirit.

• If the love of God is shed abroad in my heart, it is shed abroad in the heart of every saint. In Romans we are looked at very much individually,
  • but all the instruction leads up in this way to the idea of the one body.

• In chapter 12 the body is spoken of, and in chapter 16 the revelation of the mystery is mentioned.

Now in Corinthians the great idea from the outset is the company.

• In the beginning of the epistle the apostle says God has called us into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. That is what we have in common. God's Son Jesus Christ is Lord to us.

• Then in chapter 10 it is the fellowship of Christ's death. It is the same fellowship, but there are two sides to it.

• We do not look on God's Son as if He were reigning in this world, but as having died to all that is here, and we are in the fellowship of His death. That shuts us off in a way from all that is going on here.

The Lord has not, I doubt, place enough in our hearts. We need to be filled with a sense of the greatness of His glory. There is the revelation of it in John 11 and 12.

• Chapter 10 brings us to the one flock and one Shepherd, which is almost equivalent to the one body and the Head.

• Then there is witness given to Christ's glory as Son of God, Son of David, and Son of man.
  • As Son of God He annuls death and raises man out of it; this was witnessed in the resurrection of Lazarus.

  • As Son of David He secures the sure mercies of David,

  • and as Son of man He is the desire of all nations.

• Then on the ground of redemption He becomes the gathering point for saints.
  • "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me".

• The Lord is the bond of fellowship of all saints here upon the earth. What marked off the early saints from the world was that they called on the Lord.

• They were called to the fellowship of One who had been rejected by the world, but who was light to the saints. They were illuminated with His glory, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians:
  • "We all … beholding … the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image".

• We are assimilated, and thus become "light in the Lord".
  • "Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord", Ephesians 5: 8.

• All these things are very important for us practically as to the state of our hearts. It is a great thing to be light in the Lord, to rejoice in the Lord, to have the consciousness of the glory which belongs to Him.

• He has the highest place and the greatest power, for He sits as man at God's right hand. He is Lord, and He has sent down the Holy Spirit. We are to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

Now having been called to the fellowship of the Lord, the truth of the body is brought in as light to those who were thus gathered.

In Romans and Corinthians the truth of the one body is introduced as a check on tendencies to which saints are liable.

• In Romans 12 it meets the thought of independency, for we have to recognise that we are members one of another, and a man is to think soberly of himself, as God has given to each the measure of faith.

• In 1 Corinthians the truth of the body is introduced as a check upon clericalism, for the manifestations of the Spirit are in the body, and hence the least member may be necessary.

• In neither case is it exactly the teaching of the truth of the body, but the introduction of a little light in regard to it with a view to the principal point in hand.

• The subject in Romans is our individual conduct in the world; in 1 Corinthians 11 to 14 the saints are contemplated as in assembly. The light of the body is brought in to regulate these things.

In Ephesians and Colossians the divine thought in the body is presented. A full statement of the counsel of God in regard of the body is found in Ephesians 1: 22-23,

• "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all".

• Colossians leads up to that. "Whom we preach … that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus".

• The great idea of the church is that it should be the vessel for the perfect expression of Christ, a full delineation, not one feature lacking.

• If you could by the apostle's ministry have every saint perfect, or full-grown in Christ, there would be a perfect delineation of Christ in this world. That is what I understand by "the fulness", or completeness; there is no feature of Christ lacking.

• I cannot doubt that the church will come out as the completeness of Christ in glory, and I believe, what has been usually held, that it will be found to include every saint from Pentecost downwards.

The great point in Colossians is Christ in the Gentiles the hope of glory. The mystery of God is a wonderful thing, and He has now made it manifest to the saints.

• What a conception it was on God's part, that Christ who had been rejected by His people here upon earth should be found among the Gentiles! I want to show you how it is brought about.

There are two statements in regard to the believer with which we are familiar; we are in Christ, and He is in us.

• We have to learn the bearing of this individually, but it really involves the truth of the one body. I cannot see that our being one body adds anything to us. What we do get by it is that the body is subjected to Christ as Head, as the wife is to the husband.

