S. Extracts from Letters

Extracts from Letters

W. H. Westcott.

Extracts from Letter dated Jan. 30th, 1932.

Many things are to be borne within the area of outward fellowship, from which one shrinks in the way of personal contact. I remember being asked if I were breaking bread with a person, did I not commit myself to all that he did? My reply was "Certainly not," and the ground of my reply is the whole teaching of the Pauline Epistles, for without touching on the question of church fellowship, and still less insisting on expulsion from it, the apostle shows up instance after instance where saints are to be rebuked sharply, corrected from error, even withdrawn from as disorderly — yet not counted for enemies, but admonished as brothers. Unruly ones are to be warned, and so on. You do not commit yourselves to these features of flesh seen in saints, yet the teaching of scripture does not point to the putting outside the pale by excommunication.

. . . In days of brokenness we may not alter God’s standards, nor may we depart from God’s ways.

Wm. Hy. Westcott.

November 3rd, 1925. My Dear Brother,

Thank you for your letter. The spirit of exercise which it evinces is always a feature which turns one’s heart in thankfulness to God: Once we are separated to the true Christ, the Christ of God, we are in a position to avail ourselves of all His wisdom power, grace and love for the various troubles we are called upon to face.

It is a fallacy to suppose that any ground can be discovered or reached whereon we may avoid all difficulty, escape all trouble and exercise, or find every brother and sister intelligently and fully in accord with that position. Assembly history starts in the New Testament with the apostles; but how far from perfect were those assemblies which were gathered even under their ministry.

It would seem that at first the passage on to true Christian ground was gradual. The Jewish remnant and proselytes who were blessed at Pentecost still held public gatherings in the temple precincts; and what enraged the priests was that public teaching by the apostles went on in the very stronghold of the legal, but now effete, Jewish system. The Christians, however, were by the descent of the Holy Ghost baptised into one body, and in the confession of the Lord Jesus, bore testimony to Israel’s rejection of Him, and of His exaltation BY and TO the right hand of God. And through Peter’s ministry there was for a time still the offer of grace to Israel if repentant.

Even after the call of Paul, and I may say his first missionary journey with the gospel, there was still a close link with the law, and circumcision, and the temple, as Acts 15:1-41 reminds us; and as late as Acts 21:1-40 we learn how many thousands there were that believed, in Jerusalem, who were all zealous of the law, etc., etc. But while much was borne with, and many links at first existed with the synagogue, it seems that assembly truth as Paul administered it, first had a pure place after he had testified to the synagogue in Corinth, and then departed thence Acts 18:7. Not but what he still presented the Gospel to the Jew first, as, for example, in verse 19, and Acts 19:8, but at that point, IN CORINTH, he breaks with the synagogue, and IN THAT CITY, where true separation from the judged religious system of Judaism was first marked, HE LAID THE FOUNDATION OF TRUE ASSEMBLY TESTIMONY: 1 Corinthians 3:10-11. For in that passage in Corinthians it is not merely a question of a sinner receiving the gospel. Paul did not lay the gospel foundation, for souls were blessed through Christ and received the Holy Spirit before Paul was converted. But by his ministry he did in Corinth lay down the grand foundation truth of the assembly in testimony here. And, be it noted again, it was when the rejection of Christ by the Jewish religious opponents led to the step of separation from the religious system which refused Christ His place, that the truth could be both taught and practised in separation. I do not see how you could have had it otherwise. How could you have seen a local assembly in function in the synagogue? I mean according to what you get taught in the Corinthians. THERE everyone was to be subject to the leadership of Christ, and ANY brother, if led of Him and by the Holy Ghost, might so far take part. This would not have been possible, nor would it have been tolerated, in the synagogue. So that not until you have the truth as taught in separation in Corinth could you have the assembly in function. And in his ministry there Paul laid the foundation of all true ASSEMBLY testimony. No doubt the topstone is reached in the epistle to those at Ephesus, which looks on to the completion of the counsel of God as to the whole church. But there again we may say it was only learned in separation, for he separated the disciples, and they henceforth met in the school of one Tyrannus.

