Separation From Evil
God's Principle of Unity
The need of union is felt now by every right-minded
Christian. The power of evil is felt by all.
Its pressure comes too
near home, its rapid and gigantic strides are too evident, and affect too
nearly the particular feelings which characterise distinctively every class of
Christians, to allow them to be blind to it, however little they may appreciate
its true bearing and character.
Better and holier feelings, too,
arouse them to the sense of common danger, and as far as it is entrusted
to man's responsibility the danger in which the cause of God is, from
those who never did, and never would spare it. This need is felt wherever the
Spirit of God acts, so as to make the saints value grace and truth and one
body. The feelings which the sense of the progress of evil produces may be
different.
Some, though they are but few, may yet trust to the
bulwarks they have long looked at, but which had their force only in a respect
for them which exists no longer.
Others may trust to a fancied force
of truth, which it has never exerted but in a little flock, because God and the
work of His Spirit were there; others, to a union which never yet was the
instrument of power on the side of good that is, a union by concord and
agreement. While others may feel bound to abstain from such an agreed union, by
reason of previously subsisting obligations, or prepossessions, so that the
union tends to form only a party.
But the sense of danger is
universal. That which was long mocked at as a theory is now too practically
felt to be denied; though the apprehensions of the word, which made those who
were subjected to that mockery foresee the evil, may be rejected and slighted
still. But this state of things produces difficulties and dangers of a peculiar
kind to the saints, and leads to the inquiry, where the path of the saint is,
and where true union is to be found.
There is danger, from the very
blessedness and desirableness of union, of those who have long truly felt its
value, and the obligation that lies on the saints to maintain it, being led to
follow the impulses of such as refused to see it when it was spoken of from the
Word, and to abandon the very principles and path which their own clearer
apprehension of the Word of God led them to embrace from it, as foreseeing the
coming storm.
They learnt from that precious Word that it was coming;
and, while calmly studying it in the Word, saw the path marked out there for
the believer as such, and indeed, in every time.
It is now pressed
upon them to desert it for that suggested to men's minds by the pressure of the
anxieties they anticipated, but which, though there may be an impulse of good
in it, the Word of God itself did not furnish when inquired into in peace.
But is this the path of the saints, to turn from that which generally
rejected intelligence of the Word afforded them, to pursue the light of those
who would not see?
This, however, is not the only danger; nor is it my
object to dwell on the dangers but the remedy. There is a constant tendency in
the mind to fall into sectarianism, and to make a basis of union of the
opposite of what I have here just alluded to: that is, of a system of some kind
or other to which the mind is attached, and round which saints or others are
gathered; and which, assuming itself to be based on a true principle of unity,
regards as schism whatever separates from itself attaching the name of
unity to what is not God's centre and plan of unity. Wherever this is the case,
it will be found that the doctrine of unity becomes a sanction for some kind of
moral evil, for something contrary to the Word of God; and the authority of God
Himself, which is attached to the idea of unity, becomes, through the
instrumentality of this latter thought, a means of engaging the saints to
continue in evil.
Moreover, continuance in this evil is enforced by all
the difficulty which unbelief finds to separate from that in which it is
settled, and where the natural heart finds its ties, and, generally, temporal
interests the sphere of their support. Now, unity is a divine doctrine and
principle; but, as evil is possible wherever unity is taken by itself so as to
be a conclusive authority, wherever evil does enter, the conclusive obligation
of unity binds to the evil, because the unity, where the evil is, is not to be
broken.
Of this we have a flagrant example in Romanism. There the
unity of the Church is the grand basis of argument; and it has been the ground
of keeping the world, we may say, in every sanctioned enormity, and made the
name of Christianity its warrant: an authority to bind souls to evil, till the
name itself became shameful to the natural conscience of man.
The plea
of unity may then be, in a measure, the latitudinarianism which flows from the
absence of principle; it may be the narrowness of a sect formed on an idea; or,
it may be, as taken by itself, the claim to be the Church of God, and hence in
principle to secure as much indifference to evil, as it is the convenience of
the body or its rulers to allow, or is in the power of Satan to drag them into.