• All that we can receive from God we get by the gospel. We may afterwards learn the truth of the mystery, but it adds nothing to us.

• We find that the body is subjected to Christ, and He takes the direction of it as its Head. In Colossians 2 there are those who do not hold the Head. They were not, I judge, Christians at all, but those who had come in to corrupt Christians.

There are two main thoughts in connection with our being in Christ; we are justified in Him, and have a new position revealed in Him.

• God has not displayed my justification in myself, for I am not much different from other people down here.

• I am not risen, but Christ is. But I am clear of judgment, and the witness of it is that Christ, who died for my sins, is risen. He was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

• The believer has to refer to Christ as his righteousness in the presence of God.

Then there is another thing, which is more important, because it refers to more positive blessing; that is, we are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.

• We have a new position in Him, which cannot be understood apart from Him. He has entered upon it in resurrection, so that we can be with Him in it.

• This is an entirely new position for man in the presence of God, revealed in Christ, and we are in the light of it. It never was available for man until Christ was risen.

• Then He says, "Go to my brethren". Now that side of the truth involves unity. We have it in the hymn:
  "In Him we stand, a heavenly band,
  Where He Himself is gone". (Hymn 12)

• It is one common position in which we all stand as being in Christ. It is true in Him, and we have the light of it.

We must learn this individually, because sonship is individual relationship to God, as having been brought to Him. The gospel confers it upon us.

• The very fact of our having this place of sonship in Christ necessitates our being one body in Him.

Now I come to the other side, and that brings in the truth of life.

• Christ is in us by the Spirit. This is the mystery.

• The truth of our being in Christ is not exactly the mystery because that marks our position before God, but Christ in the saints is the mystery.

• The first time the expression Christ in you occurs is in Romans 8, where it is said,
  • "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you …".

So Christ being in us is evidently consequent upon the Spirit of Christ being in us.

• Christ has been here under the eye of God, and nothing short of Christ can now be according to His mind. Therefore it must be Christ in the saints.

There are two functions which the Spirit fulfils in the saints. He is in them as life, and also as the Spirit of sonship. If the Spirit is life in us, the connection between the saints and the Spirit is evidently very intimate.

• My conviction is that life is essentially individual, for no one can share the life of another.

• Life in the creature is the effect of the work of God. But while individuality is maintained, yet we all live by the same power. The Spirit connects Himself with the work of God in the believer, so that that work is identified with Him, and the believer lives in the Spirit.

• My life is the effect of God's work in me, and your life is the effect of God's work in you, yet we both live in the Spirit.

When the Spirit is viewed as the Spirit of sonship He is not connected with us quite in the same intimate way; He is more of a witness in us, and so can be distinguished from our spirit. By Him each one of us cries, Abba, Father.

• So far I have not gone beyond the gospel. It is by the gospel we are brought into blessing individually, and we cannot touch the truth of the mystery until we are established in the knowledge of individual blessing.

I believe the great lack with us is that we have not a sufficient sense of what Christ is as Lord.

• There are two things which attach to Him as Lord: He announces peace and confers the Holy Spirit.

• God preaches peace by Jesus Christ, and all the opposition of Satan and man cannot prevent His preaching peace.

• Then He has sent down from on high divine power, so that the believer is superior to all the power of evil.

There are two testimonies in the beginning of Acts to the glory of Christ: the confusion of tongues was in a certain sense set aside by the gift of the Spirit, and man was raised up from the extremity of human weakness by the name of Jesus.

• The apostle had none of this world's means – silver and gold – but the name of Jesus of Nazareth enabled the man to walk. I refer to this because it illustrates the power and glory of Christ.

• There is no power or glory equal to that of Christ, and if we had a sufficient sense of it we should be continually rejoicing in Him. This is connected with the truth of the gospel and the place into which we are brought.

• Now Christ in us involves one body. He is in us by the Spirit, who is the Spirit of life and the Spirit of sonship. He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, not in Adam, and the Spirit of sonship is the Spirit of God's Son.

