Miscellaneous
Writings Vol. Two
LECTURE II. NICOLAITANISM;
OR,
THE RISE AND GROWTH OF CLERISY (Rev. ii. 12-17).
WE are now going to look carefully at that fifteenth
verse: "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which
thing I hate."
This next stage of the Church's journey in its
departure, alas, from truth may easily be recognized historically. It applies
to the time when, after having passed through the heathen persecution, (and the
faithfulness of many an Antipas was brought out by it,) it got publicly
recognized and established in the world. The characteristic of this epistle
is,- although I do not now dwell upon it, I hope to take it up another time,-
the Church dwelling where Satan's throne is. "Throne" it should be, not "seat."
Now Satan has his throne, not in hell, (which is his prison, and where he never
reigns at all,) but in the world. He is expressly called the "prince of this
world." To dwell where Satan's throne is, is to settle down in the world, under
Satan's government, so to speak, and protection. That is what people call the
establishment of the Church. It took place in Constantine's time. Although
amalgamation with the world had been growing for a long time more and more
decided, yet it was then that the Church stepped into the seats of the old
heathen idolatry. It was what people call the triumph of Christianity; but the
result was that the Church had the things of the world now, as never before, in
secure possession: the chief place in the world was hers, and the principles of
the world everywhere pervaded her. The very name of "Pergamos" intimates that.
It is a word (without the particle attached to it, which is itself significant)
meaning "marriage;" and the Church's marriage before Christ comes to receive
her to Himself is necessarily unfaithfulness to Him to whom she is espoused. It
is the marriage of the Church and the world which the epistle to Pergamos
speaks of - the end of a courtship which had been going on long before.
There is something, however, which is really preliminary to this,- mentioned in
the very first address - which I shall take up tonight, and which really comes
in place here. I could not so well bring it in when we were looking at the
address to Ephesus, because there it is evidently incidental, and does not
characterize the state of things. In the address to Ephesus the Lord says:
"This thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also
hate" (ii. 6). Here it is more than the "deeds" of the Nicolaitans. There are
now not merely "deeds," but ''doctrine." And the Church, instead of repudiating
it, was holding with it. In the Ephesian days they hated the deeds of the
Nicolaitans, but in Pergamos they "had," and did not reprobate, those who held
the doctrine.
The serious question, then, is, How shall we interpret
this ? I answer that the word "Nicolaitans" is the only thing really which we
have to interpret it by. People have tried very hard to show that there was a
sect of the Nicolaitans, but it is owned by writers now, almost on all sides,
to be very doubtful. Nor can we conceive why, in epistles of a prophetic
character - which I trust I have shown these to have - there should be such
repeated and emphatic mention of a mere obscure sect, about which people can
tell us little or nothing, and that seems manufactured to suit the passage
before us. The Lord solemnly denounces it: " which thing I hate." It must have
a special importance with Him, and be of moment in the Church's history -
little apprehended as it may have been. And another thing which we have to
remember is, that it is not the way of Scripture to send us to Church histories
or to any history at all, in order to inter-pret its sayings. God's Word is its
own interpreter, and we have not to go elsewhere in order to findl out what is
there. Otherwise it becomes a question of learned men searching and finding out
for those who have not the same means or abilities - applications which must be
taken on their authority alone. God does not leave us to that sort of thing.
Besides, it is the ordinary way in Scripture, and especially in passages of a
symbolical character, such as is the part before us, for the names to be
significant. I need not remind you how abundantly in the Old Testament this is
the case; and in the New Testament, although less noticed, I cannot doubt but
that there is the same significance throughout. Here, if we are left simply to
the name, I think the name alone is sufficiently startling and instructive. Of
course, to those who spoke the language used the meaning would be no hidden or
recondite thing, but as apparent as those of Bunyan's allegories.
It
means, then, "conquering the people." The last part of the word (Laos) is the
word used in Greek for " people," and it is the word from which the commonly
used term '' Laity" is derived. The Nicolaitans were just those : ''subjecting,
putting down the laity,'' the mass of Christian peopre, in order unduly to lord
it over them.
There is another word which is very striking in this
connection, and found in this very address, side by side with this ; a word
quite alike to this '' Nicolaitans," although it is a Hebrew word and not a
Greek ; as you have the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, so you have the "doctrine
of Balaam" and as Nicolaitans means "conquering the people," Balaam means
"destroying the people." You have pointed out what he "taught" Balak. Balaam's
doctrine was "to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat
things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication." For this purpose he
enticed them to mixture with the nations, from which God had carefully
separated them. That needful separation broken down was their destruction, so
far as it prevailed. In like manner, we have seen the Church to be called out
from the world, and it is only too easy to apply the Divine type in this case.