Now these things may help us to see that in so far as we mix with a religious system which is marked for the judgment of God, we put ourselves in a position where it is impossible to keep in the full truth of the assembly now revealed. How anyone who has once tasted the liberty and preciousness of a circle where Christ alone is acknowledged, and His fulness has been tasted and enjoyed, can afterwards go to and settle in "the establishment" or any of the so-called "nonconformist bodies" one does not understand. Yet evidently the epistle to the Hebrews was written because there was danger that those who had been drawn out of the old and decaying system should be tempted back to it. But even when separated to Christ there is every danger that saints should be tempted to admit and shelter in their midst the principles and practices of the world out of which grace has brought them, or of the religious system from which truth has delivered them. Of the former, Corinthians itself gives us a clear example; where instead of living under the sway of the holy Lord, using the resources they had in Christ, and walking according to the truth of the House of God, the Body of Christ, and liberty of the Spirit, and — we may add — of man in Christ, they allowed the use of man after the flesh with his resources, and alas, his luxuries and pleasures, his looseness, and his ready allowance of the first man. Even SIN seemed to be allowed, gross and almost unnameable sin, under the plea of liberty. but liberty for the first man whom God has condemned should rather be called licentiousness. Of the latter, Colossians and Hebrews are evident examples. Here it is not the bad side of man after the flesh which saints were in danger of allowing With the Colossians it seems to have been largely the mentality of the first man, his philosophy, his mental training, his reasoning powers, and especially in religious forms. It is a particularly subtle form of weakness, and in truth the denial of Christianity, to suppose that a man who is highly educated and trained in the world’s schools, and has examined all the various systems of thought, ancient and modern, and has been theologically trained, and who has studied logic, mathematics, and science of all kinds, whether physical or metaphysical, will necessarily be the most useful or the most reliable of Christians. On the contrary, HE is likely to be the most useful, who having had all these "advantages" as the world calls them, renounces faith in all the subtle reasonings and conclusions of men, and in the-spirit of a little child, receives with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save our souls. Saul of Tarsus, the great helper of the saints in the Gentile world, says "what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." Circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, he had done with man after the flesh, and was not only content to be in contact with the fulness in Christ, but learned that that fulness was so complete that there WAS no fulness elsewhere. No one can describe the magnificence of the position into which the feeblest Christian is introduced, where — in Christ — he has every resource, and is independent of the whole system of operation, the whole "modus operandi" of the world, and of the man whose world it is. That world, that man, wants his music, his sentimentality, his eloquence, his religious atmosphere, his architecture to aid "the religious sense," his organisation, his rubrics, his fasts, his feasts, his rules, his ordinances, and a hundred and one accessories, which, even in the case of a Christian, would smother his faith and quench the Spirit. How amazing the deliverance, how fascinating the liberty, where a poor once-imprisoned Christian emerges out of such an *Aruwimi forest of religiousness into God’s light of day, where Christ is all in all.

** An African river, tributary to the Congo. The forests in this region are very dense. With the Hebrews, it was more the allurement of a past religious system, which had had its place in God’s ways while Israel was being tested. It had an antiquity of some 1500 years’ duration; it had a thrilling history, was headed up in an earthly centre, and in its high priest always had an earthly head. It could boast of its central temple, of its grand ritual, of its law, its great festivals; and while its roots lay in the fact of its Divine inauguration, truly commanded the reverence and homage of every Hebrew all over the world. But it was not finality, for by its means, so imposing and material, God was foreshadowing all that was in his heart — to be established in Christ. And now Christ HAS COME in Whom is finality. Hence, though of divine inauguration, the best religious system that the world has ever known, AND THE ONLY DIVINE ONE, has gone down, and is by God Himself set aside in favour of Christ alone.

