Grace the Power of Unity and Gathering
I have had the desire on my mind to make a few remarks on
a point I believe to have importance at the present moment; and in doing so, I
carry in my mind a tract to which the circumstances drew attention, and
practically review it. And I do so, the rather, because I think I read a paper
some time back in "The Present Testimony", which, if my memory serves me,
placed the subject on a ground which I did not think quite just: that is, it
saw only one side of the matter, as it seemed to me. What I think important to
be understood is, that the active power that gathers is always grace –
love. Separation from evil may be called for. In particular states of the
church, when evil is come in, it may characterise very much the path of the
saints.
It may be, that through many acting under the same convictions
at the same time, this may form a nucleus. But this in itself is never a
gathering power. Holiness may attract when a soul is in movement of itself. But
power to gather, is in grace, in love working; if you please, faith working by
love.
Look at all the history of the church of God in all ages, and
you will find this to be the case. Grace is the formative power of unity, where
it does not exist. I take for granted here that Christ is owned as the centre.
If evil exist, it may gather out of that evil, but the gathering power
is love. The paper which I would pass under review is a tract, which, from
circumstances, is not unknown: Separation from Evil, God's Principle of
Unity.
I trust I should have grace to acknowledge error where I
thought there was such, and I am sure I owe it to the Lord to do so; but my
object here is somewhat larger. That tract refers to the state of the church of
God at large, and not any particular member of it; but as one part of truth
corrects an evil, so another, by its operation on the soul, may enlarge the
sphere, and strengthen the energy of good.
There are two great
principles in God's nature, owned of all saints – holiness and love. One
is, I may be bold to say, the necessity of His nature, imperative, in virtue of
that nature, on all that approach Him; the other, its energy. One
characterises; the other is, and is the spring of activity of, His nature.
God is holy – He is not loving, but love. He is it in the
essential fountain of His being; we make Him a judge by sin, for He is holy and
has authority; but He is love, and none has made Him such. If there be love
anywhere else, it is of God, for God is love. This is the blessed active energy
of His being.
In the exercise of this He gathers to Himself for the
eternal blessedness of those who are gathered, its display in Christ, and
Christ Himself, being the great power and centre of it.
His counsels
as to this are the glory of His grace, His applying them to sinners and the
means He employs for it, the riches of His grace. And in the ages to come He
will shew how exceeding great these were in His kindness to us, in Christ
Jesus. Allow me, in passing, before entering on the examination of the point
which is now directly my object, to say a word on the sweet passage I have
referred to, because it opens out God's full thoughts in bringing into the
unity of which that epistle speaks.
We are blessed in Christ, and God
Himself is the centre of the blessing, and in two characters, His nature and
His relationship; in both He is related to Christ Himself, viewed as Man before
Him, though the beloved Son. The verses I refer to, are Ephesians 1: 3-7. He is
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As the Lord, when ascending up on
high, said, "I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God"; only
in Ephesians He goes on to their unity in Christ. There Christ speaks of them
as His brethren.
In this double character then, in which God stands to
Christ Himself, He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, none left out,
in heavenly places, the best and highest sphere of blessing, where He dwells;
not merely sent down to earth, but we ourselves taken up there, and in the best
and highest way, in Christ Jesus, save His divine title to sit on the Father's
throne.
Wonderful portion, sweet and blessed grace, which becomes
simple to us in the measure in which we are accustomed to dwell in the perfect
goodness of God, to whom it is natural to be all that He is, who could be no
other. In verse 4, we have "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ", according to the
glory of the divine nature, introducing into His own presence in Christ that
which shall be the reflex of itself, according to its eternal purpose.
For the church in the thoughts of God – and, I may add, in its life in the
Word – is before the world in which it is displayed. Here, it is His
nature. We are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blame before Him in love. God is holy, God is love,
and in His ways, when He acts, blameless. Then there is relationship in Christ,
and His is that of Son. Hence in Him we are predestinated to adoption (sonship)
to God Himself, according to His good pleasure, the delight and goodness of His
will.
This is relationship. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
as well as God. This is the glory of His grace; His own thoughts and purposes,
to the praise of which we are. He has shewn us grace in the Beloved.
But in fact He finds us sinners. He has to put sinners in this place. What a
thought! Here His grace shines out in another way. In this same blessed one,
Christ the Son, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins,
what we need, in order to enter into the place where we shall be to the praise
of the glory of His grace; and this is according to the riches of His grace;
for God is displayed in the glory of His grace, and need is met by the riches
of grace. Thus we are before God. What follows in the chapter is the
inheritance which belongs to us through this same grace – what is under
us. Into this I do not enter; only remarking, as I have elsewhere, that the
Holy Ghost is the earnest of the inheritance, but not of God's love. This is
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us.
These two relationships, of God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, will be
found to unfold much blessing. They are of frequent occurrence in Scripture.
But interesting as that subject is, I turn now to the one before me. I have
read over the tract I have referred to. ["Separation from evil, etc."]