But here we have a confessedly typical people, with a corresponding significant
name, and in such close connection as naturally to confirm the reading of the
similar word "Nicolaitans" as similarly significant. I shall have to speak more
of this at another time, if the Lord will.
Let us notice now the
development of Nicolaitanism. It is, first of all, certain people who have this
character, and who - I am merely translating the word - first take the place of
superiors over the people. Their "deeds" show what they are. There is no
"doctrine" yet. But it ends, in Pergamos, with the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
The place is assumed now to be theirs by right. There is a doctrine, a teaching
about it, received at least by some, and to which the Church at large - nay,
true souls also, on the whole,- have become indifferent. Now what has come in
between these two things - the "deeds" and the "doctrine"? It is what we looked
at last time - the rise of a party whom the Lord marks out as those who said
they were Jews and were not, but who were the synagoge of Satan - the
adversary's attempt (alas, too successful) to Judaize the Church.
I was
trying to show you last time what the characteristics of Judaism are. It was a
probationary system, a system of trial, in which it was to be seen if man could
produce a righteousness for God. We know the end of the trial, and that God
pronounced "none righteous; no, not one." And only then it was that God could
manifest His grace. As long as He was putting man under trial He could not
possibly open the way to His own presence and justify the sinner there. He had,
as long as this trial went on, to shut him out. For on that ground nobody could
see God and live. Now, the very essence of Christianity is that all are
welcomed in. There is an open door and ready access, where the blood of Christ
entitles every one, however much a sinner, to draw near to God, and to find at
His hand justification as ungodly. To see God in Christ is not to die, but
live. And what further is the consequence of this? Those who have come thus to
Him - those who have found the way of access through the peace-speaking blood
into His presence, learned what He is in Christ, and been justified before God
- are able to take, and taught to take, a place distinct from all others, as
now His - children of the Father, members of Christ, His body. That is the
Church, a body called out, separate from the world.
J udaism, on the
other hand, necessarily mixed all together. Nobody there can take such a place
with God. Nobody can say "Abba Father" really; therefore there could not be any
separation. This had been once a neccessity, and of God, no doubt. But now,
Judaism being set up again, after God had abolished it, it is no use to urge
that it was once of Him; its setting up again was the too-successful work of
the enemy against this gospel, and against this church. He brands these
judaisers as "The Synagogue of Satan".
Now, you can understand at once,
when the Church in its true character was practically lost sight of, when
Church members meant people baptised by water instead of by the Holy Spirit or
when the baptism by water and the Holy Spirit were reckoned one, (and this very
early became accepted doctrine) there, of course, the Jewish Synagogue was
practically set up. It became more and more impossible to speak of Christians
being at peace with God or saved. They were hoping to be, and sacraments and
ordinances became means of grace to ensure, as far as might be, a far-off
salvation. Let us see how far this would help on the doctrine of the
Nicolaitans. It is plain that when, and as, the Church sank into the synagogue,
the Christian people became practically what of old the Jewish had been. Now,
what was that position? As I have said, there was no real drawing near to God
at all. Even the high priest, who (as a type of Christ) entered into the
holiest once a year, on the day of atonement, had to cover the mercy-seat with
a cloud of incense, that he might not die. But the ordinary priests could not
enter there at all, but only into the outer holy place; while the people in
general could not come in even there. And this was expressly designed as a
witness of their condition. It was the result of failure on their part; for
God's offer to them, which you may find in the nineteenth chapter of Exodus,
was this: "Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my
covenant, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the
earth is mine, and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy
nation."
They were thus conditionally offered equal nearness of access to
God - they should be all priests. But this was rescinded, for they broke the
covenant; and then a special family is put into the place of priests, the rest
of the people being put into the background, and only able to draw near to God
through these.
Thus a separate and intermediate priesthood characterized
Judaism; and, for the same reason, what we should call now missionary work
there was none. There was no going out to the world in this way; no provision,
no command to preach the law at all. What, in fact, could they say? That God
was in the thick darkness? That no one could see Him, and live? It is surely
evident there was no "good news" there. Judaism had no true gospel. The absence
of the evangelist and the presence of the intermediate priesthood told the same
sorrowful story, and were in perfect keeping with each other.
Such was
Judaism. How different, then, is Christianity! No sooner had the death of
Christ rent the veil and opened a way of access into the presence of God than
at once there was a gospel, and the new order is, "Go out into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every creature." God is making Himself known, and "is
He the God o the Jews only?" Can you confine the gospel of Christ within the
bounds of a nation? No, the fermentation of the new wine would burst the
bottles.
The intermediate priesthood has, by the gospel, now been done
away; for all Christian people are priests now to God. What was conditionally
offered to Israel is now an accomplished fact in Christianity. We are a kingdom
of priests; and in the wisdom of God it is Peter - ordained of man the great
head of ritualism - who, in his first epistle, announces the two things which
destroy ritualism root and branch for those who believe him. First, that we are
"born again," not of baptism, but "by the word of God, that liveth and abideth
forever; . . and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."