Where, then, is the religious system, be it old or new, Catholic or Protestant, national or sectarian, where is the religious system that God can acknowledge now that CHRIST has come? The saint who goes down to any system acknowledges what God does not acknowledge.

What shall I say more? We find that God in mercy, and our Lord Jesus Christ as having the key of David, has set before us an open door in these closing days. We find that through grace any Christian who is exercised about these things can get out to Christ from all the entanglements of man’s systems, and find in true separation to Christ every fulness and resource. There is for him there the possibility of learning (without human trammels), the love of the Father’s heart, the counsels of God, the glories, grace and love of Christ, and the whole range of God’s good pleasure in the Man of His right hand, the second Man, and last Adam, the Son of His love. There, too, he may find in company with other Christians set free, the blessed liberty of the Spirit, and ministry from the Head in heaven for the members on earth, and enjoy the inestimable privilege of identification with the rejection of Christ, while in spirit he can be led into the holiest of all in the sense of the blessedness of the God to whom Christ has brought him, and in the enjoyment of the Father’s love who is the source of it all. Moreover, in the power of the Spirit he can come out face to face with men, to be here descriptive of Christ, in witness for Him in His absence, waiting for His return, and competent to face all the power of Satan, and the opposition of the world, and even all the storms and troubles of earth, in the grace of Christ.

We may say that about a century has passed since the exodus began from human and national systems that saints might meet on the ground of the Assembly of God alone, according to the Scriptures, under the Headship and Lordship of Christ, and the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. It is a marvellous conception, and it showed a path which instructed, exercised, devoted Christians felt and do feel to be of God. It seemed to be the realization of the Lord’s own word, "I have set before thee an open door?" But it is so pre-eminently a spiritual thing, stripped of all vestige of man’s methods of co-ordination and co-operation, so entirely dependent upon the giving Christ His place, and walking in the Spirit, that it could the more easily be damaged the moment any individual allowed the flesh and his own will to act. But all the true power of Christianity is seen only when saints are separated to Christ, and are loyal to that separation. Bring in the ways of the world, admit the thoughts and methods of man, and you have weakened everything. Israel, who had Jehovah for their King, wanted to be like the nations and to have a king of their own. Saints who are nominally separated to Christ ask for an organ for their work, a leader in their prayer meetings, a chairman for their conventions, a banner for their parades, the advertisement of their services, magic lanterns or lantern processions, and a dozen other things, which are truly only "like the nations." And even the young people’s meetings may easily degenerate into "socials" where hymn singing and jocular remarks and recitations are the fare on which they are nourished, to sustain them, forsooth, in a hostile world, where all of Christ is to be inwrought and expressed, and where the whole power of the devil is to be encountered. How the devil must at times "laugh in his sleeve." The more we see of the true power and glory of Christianity, the more sensitive we become to anything that contravenes it, the more trivial do things appear which constitute the stock-in-trade of some. But — may one say it humbly — if they only knew the truth as God has shown it to us, the more readily would they drop these defiling substitutes for the power of the Holy Ghost and the glories of Christ.