If the name of unity then be so powerful in itself, and in virtue of
blessings withal which God Himself has attached to it, it behoves us well to
understand what the unity He owns really is.
This it is I would
propose to inquire into; acknowledging the desire for it to be a good thing,
and many of the attempts at it to contain in them elements of godly feeling,
even when the means may not carry conviction to the judgment as being those of
God. Now, it will be at once admitted, that God Himself must be the spring and
centre of unity, and that He alone can be in power or title.
Any
centre of unity outside God must be so far a denial of His Godhead and glory,
an independent centre of influence and power; and God is one the just,
true, and only centre of all true unity. Whatever is not dependent on this is
rebellion. But this so simple, and, to the Christian, necessary truth, clears
our way at once.
Man's fall is the reverse of this. He was a
subordinate creature, an image too of Him that was to come; he would become an
independent one, and he is, in sin and rebellion, the slave of a mightier rebel
than himself, whether in the dispersion of several self-will, or its
concentration in the dominion of the man of the earth. But then we must, in
consequence of this, go a step farther.
God must be a centre in
blessing as well as power, when He surrounds Himself with united and morally
intelligent hosts.
We may know that He will punish rebellion with
everlasting destruction from His presence into the hopelessness of uncentred
and selfish individual misery and hatred; but He Himself must be a centre of
blessing and holiness, for He is a holy God, and He is love.
Indeed,
holiness in us while it is by its nature separation from evil is
just having God, the Holy One, who is love too, the object, centre, and spring
of our affections. He makes us partakers of His holiness for He is
essentially separate from all evil, which He knows as God, though as His
contrary but in us, holiness must consist in our affections, thoughts,
and conduct being centred in, and derived from Him: a place maintained in
entire dependence upon Him.
Of the establishment and power of this
unity in the Son and Spirit I will speak presently. It is the great and
glorious truth itself on which I now insist. This great principle is true even
in creation. It was formed in unity, and God its only possible centre.
It shall be brought into it yet again, and centred in Christ as its Head, even
in the Son, by whom, and for whom, all things were created. Colossians 1: 16.
It is man's glory though his ruin, as fallen to be made
thus a centre in his place the image of Him that is to come; * * See
Ephesians 1. He hath made known to us the mystery of His will; that is,
gathering together in one all things in Christ, in whom we have received an
inheritance, but alas! his imitator in a state of rebellion in this same place,
when fallen.
I know not I would venture to say no more
that angels were ever made the centre of any system; but man was. It was his
glory to be the lord and centre of this lower world an associate but
dependent Eve his companion and help in his presence. He was the image and
glory of God. His dependence made him look up; and this is true glory and
blessedness to all but God. Dependence looks up, and is exalted above itself.
Independence must look down for it cannot in a creature be
filled with itself and is degraded. Dependence is true exaltation in a
creature when the object of it is right.
The primæval state of
man was not holiness, in the proper sense of it, because evil was not known.
It was not a divine but it was a blessed creation state;
it was innocence. But this was lost in the assertion of independence. If man
became as God, knowing good and evil, it was with a guilty conscience, the
slave of the evil he knew, and in an independence he could not sustain himself
in, while he had morally lost God to depend on. With this state for we
must now descend to the present actual question of unity with man in
this state, God has to deal, if true real unity, such as He can own, is to be
attained. Now, He must be still the centre. It is not therefore in mere
creative power. Evil exists. The world is lying in wickedness, and the God of
unity is the Holy God.
Separation therefore, separation from evil,
becomes the necessary and sole basis and principle, I do not say the power, of
unity.
For God must be the centre and power of that unity, and evil
exists: and from that corruption they must be separate who are to be in God's
unity; for He can have no union with evil.
Hence, I repeat, we have
this great fundamental principle, that separation from evil is the basis of all
true unity.
Without this, it is more or less attaching God's authority
to evil, and rebellion against His authority; as is all unity independent of
Him.