I confess, it seems to me that one who would deny the abstract principles of
that tract is not on christian ground at all. I cannot conceive anything more
indisputably true, as far as human statement of truth can go. Still there is
something more than truth to be considered, and that is, the use of truth.
God's imputing no sin to the church, through grace and redemption, is
always blessedly and eternally true. To a careless conscience, I may have to
address other truth. Now, I repeat, that on reading that tract I do not see how
a person resisting the principles stated, is on christian ground at all. Is not
holiness the principle on which christian fellowship is based? And the tract is
really and simply that.
But two other points I believe it important to
bring out along with that – one, in relation to man; the other, to the
blessed God. The first is this: human nature we all own, and in a measure know,
is a treacherous thing. Now separation from evil, when right, which I now
assume, still distinguishes him who separates from him from whom he does so.
This tends to make one's position important, and so it is; but with
such hearts as we have, one's position mixes itself up with self – not in
a gross way but in a treacherous one; it is my position, and not only so, but
the mind being occupied with what has been important – justly so in its
place – to itself, tends to make, in a measure, separation from evil a
gathering power, as well as a principle on which gathering takes place. This
– save as holiness attracts souls who are spiritual by a moving principle
in them – it is not. There is another danger: a Christian separates from
evil, I still suppose, in a case in which he is bound to do so. Say, he leaves
the corruptest system in existence; on this principle, it is the evil acting on
the conscience of the new man, and known to be offensive to God, which drives
him out. Hence he is occupied with the evil. This is a dangerous position. He
attaches it, perhaps anxiously, to those he has left, to give a clear ground
why he has done so. They conceal, cover over, gloss, explain. It is always so
where the evil is maintained. He seeks to prove it, to make his ground clear;
he is occupied with evil, with proving evil, and proving evil against others.
This is slippery ground for the heart, to say nothing of danger to love. The
mind becomes occupied with evil as an object before it. This is not holiness,
nor separation from evil, in practical internal power. It harasses the mind,
and cannot fee the soul. Some are almost in danger of acquiescing in the evil
through the weariness of thinking about it. At all events power is not found
here. God separates us surely from evil, but He does not fill the mind when it
continues to be occupied with it; for He is not in the evil.
It is
quite true that the mind may say, Let us think of the Lord and drop it, and get
a measure of quiet and comfort; but in this case the general standard and tone
of spiritual life will be infallibly lowered. Of this I have not a shadow of
doubt. The positive evil will not be actually acquiesced in; but God's horror
of it is lost in the mind, and the measure of divine power and communion just
proportionately lost, and the general path shews this. The testimony fails and
is lowered.
This is the widest evil – where there is conflict
with evil not maintained in spiritual power – and creates the most serious
difficulties to extended unity; but God is above all. The new nature, when in
lively exercise, because it is holy and divine, revolts from evil when it comes
before it. The conscience, too, will then be in exercise as responsible to God.
But this is not all, even as to holiness. There is another, which in
many – I may say, at bottom, in all – cases distinguishes real
holiness from natural conscience, or conventional rejection of evil. Holiness
is not merely separation from evil, but separation to God from evil. The new
nature has not merely a nature or intrinsic character as being of God.
It has an object, for it cannot live on itself – a positive object, and
that is God. Now this changes everything; because it separates from evil –
which it abhors, therefore, when it sees it – because it is filled with
good. This does not enfeeble its separation. It makes its abhorrence of it
lively when it has to be occupied with it, but it gives another tone to that
which is abhorrent to it, the possession of good sufficient, when it is not
forced to think of evil, to put it quite out of mind and sight. Hence it is
holy, calm, and has a substantive character of its own, apart from evil, as
well as abhorrent of it. With us this can only be in having an object, because
we are and ought to be dependent, only so far as we are positively filled with
God in Christ. We are occupied with good, and hence holy, for that is holiness;
and, therefore, easily and discerningly abhorrent of evil, without occupying
ourselves with it.
It is God's own nature; He is essentially good;
delights in it in Himself: and therefore He is abhorrent, in virtue of His
goodness, of evil; His nature is the good, and hence in His very nature He
rejects the evil.
He will do so authoritatively, no doubt, in
judgment; but we now speak of nature. Hence you will find, that when it is in
power, love precedes and makes holy, whether it be mutual or the enjoyment of
it in the revelation of God.
"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", 1 Thessalonians 3: 12-13.
So in 1 John 1, "That which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life
– for the life was manifested, and we have seen it and bear witness, and
shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested
unto us – that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye
also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father,
and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your
joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and
declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we
say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not
the truth".Now here the separation from evil, walking in the light, in
God's revealed character in Christ, in the practical knowledge of God as
revealed in Christ, in the truth as it is in Jesus, in whom the life was the
light of men, is fully insisted on with lines as clear and strong as the Holy
Ghost alone knows how to make them.
He who pretends to fellowship, and
does not walk in the knowledge of God, according to that knowledge, is a liar,
and the truth is not in him. But what makes the fellowship? This keeps it pure
– but what makes it? The revelation of the blessed object, and centre of
it, in Christ. John was speaking of One who had won his own heart – who
was the gathering power into fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus
Christ. He knew by the Holy Ghost, and enjoyed what the Saviour had said, "He
that hath seen me, hath seen the Father".