Secondly, instead of a set of priests, he says to all Christians: "Ye also, as
living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (ii. 5). The
sacrifices are spiritual-praise and thanksgiving, and our lives and bodies also
(Heb. xiii. iv, x6; Rom. xii. i). This is to be with us true priestly work, and
thus do our lives get their proper character: they are the thank-offering
service of those able to draw nigh to God.
In Judaism, let me repeat,
none really drew nigh; but now, the people - the laity (for it is only a Greek
word made English) - and that in a better way than the Jewish priest could. The
priestly caste, wherever it is found, means the same thing. There is no drawing
nigh of the whole body of the people at all. It means distance from God, and
darkness - God shut out from the people.
Now, THAT IS the meaning of "the
Clergy." I want you to look at it very carefully. I want you not to think it a
mere question of a certain order of Church government- as people are very apt
to do. I want you to see the important principles which are involved in this,
and how really the Lord has cause, as He must have, to say of Nicolaitanism,
"which I also hate." And my aim and object tonight is to try to make you hate
it as God hates it. I am not speaking of people - God forbid. I am speaking of
a thing. Our unhappiness is, that we are at the end of a long series of
departures from God, and as a consequence we grow up in the midst of many
things which come down to us as "tradition of the elders," associated with
names which we all revere and love, upon whose authority in reality we have
accepted them, without ever having looked at them really in the light of God's
presence. And there are many thus whom we gladly recognize as truly men of God,
and servants of God, in a false position. It is of that position I am speaking.
I am speaking of a thing, as the Lord does -"which thing I hate." He does not
say, "which people I hate." Although in those days evil of this kind was not an
inheritance as now, and the first propagators of it had, of course, a
responsibility peculiarly their own, self-deceived as they may have been;
still, in this matter as in all others, we need not be ashamed or afraid to be
where the Lord is. Nay, we cannot be with Him in this unless we are. And He
says of Nicolaitanism, "which thing I hate."
Because, what does it mean?
I will tell you in brief what the very idea of a clergy is. It means a
spiritual caste, or class; a set of people having officially a right to
leadership in spiritual things; a nearness to God derived from official place,
not spiritual power: in fact, the revival, under the names and with various
modifications, of that very intermediate priesthood which distinguished
Judaism, and which Christianity emphatically disclaims. That is what a clergy
means; and in contradiction to these the rest of Christians are but the laity,
the seculars, necessarily put back into more or less of the old distance, which
the cross of Christ has done away.
We see then why it needed that the
Church should be Judaized before the deeds of the Nicolaitans could ripen into
a "doctrine." The Lord even had authorized obedience to scribes and Pharisees
sitting in Moses' seat; and to make this text apply as people apply it now,
Moses' seat had, of course, to be set up in the Christian Church: this done,
and the mass of Christians degraded from the priesthood Peter spoke of into
mere "lay members," the doctrine of the Nicolaitans was at once
established.
Understand me fully that I am in no wise questioning the
divine institution of the Christian ministry. God forbid; for ministry, in the
fullest sense, is characteristic of Christianity, as I have already in fact
maintained. Nor do I (while believing that all true Christians are ministers
also by the very fact) deny a special and distinctive ministry of the Word, as
what God has given to some, and not to all, though for the use of all. No one
truly taught of God can deny that some, not all, among Christians have the
place of evangelist, pastor, teacher. I believe I make more of this than
current views do; for I believe that every true minister is a gift from Christ,
in His care as Head of the Church, for His people, and one who has his place
from God alone, and is responsible in that character to God, and God alone. The
miserable system which I see around degrades him from this blessed place, and
makes him in fact little more than the manufacture and the servant of men.
While giving, it is true, a place of lordship over people which gratifies a
carnal mind, still it fetters the spiritual man, and puts him in chains,
everywhere giving him an artificial conscience towards man, hindering in fact
his conscience being properly before God.
Let me briefly state to you
what the Scripture doctrine of the ministry is; it is a very simple one. The
Assembly of God is Christ's body; all the members are members of Christ. There
is no other membership in Scripture than this, the membership of Christ's body,
to which all true Christians belong: not many bodies of Christ, but one body;
not many churches, but one Church.
There is, of course, a different
place for each member of the body by the very fact that he is such. All members
have not the same office: there is the eye, the ear, and so on, but they are
all necessary, and all necessarily ministering in some way to one another.
Every member has its place, not merely locally and for the benefit of certain
other members, but for the benefit of the whole body. Each member has its gifts
as the apostle teaches distinctly. "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. Having Ihen gifts differing
according to the grace that is given to us," etc. (Rom. XII. 4-6).