It is a sect in its lightest and feeblest forms; in its fullest,
it is the great apostasy, of which one of the characteristics, as
ecclesiastical or secular power, is unity; but unity by subjection of man to
what is independent really or openly of God because it is of His Word; not
established by subjection to the Holy One, according to His Word,** and by the
power of the Spirit working in those that are united, and by His presence,
which is the personal power of union in the body.
** This is
characteristic of the independent unity. I believe that it will be in an openly
infidel state, and a manifestation of the power of Satan. But supposing it is
not openly such, it is clear that subjection to God is shown in subjection to
His Word. Now, the authority of the church is confessedly antecedent to the
authority of the Word in Romanism, and the saints are not all of them allowed
to be the immediate objects of God's own Word, nor act upon it that is,
be subject to it. They are to be subject to the Church: let the Church allow it
or not, that makes no difference. He who allows can hinder that is,
hinder God's addressing the saints. For this is the true question of
Protestantism, not man's title to the Bible merely, but God's title to address
man directly by His word: more particularly to address each of His own
servants, or those professedly such. But this separation is not yet by judicial
power, which separates not the good from the evil, the precious from the
vile, but the vile from the precious, banishing it from His presence in
judgment; binding up the tares in bundles, and casting them into the furnace of
fire; gathering out of His kingdom all things that offend Satan himself
and his angels being cast down and all things thereupon being gathered together
in one in Christ, in heaven and in earth. Then the world, not the conscience,
will be cleared from evil by the judgment which will not allow it, but early
cut off all the wicked not by the power and testimony of the Spirit of
God.It is not now the time of this judicial separation of the evil from the
good in the world, as the field of Christ, by the cutting off and destruction
of the wicked.
But unity is not therefore given up out of the thoughts
of God; nor can He have recognized union with evil.
There is one
Spirit and one body. He gathers together in one the children of God who were
scattered abroad. And now, as to the principle in general: God is working in
the midst of evil to produce a unity of which He is the centre and the spring,
and which owns dependently His authority.
He does not do it yet by the
judicial clearing away of the wicked; He cannot unite with the wicked or have a
union which serves them.
How can it be then this union? He separates
the called from the evil.
"Come out from among them and be ye separate,
and I will receive you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord
Almighty".
As it is written, I will walk in them and dwell in them.
Now here we have it distinctly set forth. This was God's way of
gathering. It was by saying, Come out from among them. He could not have
gathered true unity around Him otherwise.
Since evil exists
yea, is our natural condition there cannot be union of which the Holy
God is the centre and power but by separation from it. Separation is the first
element of unity and union.We may now inquire a little further into the manner
in which this unity is effectuated, on what it is based.
There must be
an intrinsic power of union holding it together to a centre, as well as a power
separating from evil to form it; and, this centre found, it denies all others.
The centre of unity must be a sole and unrivalled centre. The
Christian has not long to inquire here.
It is Christ the object
of the divine counsel the manifestation of God Himself the one
only vessel of mediatorial power, entitled to unite creation as He by whom and
for whom all things were made; and the Church as its Redeemer, its Head, its
glory, and its life. And there is this double headship: He is the Head over all
things to the Church which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in
all. This will be accomplished in its day. For the present we take up the
intermediate period, the unity of the Church itself, and its unity in the midst
of evil.
Now there can be no moral power which can unite, away from
evil, but Christ.
He alone, as perfect grace and truth, detects all
the evil which separates from God, and from which God separates.
He
alone can, of God, be the attractive centre which draws together to Himself all
on whom God so acts. God will own no other.
There is no other to whom
the testimony could be borne, who is morally adequate to concentrate every
affection which is of God and towards God.
Redemption itself, too,
makes this necessary and evident: there can be but one Redeemer, one to whom a
ransomed heart can be given, as well as where a divinely quickened heart can
give all its affections, the centre and revelation of the Father's love.
He, too, is the centre of power to do it. In Him all the fulness
dwells. Love and God is love is known in Him. He is the wisdom of
God and the power of God. And, yet more than this, He is the separating power
of attraction, because He is the manifestation of all this, and the fulfiller
of it in the midst of evil; and this is what we poor, miserable ones want who
are in it; and it is what, if we may so speak, God wants for His separating
glory in the midst of evil.