This was love, infinite,
divine; and, through the Holy Ghost, the witness of it had communion with it
and told it out, that others might have fellowship with him; and truly, his was
such. They joined in it. Now that, I apprehend, was gathering power. The object
gathered to, necessarily involved what follows. So, indeed, he closes the
epistle. "We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an
understanding to know him that is true, and we are in him that is true; that
is, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little
children, keep yourselves from idols".
That is, the gathering power of
good comes before the warning. This is the more remarkable in this epistle,
because it is, in a certain sense, occupied with evil, is written concerning
those that seduced them. Holiness, then, is separation to God, if it be real,
as well as from evil; for thus alone we are in the light, for God is light.
This is true, in our first sanctifying – we are brought to know
God, brought to God. If we come to ourselves it is, "I will arise and go to my
father". If it is restoration, "If thou wilt return, return unto me".
Indeed a soul is never restored really till it does; for it is not in the light
so as to purge flesh, even if the fruits of flesh have been confessed; nor is
sin seen as it is in God's sight.
Hence love comes in, in all true
conversion and restoration, however dimly seen, or through however dark
workings of conscience.
We want to get back to God; there is
forgiveness with Him that He may be feared; otherwise, it is despair which
drives us farther away. Indeed, what would or could restoration be if it were
not to God? But, in the full sense of gathering, that is, to common fellowship,
it is clearly the blessed object which reveals that in which we are to have the
fellowship, which so gathers.
We are to have fellowship in something,
that is, with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. This, then, must draw
hearts to itself, that in their common delight in it their fellowship may
exist. The principle of the tract is this, that in doing this it must separate
from evil. It is the "this-then-is-the-message" part of the statement. So
Christ says, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me".
Now here was perfect love, entire separation from all sin and condemnation of
it. "In that he died, he died unto sin once" – separation from the world,
and deliverance from the whole power of the enemy and the scene of it. It is
perfect love drawing from everything to itself; showing all was evil, absorbing
the soul into what was good, in a saving way from it. But when we follow Him
into life, all is gone from which He separated. "In that he liveth, he liveth
unto God"; that is His whole being, so to speak.
Now He is, in this
life, made higher than the heavens – the divine glory I do not here enter
into, but the life. It is a heavenly place He takes, and our gathering through
the cross is to Him there, in the good where evil cannot come.
There
is our communion – entering into the Father's house in spirit. And this, I
apprehend, is the true character of the assembly, of the church, for worship in
its full sense. It remembers the cross, it worships, the world left out, and
all known in heaven before God. He gave Himself that He might gather into one.
But here I anticipate a little, for I am speaking as yet of the
object, not of the active power. I apprehend that what separates the saint from
evil, what makes him holy, is the revelation of an object – I mean of
course, through the Holy Ghost working – which draws his soul to that as
good, and thereby reveals evil to him, and makes him judge it in spirit and
soul: his knowledge of good and evil is, then, not a mere uneasy conscience,
but sanctification; that is, sanctification is resting, by the enlightening of
the Holy Ghost, on an object, which, by its nature, purifies the affections by
being their object – creates them through the power of grace. Even under
law it had this form, "Be ye holy for I am holy"; though, I admit, it there
partook necessarily of the character of the dispensation. In the cross we have
these two great principles perfectly brought out. Love is clearly shewn, the
blessed object which draws the heart; yet the most solemn judgment of and
separation from all evil; such is God's perfectness – the foolishness and
weakness of God. Divine attraction in love, evil in all its horror and forms,
perfectly abhorred by him who is attracted and attaches himself to that.
The soul goes with sin, as sin, to Love; goes because love thus
displayed has shown him that it is sin, in Christ being made sin for us. This
is the power objectively that separates from evil, and ends all connection with
it; for I die then to all the nature I lived to. Evil ceases to be, through
faith, as I live hereforth in blessed activity in love. But I have, perhaps,
dwelt long enough on what objectively gathers and gives fellowship; and surely,
our fellowship, communion, is in that which is good – and as heavenly by
no evil being there. Imperfectly realised no doubt here, but so far as it is
not, fellowship is destroyed, for the flesh has none. Hence it is said: "If we
walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship one with another".
But we cannot walk out of darkness but by walking in the light, that
is, with God: and God is love, and were He not, we could not walk there. But we
have other privileges; God's love in Christ is not only an object which gathers
– it is an activity which does so. Love is relative; it acts and shews
itself. Hence God has acted.
It is not the silent depths of
self-consciousness which heathenism made of God, as mere intellect, though
erroneously supposing matter equally eternal, receiving merely form from God;
though it then became active in generating thoughts – and, delighted with
them objectively, became active in creation to produce them according to truth.
In this scheme they justly made primeval darkness the mother of all things. But
such is not our God. These, save in benefits sensibly known in creation, knew
not love in God.