In
the twelfth chapter of i Corinthians the apostle speaks at large of these
gifts; and he calls them by a significant name -"manifestations of the Spirit."
They are gifts of the Spirit, of course; but more, they are "manifestations of
the Spirit;" they manifest themselves where they are found - where (I scarcely
need to add) there is spiritual discernment - where souls are before
God.
For instance, if you take the gospel of God, whence does it derive
its authority and power? From any sanction of men? any human credentials of any
kind? or from its own inherent power? I maintain that the common attempt to
authenticate the messenger takes away from, instead of adding to, the power of
the Word. God's word must be received as such: he that receives it sets to his
seal that God is true. Its ability to meet the needs of heart and conscience is
derived from the fact that it is "God's good news," who knows perfectly what
man's need is, and has provided for it accordingly. He who has felt its power
knows well from whom it comes. The work and witness of the Spirit of God in the
soul need no witness of man to supplement them.
Even the Lord's appeal
in His own case was to the truth He uttered: "If I say the truth, why do ye not
believe Me?" When He stood forth in the Jewish synagogues, or elsewhere, He was
but, in men's eyes, a poor carpenter's son, accredited by no school or set of
men at all. All the weight of authority was ever against Him. He disclaimed
even "receiving testimony from men." God's word alone should speak for God. "My
doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me." And how did it approve itself? By
the fact of its being truth. "If I speak the truth, why do ye not believe Me?"
It was the truth that was to make its way with the true. "He that wills to do
God's will shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak
of Myself." He says: I speak the truth; I bring it to you from God; and if it
is truth, if you are seeking to do God's will, you will learn to recognize it
as the truth. God will not leave people in ignorance and darkness if they are
seeking to be doers of His will. Can you suppose that God will allow true
hearts to be deceived by whatever plausible deceptions may be abroad? He is
able to make His voice known in those who seek to hear His voice. And so the
Lord says to Pilate, "Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice" (John
xviii. 37). "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;" and,
again, "a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him; for they know
not the voice of strangers" (John X. 27).
Such is the nature of truth
then, that to pretend to authenticate it to those who are themselves true, is
to dishonour it, as if it were not capable of self-evidence; and it dishonours
God, as if He could be wanting to souls, or to what He Himself has given. Nay,
the apostle says: "By manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God" (2 Cor. iv. 2). And the Lord speaks of
its being the condemnation of the world that "light is come into the world, and
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (John 11.
19). There was no lack of evidence: light was there, and men owned its power to
their own condemnation when they sought to escape from it.
Even so in
the gift, there was "the manifestation of the Spirit," and it was "given to
every man to profit withal." By the very fact that he had it he was responsible
to use it - responsible to Him who had not given it in vain. In the gift itself
lay the ability to minister, and title too; for I am bound to help and serve
with what I have. And if souls are helped, they need scarcely ask if I had
commission to do it.
That is the simple character of ministry - the
service of love, according to the ability which God gave; mutual service of
each to each, and each to all, without jostling or exclusion of one another.
Each gift was thrown into the common treasury, and all were the richer by it.
God's blessing and the manifestation of the Spirit were all the needed
sanction. All were not teachers, still less public teachers, of the Word;
still, in these cases the same principles exactly applied. That was but one
department of a service which had many, and which was rendered by each to each
according to his sphere. Was there nothing else than that? Was there no
ordained class at all then? That is another thing. There were, without doubt,
in the primitive Church two classes of officials, regularly appointed,-
ordained, if you like, The deacons were those who, having charge of the fund
for the poor and other purposes, were chosen by the saints first for this place
of trust in their behalf, and then appointed authoritatively by apostles
mediately or immediately. Elders were a second class,- elderly men, as the word
imports,- who were appointed in the local assemblies as "bishops" or
"overseers," to take cognizance of their state. That the elders were the same
as bishops may be seen in Paul's words to the elders of Ephesus, where he
exhorts them to "take heed to . . . all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost
hath made you overseers." There they have translated the word, "bishops," but
in Titus they have left it - "that thou shouldst ordain elders in every city,
as I had appointed thee; if any be blameless - . - for a bishop must be
blameless" (Acts xx. 28; Tit. i. 5, 7).
Their work was to "oversee,"
and although for that purpose their being "apt to teach" was a much needed
qualification, in view of errors already rife, yet no one could suppose that
teaching was confined to those who were "elders," "husbands of one wife, having
their children in subjection with all gravity." This was a needed test for one
who was to be a bishop; "for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how
shall he take care of the church of God?" (i Tim. iii. i-7).