Christ sacrificed Himself to set up God in
separating love in the midst of evil. There was more than this a wider
scope in this work; but I speak in reference to my present subject now.Thus
Christ becomes, not only the centre of unity to the universe in His glorious
title of power, but as the manifester of God, the One owned and set up
of the Father and attracter of man He becomes a peculiar and special
centre of divine affections in man, round which they are gathered as the sole
divine centre of unity.
For indeed, as the centre, necessarily the
sole centre, "he that gathereth not with me scattereth".
And such, as
to this point, was the object even, and power of His death: "I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto me". And more specially, He gave Himself not
for that nation only, but that He might gather together in one the children of
God which were scattered abroad.
But here again, we find this
separation of a peculiar people, He "gave himself for us, that he might purify
to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works".
He was the very
pattern of the divine life in man, separate from the evil, by which it was
universally surrounded; He was the friend of publicans and sinners, piping in
grace to men by familiar and tender love; but He was ever the separate man.
And so He is as the centre of the Church and High-Priest. "Such an
high-priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners"
and, it is added, "made higher than the heavens". Here in passing we may
remark, that the centre and subject of this unity then is heavenly.
A
living Christ still became the instrument of maintaining the enmity, being
Himself subject to the law of commandments contained in ordinances. Ephesians
2: 15.
Hence, though the divine glory of His person necessarily
reached over this wall as a fruitful bough of grace to poor passing Gentiles
without and it could not be otherwise, for where faith was, He could not
deny Himself to be God, nor what God was, even love yet in His regular
course, as a man made of a woman, He came under the law. But by His death He
broke down the middle wall of partition, and made both one, and reconciled both
in one body unto God, making peace.
Hence it is as lifted up, and
finally as made higher than the heavens, that He becomes the centre and sole
object of unity. Let us remark in passing, that hence worldliness always
destroys unity.
The flesh cannot rise up to heaven, nor descend in
love to every need. It walks in the separative comparison of self-importance.
"I am of Paul", etc. "Are ye not carnal and walk as men?"
Paul had not
been crucified for them, nor had they been baptized in the name of Paul. They
had got down to earth in their minds, and unity was gone.
But the
glorious heavenly Christ in one word embraced all. "Why persecutest thou me?"
This separation from all else was more slow among the Jews, as having
been outwardly themselves the separated people of God; but having fully shewn
what they were, the word to the disciples was, "Let us go forth to him without
the camp, bearing his reproach".
The Lord when as the great
result He would have one flock and one Shepherd put forth His own sheep,
and went before them. Indeed we have only to shew that unity is God's mind, and
separation from evil is the necessary consequence; for it exists as a principle
in the calling of God before unity itself.
Unity is His purpose, and,
as He is the only rightful centre, it must be the result of holy power; but
separation from evil is His very nature.
Hence, when He publicly calls
Abraham, the words: "Get thee out of thy country, and out of thy kindred, and
from thy father's house". But, to continue; from what we have seen, it is
evident that the Lord Jesus Christ on high is the object round which the Church
clusters in unity.
He is its Head and Centre. This is the character of
their unity, and of their separation from evil, from sinners.
Yet they
were not to be taken out of the world, but kept from the evil, and sanctified
through the truth; Jesus having set Himself thus apart to this end.
Hence, as well as for the public display of the power and glory of the Son of
man, the Holy Ghost was sent down to identify the called ones with their
heavenly Head, and to separate them from the world in which they were to
remain: and the Holy Spirit became thus the centre and power down here of the
unity of the church in Christ's name Christ having broken down the
middle wall of partition, reconciling both in one body by the cross. The
saints, thus gathered in one, became the habitation of God through the Spirit.
The Holy Ghost Himself became the power and centre of unity, but in
the name of Jesus, of a people separated alike from Jew and Gentile, and
delivered out of this present evil world into union with their glorious Head.
By Peter, God visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for
His name.