• There is only one such; it is impossible that there should be another. Every saint partakes in that Spirit. No one now could have the Spirit in the same way as Christ had it, for when He received the Holy Spirit He was alone; no one could share it with Him.

• Now we all have part in the Spirit. The apostle speaks in the plural –
  • "Because ye are sons".

• Thus the very fact of Christ being in us involves one body, because it is by one Spirit. Christ lives in the saints by the Spirit, and they cry Abba, Father, by the Spirit of God's Son.

• It is a wonderful thing that there should be thus a presentation of Christ down here; a body of saints down here, righteous as He is righteous, and all crying, Abba, Father – a heavenly Christ delineated in the saints.

Righteousness is individual, and the cry of sonship is individual, but the very fact of participating in one Spirit binds us all together as members one of another.

• The formation of the body was not any distinct action or operation of the Spirit, but it followed upon the reception of the Spirit by each and all. The purpose was that there should be a delineation of Christ here in the whole company of the saints.

• Then when the body was formed Christ was given to be Head of it, that He might direct it. The body is subjected to Christ, and He takes the ordering of it, that He may be displayed in it. The body is for the display of Christ.

Then how is this brought about? I believe the more really we enter into the blessed truth of our individual relationship with God, the more sensible shall we be by the Spirit that we are one body in Christ and members one of another. I do not think the fact of our being one body is a thought to be occupied with.

• What is presented to us objectively in Scripture is the blessed revelation of God, and the more we are formed by the Spirit in the sense of our individual relation to God the more shall we be sensible that we are one body here, and that for the delineation of Christ.

Evidently the great thought in it is testimony in the world. It is the fulfilling of the prayer in John 17: 21,

• "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me".

• The affection formed in the saints one toward another, by the consciousness of the love of Christ, was to be testimony to the world that the Father sent the Son.
  • "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another".

• What a wonderful thing for every one of us to be under the influence of the love of Christ, and so loving one another! This is the great testimony to the world that the Father sent the Son.

"Christ in you, the hope of glory"; that is, the pledge of glory.

• If there is among the Gentiles this wonderful delineation of the Christ who has been rejected by the world, you have the greatest pledge that could be given that God will accomplish all the purpose of His will.

• It is a certainty that Christ will be in this world in glory, and the pledge of that is already in the Gentiles. If we have the hope of glory we shall assuredly have the glory itself.

The saints were slow to rise to this. The apostle says to the Galatians that he travailed in birth again until Christ was formed in them.

• Until Christ was formed in them as a company there was but little testimony from them. They had the Spirit, but did not know the power of the Spirit, and were not in the light of sonship.

• The Colossians had entered into this; they were holy and faithful brethren, and were enjoying their individual relation to the Father, therefore the apostle could say,
  • "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory".

• It is the pledge of the complete accomplishment of the purpose of God, that Christ will be displayed in the scene in which He was rejected. He will be displayed in glory in the saints.

• It is a moral display now, but when He comes it will be to be glorified in His saints; the heavenly city, new Jerusalem, will be the vessel of His glory in that day.

I have tried to show the divine thought in the body, and it is an amazing one to me. I can understand the conflict of the apostle that the saints might answer to it.

• In the light of it we can see the terrible defection of the church. I thank God for the light of it, not that the church will ever be restored down here.

• It will come out right in glory, but the effect of getting the divine thought is that I refuse to countenance anything that is contrary to it.

• So far as I am able individually I seek to walk in the reality of the truth of the place and relationship into which I am brought with God in Christ, and the more I do so the more I realise that we are one body in Christ.

• The idea of the body is, not that something additional is conferred upon the saints, but that they are subjected to Christ, and that they are a vessel in which He is displayed.

The important point to remember in connection with the body is that it is Christ's body. It is often spoken of as one body in contrast to two.

• Previously there were, in a sense, two bodies – Jews and Gentiles; now there is one body.
  • "By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body".

  • "There is one body and one Spirit".

• But then there is a further truth taught, especially in Colossians and Ephesians, that is, that the one body is Christ's body, and until we apprehend that, we do not get the divine thought of it.