Whatever
gifts they had, they used, as all did, and thus the apostle directs, "Let the
elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, specially they who
labour in the word and doctrine" (ver. 17). But they might rule, and rule well,
without this. The meaning of their ordination was just this, that here it was
not a question of gift, but of authority. It was a question of title to take up
and look into, often difficult and delicate matters, among people, too, very
likely in no state to submit to what was merely spiritual. The ministration of
gift was another thing, and free, under God, to all.
Thus much, very
briefly, as to Scripture doctrine. Our painful duty is now to put in contrast
with it the system I am deprecating, according to which a distinct class are
devoted formally to spiritual things, and the people - the laity - are in the
same ratio excluded from such occupation. This is true Nicolaitanism,- the
"subjection of the people." Again I say, not only that ministry of the Word is
entirely right, but that there are those who have special gift and
responsibility (though still not exclusive) to minister it. But priesthood is
another thing, and a thing sufficiently distinct to be easily recognized where
it is claimed or in fact exists. I am, of course, aware that Protestants in
general disclaim any priestly powers for their ministers. I have no wish nor
thought of disputing their perfect honesty in this disavowal. They mean that
they have no thought of the minister having any authoritative power of
absolution; and that they do not make the Lord's table an altar, whereon afresh
day after day the perfection of Christ's one offering is denied by countless
repetitions. They are right in both respects; but it is scarcely the whole
matter. If we look more deeply we shall find that much of a priestly character
may attach where neither of these have the least place.
Priesthood and
ministry may be distinguished in this way. Ministry (in the sense we are now
considering) is to men; priesthood is to God. The minister brings God's message
to the people; he speaks for Him to them. The priest goes to God for the
people; he speaks, in the reverse way, for them to Him. It is surely easy to
distinguish these two attitudes. "Praise and thanksgiving" are "spiritual
sacrifices:" they are part of our offering as priests. Put a special class into
a place where regularly and officially they act thus for the rest, they are at
once in the rank of an intermediate priesthood,- mediators with God for those
who are not so near.
The Lord's Supper is the most prominent and
fullest expression of Christian thankfulness and adoration, publicly and
statedly. But what Protestant minister does not look upon it as his official
right to administer this What "layman" would not shrink from the profanation of
administering it? And this is one of the terrible evils of the system, that the
mash of Christian people are thus distinctly secularized. Occupied with worldly
things, they cannot be expected to be spiritually what the clergy are. And to
this they are given over as it were. They are released from spiritual
occupations to which they are not equal, and to which others give themselves
entirely.
But this must evidently go much further. "The priest's lips
should keep knowledge." The laity, who have become that by abdicating their
priesthood, how should they retain the knowledge belonging to a priestly class?
The unspirituality, to which they have given themselves up, pursues them here.
The class whose business it is, become the authorized interpreters of the Word
also, for how should the secular man know so well what Scripture means? Thus
the clergy become spiritual eyes and ears and mouth for the laity, and are in
the fair way of becoming the whole body too.
But it suits people well.
Do not mistake me as if I meant that this is all come in as the assumption of a
class merely. It is that, no doubt, but never could this miserable and
unscriptural distinction of clergy and laity have obtained so rapidly as it
did, and so universally, if everywhere it had not been found well adapted to
the tastes of those even whom it really displaced and degraded. Not alone in
Israel, but in Christendom also, has it been fulfilled: "The prophets prophesy
falsely, and the priests bear rule through their means, and my people love to
have it so! Alas, they did, and they do. As spiritual decline sets in, the
heart that is turning to the world barters readily, Esau-like, its spiritual
birthright for a mess of pottage. It exchanges thankfully its need of caring
too much for spiritual things, with those who will accept the responsibility of
this. Worldliness is well covered with a layman's cloak. And as the Church at
large dropped out of first love, as it did rapidly, the world began to come in
through the loosely guarded gates, and it became more and more impossible for
the rank and file of Christendom to take the blessed and wonderful place which
belonged to Christians. The step taken downwards, instead of being retrieved,
only made succeeding steps each one easier; until, in less than 300 years from
the beginning, a Jewish priesthood and a ritualistic religion were everywhere
installed. Only so much the worse, as the precious things of Christianity left
their names at least as spoils to the invader, and the shadow became, for most,
the substance itself.
But I must return to look more particularly at
one feature in this clerisy. I have noted the confounding of ministry and
priesthood; the assumption of an official title in spiritual things, of title
to administer the Lord's Supper, and I might have added also, to baptize. For
none of these things can Scripture be found at all. But I must dwell a little
more on the emphasis that is laid on ordination.