And of the Jews there was a remnant according to the
election of grace; as Paul, one of them, was separated himself from Israel, and
from the Gentiles, to whom he was sent. And so was the constant testimony. He
that saith he hath fellowship with Him and walketh in darkness, lieth and doeth
not the truth.
Separation from evil is the necessary first principle
of communion with Him. Whoever calls it in question is a liar he is, so
far, of the wicked one. He belies the character of God. If unity depends on
God, it must be separation from darkness. So with one another. If we walk in
the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And mark, here there is no limit. It is as God is in the light. There
the blessed Lord has placed us by His precious redemption; and hence, by that,
the whole manner of our walk and union must be formed: we can have no union
as of God out of it; the Jew could, because his though
separation, and hence the same in principle yet was only outward in the
flesh, and the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest no, not
even for the saints, though in God's counsels doubtless they were to be there
through the sacrifice about to be offered.So, again, one with the other. What
fellowship hath light with darkness? Christ with Belial? What fellowship hath
righteousness with unrighteousness? What agreement hath the temple of God with
idols?
And then, addressing the saints, the Holy Ghost adds, "For ye
are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and
walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore
come out from among them, and be ye separate".
Otherwise we provoke
the Lord to jealousy, as if we were stronger than He.
Of this unity
and fellowship, I may add, the Lord's Supper is the symbol and expression. For
we, being many, are all one bread loaf for we are all partakers
of that one bread.We find then most distinctly, that, as the unity of Israel of
old was founded on deliverance and calling from the midst of, and maintained
separation amongst, the heathen which surrounded them, so the Church's unity
was based on the power of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, separating a
peculiar people out of the world to Christ, and dwelling amongst them; God
Himself thus dwelling and walking in them.
For there is one Spirit,
and one body, as we are called in one hope of our calling.
Indeed, the
very name of Holy Spirit implies it; for holiness is separation from evil.
Whatever failure, moreover, there may be in attainment, the principle
and measure of this separation is necessarily the light, as God is in the
light; the way into the holiest being made manifest, and the Holy Ghost come
down thence to dwell in the Church below, and so in power of heavenly
separation, because the indwelling centre and power of unity just as the
Shekinah in Israel He establishes the holiness of the Church and its
unity in its separation to God, according to His own nature, and the power of
that presence.
Such is the Church, and such is true unity. Nor can the
saint recognize, intelligently, any other, though he may own desires and
efforts after good in that which is short of it. Here I might close my remarks,
having developed the great, though simple, principle, flowing from the very
nature of God, that separation from evil is His principle of unity.
But a difficulty collateral to my main object and subject presents itself.
Supposing evil introduces itself into this one body so formed actually on
earth, does the principle still hold good?
How then can separation
from evil maintain unity? And here we can touch on the mystery of iniquity.
But this principle, flowing from the very nature of God, that He is
holy, cannot be set aside.
Separation from evil is the necessary
consequence of the presence of the Spirit of God under all circumstances as to
conduct and fellowship.
But here there is a certain modification of
it.
The revealed presence of God is always judicial when it exists;
because power against evil is connected with the holiness which rejects it.
Thus, in Israel God's presence was judicial; His government was there
which did not allow of evil. So, though in another manner, it is in the church.
God's presence is judicial there not in the world, save in
testimony, because God is not yet revealed in the world, and hence it plucks up
no tares out of that field. But it judges them that are within.Hence the Church
is to put out from itself the wicked person, and thus maintains its separation
from evil. And unity is maintained in the power of the Holy Ghost and a good
conscience.
And indeed, that the Spirit may not be grieved, and the
practical blessing lost, saints are exhorted to look diligently lest any man
fail of the grace of God.
And how sweet and blessed is this garden of
the Lord, when it is thus maintained and blooms in the fragrance of Christ's
grace.
But, alas! we know worldliness creeps in, and spiritual power
declines; the taste for this blessing is enfeebled, because it is not enjoyed
in the power of the Spirit; the spiritual fellowship with Christ, the heavenly
Head, decays, and the power which banishes evil out of the Church is no longer
in living exercise.