• When we do get this, it has a great effect upon us, greatly helping us in carrying out our responsibilities, and accentuating our fellowship.

• The basis of Christian fellowship is that we call on the Lord, but the light we get in regard to the body, and the divine thought in it, greatly colours our fellowship.

There are three principal passages in which we have already seen the body referred to.

1. The first is Romans 12, where we simply get the statement, "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another".

2. Then in 1 Corinthians 12 we have, "By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body … and have been all made to drink into one Spirit",

3. and later in the same chapter, "Ye are Christ's body".

• Then in Colossians we have the divine thought of it in the unfolding of the mystery. I do not see any unfolding of the mystery either in Romans or Corinthians; nor is there any allusion to the Head.

• You cannot really understand the truth of the body, except in connection with the Head. In Colossians 1 it is said,
  • "He is the head of the body, the church".

• What we want is the Head, and when we understand the Head we understand a great deal better the thought of the body.

We must not separate the truth of the body from the gospel, for it is the mystery of the gospel.

• I quite admit that the apostle speaks of two ministries, that of the gospel and that of the church.

• Yet he speaks of the mystery of the gospel, and asks the prayers of the saints that he may be enabled to make it known, speaking boldly as he ought to speak.

• What I understand by the expression is that the truth of the church as Christ's body is involved in the gospel. It is a distinct ministry, and the apostle so speaks of it, but the thing itself is certainly involved in the gospel. This makes the truth of the church very much simpler.

When the gospel is rightly apprehended it leads to the gift of the Holy Spirit. Its end and purpose is that God may be revealed in man's heart,

• "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us".

• The gospel is God's approach to man. Other ministry comes in with regard to man's approach to God.

• God's great purpose in the gospel is the revelation of Himself, according to what He is, in the heart of man, and that does not come to pass until the Holy Spirit is received, for no one knows the love of God except by the Holy Spirit. The gospel brings us to that point.

Then this involves the truth of the body, because it is one Spirit that we receive, we do not each receive a different Spirit.

• There was but one baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that at Pentecost. The Lord told His disciples that they should be baptised with the Holy Spirit "not many days hence", and on the day of Pentecost they received the gift of the Spirit. He had said to them,
  • "He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you",

• and the Spirit came and was in them. That was the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and there was not another. The reception of the Gentiles, and all that has taken place since, is simply an extension of what took place on that day.

Everyone must allow that it was one Spirit that came. Scripture is careful to speak of one Spirit, and in this is involved the truth of one body.

• The gospel addresses us as individuals, deals with us individually, and brings us into individual privilege; but the mystery of the body lies hidden in it, and the apostle's effort was to make it manifest.

• What he unfolded was what hung upon the fact that all believers received one Spirit, that consequently they were one body, and that body was Christ's body. The thought of the body is rather that of unity than of union.

• The body is formed by the Holy Spirit, and Christ is given as Head to it. It is on the principle of Ephesians 5: 31,
  • "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh".

• Christ is cut off from what I might call all natural connections, His connections with Israel after the flesh, and when cut off in that way He is joined in that sense to the church. The church is His body, and it is a new point of departure and involves for Him a new name.

Though we have the body mentioned in Romans and Corinthians, we do not get the Head.

• I think the saints in those places needed to know Christ as Lord, and no one can know Him as Head who does not know Him as Lord.

• In Corinthians He is spoken of as Lord, even in connection with the assembly. So we have the Lord's table, the Lord's supper, and other similar expressions. The gospel presents Him to us as Lord, not as Head.

• My conviction is that Christians generally have not sufficient apprehension of Him as Lord; their souls are not sufficiently imbued with a sense of His glory and power. When we are so, we are conscious that His glory and power are superior to all other, and we are brought into the light of the day.

• The day connects itself with the Lord. He has power to subdue all things to Himself, and if we are in the light of His power and glory we shall not have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, and whatever we do in word or deed we shall do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.