I want you to see a
little more what ordination means. In the first place, if you look through the
New Testament you will find nothing about ordination to teach or to preach. You
find people going about everywhere freely exercising whatever gift they had;
the whole Church was scattered abroad from Jerusalem, except the apostles, and
they went everywhere preaching (literally, evangelizing) the Word. The
persecution did not ordain them, I suppose. So with Apollos. So with Philip the
deacon. There is in fact no trace of anything else. Timothy received a gift by
prophecy, by the laying on of Paul's hands with those of the elders, but that
was gift, not authorization to use it. So he is bidden to communicate his own
knowledge to faithful men, who should be able to teach others also; but there
is not a word about ordaining them. The case of elders I have already noticed.
That of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch is the most unhappy that can be for the
purpose people use it for. For prophets and teachers are made to ordain an
apostle, and one who totally disclaims being that, "of men or by man." And
there the Holy Ghost - not confering power of ordaining any, but says,
"Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereto I have called them" - for a
special missionary journey, which it is shown afterwards they had fulfilled.
See Acts viii. i,3; xi. 21; Xiii. 2-4; XV1iI. 24-28; I Tim. iv. iv etc.
Now, what means this "ordination"? It means much, you may be sure, or it would
not be so zealously contended for as it is. There are, no doubt, two phases of
it. In the most extreme, as among Romanists and Ritualists, there is claimed
for it in the fullest way that it is the conveyance, not merely of authority,
but of spiritual power. They assume, with all the power of apostles, to give
the Holy Ghost by the laying on of their hands, and also for priesthood in the
fullest way. The people of God, as such, are rejected from the priesthood He
has given them, and a special class are put into their place to mediate for
them in a way which sets aside the fruit of Christ's work and ties them to the
Church as the channel of all grace. Among Protestants you think, perhaps, I
need not dwell on this; but it is done among some of these also, in words
which, to a certain class of them, seem strangely to mean nothing, while
another class find in them the abundant sanction of their highest
pretensions.
Those, on the other hand, who rightly and consistently
reject these unchristian assumptions, do not pretend indeed to confer any gift
in ordination, but only to "recognize" the gift which God has given. But then,
after all, this recognition is considered necessary before the person can
baptize or administer the Lord's Supper - things which really require no
peculiar gift at all. And as to the ministry of the Word, God's gift is made to
require human sanction, and is "recognized" on behalf of His people by those
who are considered to have a discernment which the people, as such, have not.
Blind themselves or not, these men are to become "leaders of the blind;" else
why need others to be eyes for them, while their own souls are taken out of the
place of immediate responsibility to God and made responsible unduly to man? An
artificial conscience is manufactured for them, and conditions are constantly
imposed to which they have to conform in order to obtain the needful
recognition. It is well if they are not under the control of their ordainers as
to their path of service also, as they generally are.
In principle this
is unfaithfulness to God: for if He has given me gift to use for Him, I am
surely unfaithful if I go to any man or body of men to ask their leave to use
it. The gift itself carries with it the responsibility of using it, as we have
seen. If they say, "But people may make mistakes," I own it thoroughly; but who
is to assume my responsibility if I am mistaken? And, again, the mistakes of an
ordaining body are infinitely more serious than those of one who merely runs
unsent. Their mistakes are consecrated and perpetuated by the ordination they
bestow; and the man who, if he stood simply upon his own merits, would soon
find his true level, has a character conferred upon him by it which the whole
weight of the system must sustain. Mistake or not, he is none the less one of
the clerical body - a minister, if he has nothing really to minister. He must
be provided for, if only with some less conspicuous place, where souls, dear to
God as any, are put under his care, and must be unfed if he cannot feed
them.
Do not accuse me of sarcasm; it is the system I am speaking of
which is a sarcasm: a swathing of the body of Christ in bands which hinder the
free circulation of the vitalizing blood which should be permeating
unrestrictedly the whole of it. Nature itself should rebuke the folly. What
enormous inference is deduced from such Scriptural premises as that apostles
and apostolic men "ordained elders"! They must prove that they are either, and
(granting them that), that the Scripture "elder" might be no elder at all, but
a young unmarried man just out of his teens, arid on the other hand was
evangelist, pastor, teacher - all God's various gifts rolled into one. This is
the minister,- according to the system, indeed, the minister,- the all in all
to the fifty or five hundredsouls who are committed to him as "his flock," with
which no other has title to interfere! Surely, surely, the brand of
Nicolaitanism is upon the forefront of such a system as this! Take it at its
best, the man, if gifted at all, is scarcely likely to have every gift. Suppose
he is an evangelist, and souls are happily converted, he is no teacher, and
cannot build them up. Or, he is a teacher sent to a place where there are but a
few Christians, and the mass of his congregation unconverted men. There are no
conversions, and his presence there (according to the system) keeps away the
evangelist who is needed there. Thank God! He is ever breaking up these
barriers, and in some irregular way the need may be supplied. But the supply is
schismatical and a confusion: the new wine breaks the poor human bottles. For
all this the system is responsible. The exclusive ministry of one man, or of a
number of men in a congregation has no shred of Scripture to support it; while
the ordination, as we have seen, is the attempt to confine all ministry to a
certain class, and make it rest on human authorization rather than on divine
gift; the people, Christ's sheep, being denied their competency to hear His
voice. The inevitable tendency is to fix upon the man the attention which
should be devoted to the word he brings. The question is, is he accredited? If
he speak truly is subordinated to the question Is he ordained? or, perhaps I
should say, his orthodoxy is settled already for them by the fact of his
ordination.
Paul, an apostle, not of men, nor by man, could not have
been received upon this plan. There were apostles before him, and he neither
went up to them nor got anything from them. If there were a succession, he was
a break in the succession. And what he did he did designedly, to show that his
gospel was not after man (Gal. i. ii), and that it might not rest upon the
authority of man. Nay, if he himself preached a different gospel from that he
had preached (for there was not another), yea, or an angel from heaven (where
the authority, if that were in question, might seem conclusive), his solemn
decision is, "let him be accursed."
Authority then is nothing, if it be
not the authority of the word of God. That is the test - is it according to the
Scriptures? If the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the
ditch? To say, "I could not, of course know, I trusted another" will not save
you from the ditch.
But the unspiritual and unlearned layman, how can
he pretend to equal knowledge with the educated and accredited minister,
devoted to spiritual things? In point of fact, in general he does not. He
yields to the one who should know better, and practically the minister's
teaching largely supplants the authority of the word of God. Not that certainty
indeed is thus attained. He cannot conceal it from himself that people differ,
wise and good and learned and accredited as they may be. But here the devil
steps in, and - if God has allowed men's authorities to get into a babel of
confusion, as they have - suggests to the unwary soul that the confusion must
be the result of the obscurity of Scripture, whereas they have got into it by
disregarding Scripture.
But this is everywhere! Opinion, not faith;
opinion to which you are welcome and have a right, of course; and you must
allow others a right to theirs. You may say "I believe" as long as you do not
mean by that "I know." To claim "knowledge" is to claim that you are wiser,
more learned, better, than whole generations before you, who thought opposite
to you.
Need I show you how infidelity thrives upon this? how Satan
rejoices when, for the simple and emphatic "Yea" of the divine voice, he
succeeds in substituting the Yea and Nay of a host of jarring commentators?
Think you, you can fight the Lord's battles with the rush of human opinion
instead of "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God"? Think you,
"Thus says John Calvin, or John Wesley," will meet Satan as satisfactorily as
"Thus saith the Lord"?
Who can deny that such thoughts are abroad, and
in no wise confined to papists or ritualists? The tendency, alas, is in the
heart of unbelief ever departing from the living God, as near to His own to-day
as at any time through the centuries His Church has travelled on; as competent
to instruct as ever - as ready to fulfil the word "He that will do His will
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." The eyes are of the heart,
and not the head. He has hidden from wise and prudent what He reveals to babes.
The school of God is more effectual than all colleges combined, and here layman
and cleric are equal: "He that is spiritual discerneth all things," and he
alone. Substitute for spirituality there is none: unspirituality the Spirit of
God alone can remedy. Ordination, such as practised, is rather a sanction put
upon it - an attempt to manifest what is the manifestation of the Spirit, or
not His work at all, and to provide leaders for the blind whom, with all their
care, they cannot insure not being blind also. Before I close, I must say a few
words about "succession." An ordination which pretends to be derived from the
apostles must needs be (to be consistent) a successional one. Who can confer
authority (and in the least and lowest theories of ordination authority is
conferred, as to baptize and to administer the Lord's Supper) but one himself
authorized for this very purpose? You must therefore have a chain of ordained
men, lineally succeeding one another. Apostolic succession is as necessary on
the Presbyterian as on the Episcopalian plan. John Wesley, as his warrant for
ordaining, fell back upon the essential oneness of bishop and prebyter. Nay,
presbyterians will urge against episcopalians the ease of maintaining
succession in this way. I have nothing to do with this: I only insist that
succession is needed.
But then, mark the result. It is a thing apart
from spirituality, and from truth even. A Romish priest may have it as well as
any; and, indeed, through the gutter of Rome most of that we have around us.
must necessarily have come down. Impiety and impurity do not in the least
invalidate Christ's commission. The teacher of false doctrine may be as well
His messenger as the teacher of truth. Nay, the possession of the truth, with
gift to minister it and godliness combined, are actually no guarantee of the
credentials of the true ambassador. He may have all these, and be none. He may
want them all, and be truly one nevertheless. Who can believe such doctrine?