The body is only introduced in Romans and Corinthians incidentally;

• in the one as a check upon independency,

• and in the other as a check upon clericalism.

• In Colossians we have the relation of the body to the Head. It is the proper vessel of witness to the Head. All the qualities of the Head in heaven are to come out in the body in suitability to the scene in which it is.

• The princes of this world crucified the Lord of glory; now God's thought is that every quality of Christ shall be expressed in the body; Christ is in the Gentiles, and this is the hope of glory. And all comes out in suitability to the scene in which the body is; therefore we have
  • "bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another";

• nothing of this will be requisite in heaven. It is not anything of the flesh, because we have not known Christ after the flesh.

• The Christian properly lives in heaven, his life is hid with Christ in God; but the body is the vessel in which the character of Christ is to be displayed in the scene where it actually is.

It is impossible for men or devils to put out of the world anything that God has established here.

• God set up His temple here, and it cannot be dislodged; it may take a different character, ceasing to be a material house and composed of living stones, but it cannot be dislodged.

• So it is in regard to Christ. He was rejected and crucified, but He is still to be here, for God establishes a body in which He is expressed. And this is the hope of glory, for it is the pledge which God has given of the establishment of all His purpose.

Let me direct attention to 1 John 5: 9-11, which speaks of the witness of God. What is the witness?

• "This is the record" [witness], "that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son".

• His Son has been rejected, but the witness which God has been pleased to give concerning His Son is that He has given eternal life to Christians. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.

• The Christian circle, composed of those to whom eternal life is given and who are in the love of the brethren, is God's witness concerning His Son.

In Ephesians we do not find a great deal about the body, but we have the bride, and the idea which comes out in that thought is that she is to share the portion of the Bridegroom.

• What is presented in regard to the body is Christ's headship to it. When He is exalted far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, then it is He is given as Head to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.

• The church has its proper place in relation to Christ as the vessel in which He is described when everything is put under Him. It is not so at the present time, for "we see not yet all things put under him"; but when it is so the body is His fulness.

• There will not be a single feature or trait of Christ lacking in the church. Every quality of Christ will be expressed in the church, which is His body. This is what is meant by His fulness.

The thought of the bride is intimately connected with the truth of the body.

• At the beginning we get the two thoughts. There was to be a helpmeet for Adam, and nothing in the inferior creation was fitting, therefore God took a rib out of the man and made it a woman.

• Thus there are the two thoughts; she was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, and she became his companion, suitable to him, to share his honour and his dominion.

• Adam was set in dominion over everything, but not properly in dominion over his wife, for she was his companion. This is the divine idea of the church.

• The church is subjected – not exactly subject – to Christ. Why? Because He is its Head. The church was formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and Christ was given to be Head of it, and therefore it is subjected to Him.

The bride is the prominent idea in Ephesians. When we read in chapter 2 of what God has effected it brings in the thought of the bride.

• Jew and Gentile are set together in companionship with Christ in the heavenly places to satisfy the love of God. It has all been effected because of the great love wherewith God loved us.

• He gave Christ to be Head of the church, and therefore the church must be where the Head is, to share His portion and inheritance.

In chapter 5 the ideas of body and bride are found together, though the latter is the prominent one.

• No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Christ the church. And again,
  • "We are members of his body";

    then afterwards you return to the idea of the bride,

  • "… shall be joined unto his wife … I speak concerning Christ and the church".

Head, as the vessel of witness for the Head here. Having entered into this we must take up the other thought, the body must be the bride

• According to the counsels of God, Christ cannot be alone in the position in which He is as Man; He must have a helpmeet.

• The church, which is the vessel of witness here, is to be the companion of Christ in glory, and all is for the satisfaction of the love of God.

The effect of this should be that we are exercised as to whether we are in suitability for presentation. Presentation refers to completeness.

• So we have on the one hand the church subjected to Christ, and on the other the church as the object of His love. He loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He might present it to Himself glorious.

It is a great thing to be here in the sense of the love of Christ, and awaiting the moment of presentation, seeking to be morally suitable.

• May God help us, and give us light in regard to it!