Can He who is truth accredit error? the righteous One, unrighteousness? It is
impossible. This ecclesiasticism violates every principle of morality, and
hardens the conscience that has to do with it. For why need we be careful for
truth, if He is not? And how can He send messengers that He would not have to
be believed? His own test of a true witness fails: for "he that speaketh of
himself seeketh his own glory; but he that seeketh His glory that sent him, the
same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him." His own test of credibility
fails, for "if I speak the truth, why do ye not believe Me?" was His own
appeal.
No: to state this principle is to condemn it. He who foresaw
and predicted the failure of what should have been the bright and evident
witness of His truth and grace, could not ordain a succession of teachers for
it who should carry His commission, unforfeitable by whatever failure! Before
apostles had left the earth, the house of God had become as a "great house,"
and it was necessary to separate from vessels to dishonour in it. He who bade
His apostle instruct another to "follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with
those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart," could not possibly tell us to
listen to men, as His ministers, who are alien from all this, and have His
commission in spite of all. And thus, notably, in the second epistle to
Timothy, in which this is said, there is no longer, as in the first, any talk
of elders, or of ordained men. It is "faithful men" who are wanted, not for
ordination, but for the deposit of the truth committed to Timothy: "The things
which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to
faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also"
Thus God's holy
Word vindicates itself to the heart and conscience ever. The effort to attach
His sanction to a Romish priesthood, or a Protestant hierarchy, fails alike
upon the same ground; for as to this they are upon the same ground. Alas,
Nicolaitanism is no past thing, no obscure doctrine of past ages, but a
widespread and gigantic system of error, fruitful in evil results. Error is
long-lived, though mortal. Reverence it not for its gray hairs, and "follow not
with a multitude to do evil." With cause does the Lord say in this case, "which
thing I hate." If He does, shall we be afraid to have fellowship with Him? That
there are good men entangled in it, all must admit. There are godly men and
true ministers ignorantly wearing the livery of men. May God deliver them; may
they cast aside their fetters and be free! May they rise up to the true dignity
of their calling, responsible to God, and walking before Him alone!
On
the other hand, beloved brethren, it is of immense importance that all His
people, however diverse their places in the body of Christ may be, should
realize that they are all as really ministers as they are all priests. We need
to recognize that every Christian has spiritual duties flowing from spiritual
relationship to every other Christian. It is the privilege of each one to
contribute his share to the common treasury of gift with which Christ has
endowed His Church. Nay, he who does not contribute is actually holding back
what is his debt to the whole family of God. No possessor of one talent is
entitled to wrap it in a napkin upon that account: it would be mere
unfaithfulness and unbelief. "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
Brethren in Christ, when shall we awake to the reality of our Lord's words
there? Ours is a never-failing spring of perpetual joy and blessing, which if
we but come to when we thirst, out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living
water. The spring is not limited by the vessel which receives it: it is divine,
and yet ours fully - fully as can be I Oh, to know more this abundance, and the
responsibility of the possession of it, in a dry and weary scene like this! Oh,
to know better the infinite grace which has taken us up as channels of its
outflow among men! When shall we rise up to the sense of our common dignity? to
the sweet reality of fellowship with Him who "came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister?" Oh for unofficial ministry, the overflowing of full hearts
into empty ones, so many as there are around us! How we should rejoice, in a
scene of want and misery and sin, to find perpetual opportunity to show the
competency of Christ's fullness to meet and minister to every form of
it!
Official ministry is practical independence of the Spirit of God.
It is to decide that such a vessel shall overflow, though at the time, it may
be, practically empty; and, on the other hand, that such another shall not
overflow, however full it may be. It proposes, in the face of Him who has come
down in Christ's absence to be the Guard-ian of His people, to provide for
order and for edification, not by spiritual power, but by legislation. It would
provide for failure on the part of Christ's sheep to hear His voice, by making
it, as far as possible, unnecessary for them to do so. It thus sanctions and
perpetuates un-spirituality, instead of condemning or avoiding it.
It
is quite true that in God's mode of action the failure in man's part may become
more evident externally: for He cares little for a correct outside when the
heart is nevertheless not right with Him, and He knows well that ability to
maintain a correct outside may in fact prevent a truthful judgment of what is
our real condition before Him. Men would have upbraided Peter with his attempt
to walk upon those waves which made his little faith so manifest. The Lord
would only rebuke the littleness of the faith which made him fail. And man
still, and ever, would propose the boat as the remedy for failure, instead of
the strength of the Lord's support which He made Peter prove. Yet, after all,
the boat confessedly may fail; winds and waves may overthrow it; but "the Lord
on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves
of the sea." Through these many centuries of failure have we proved Him
untrustworthy? Beloved, is it your honest conviction that it is absolutely safe
to trust the living God? Then let us make no provision for failure, however
much we may have to own that we have failed! Let us act as if we really trusted
Him.
LECTURE III.
ESTABLISHMENTS,
AND A MONEY BASIS
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