One has truly said, "The principles of God may be deserted by easy gradations. They may first be RELAXED), then FORGOTTEN, then DESPISED. They may pass from a FIRM hand into an EASY one, from thence to an INDIFFERENT one, and find themselves at last flung away be a REBELLIOUS one. Many have at first stood for God’s principles in face of difficulties — then merely grieved over the loss of them — then been careless about their loss or maintainance — and at last, with a high hand, broken." (J. G. Bellett.) But you ask how far can we go, and give the right hand of fellowship in such things. I say, NOT AT ALL. "have no company with him" in 2 Thessalonians 3:14 is not ecclesiastical; it is moral. But it places within our reach a refusal to company with a man who, though outwardly in the Christian company is behaving in a way inconsistent with the truth of Christ. It has long been clear to me that I cannot associate in service with one whose modes of service are prejudicial to the truth of God. Whether it is in open air work, Sunday School work, gospel work at home, or missionary work abroad, whether speaking or writing, one finds that one cannot company with a man whose course is "disorderly and not according to the tradition which" says Paul "ye received of us." And further, even as a great servant like Paul or Apollos might have difficulty and objection about going to Corinth at a given time when looseness was so shamefully practised (see 1 Corinthians 16:1-24; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 2 Corinthians 1:23), so may a little and insignificant servant refuse to visit a gathering which is characterised by looseness, at a given time. But I humbly submit that he should, as Paul did, GIVE HIS REASON FOR SO DOING. If servants were only faithful, much more exercise might be produced than is produced. Usually if one knows of hearts that are grieving over the laxity, one goes to encourage- them; but always making it clear that the laxity allowed by some is in one’s judgment utterly contrary to the Word of God and the truth of Christ.

I know that some say you are identified with everything that occurs in the assembly. This I utterly repudiate, when once saints are on Divine ground. Paul was NOT identified with the man in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13. He was NOT identified with the disorderly ones at Thessalonica. On the contrary he ministered and prayed and pleaded, and used the resources that he knew to be in the Lord, to correct the errors. And if there were faithful servants who would do this thing, and seek by ministry and pastoral care to correct (while refusing to identify themselves with) the blunders we see to-day, there would be less of division and less of secession than we have seen. Where a meeting becomes thoroughly and entirely identified with an inconsistency, one could not commend to nor receive from it, for in such case it seems clear that "a little leave" has "leavened the whole lump." It has degenerated from the true ground of the assembly to that of "a house public," if I may use the term. It is a place where liberty is allowed for the will of man, and that the assembly is not. Wherever "a little leaven" is at work we have to look and look and look again to the Lord to check its action; to pray, and minister, and present the truth of Christ so that consciences may be exercised and if possible the brothers or sisters who have tended to lead saints away may themselves be recovered. At times, I believe, the Lord may permit prolonged waiting upon Him, when relief from the exercise and pressure does not come at once; and He may even permit that an individual or some individuals who have been wilful may go to a length where they finally quit the meetings they cannot carry with them. Just how the Lord will intervene for the deliverance of the exercised saints who can upon Him one cannot say; but He cannot be untrue to Himself. I am deeply delighted, and take comfort in the thought, that we can call upon the Lord in every difficulty of this kind. Of course, if a trouble takes on a character which plainly requires excommunication, there can be no question whatever, and there ought to be no delay, for the Lord’s glory. But in these things that so distress us, the presence and ways of those who are inconsistent with the truth of the assembly and Christ’s place in it, and who bring in man’s ways to the church of God, the same Lord who is over all is rich to all that call upon Him; and whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved. It was so in salvation at the first; it is so in assembly history all along. (1 Corinthians 1:1-31; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16).

Then also there is great encouragement in the thought that where things tend surely to departure God greatly honours the faith of an individual. As in the days of the judges, so to-day; a single man of faith and faithfulness may be used to steady things for his day and generation. We do happily find in many of the meetings men who have learned something of the truth, and stand in it. There has to be withstanding in times of attack, and standing when our own forces seem to be melting away. Of the two perhaps the latter is the more difficult. As to a gathering receiving the ministry of a brother who is not on assembly ground, I would, I think, first ascertain if it were inadvertently, supposing him to be all right. But if wilfully, in defiance of the obligations of fellowship in the truth, it would close that door for me. I should not feel free to go to them until they came to own that that kind of independency savours not of brokenness of spirit, nor of the faithfulness which suits the Holy One and the True, in these days of confusion. Independency and free-lanceism suits an unbroken will. No — we are called by God to the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. All diverse from that is out of court. May God graciously be with us, and support our feeble faith, and even yet give us to see His hand in great deliverance. "I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord." (Zephaniah 3:12). The conies are a feeble folk yet they make their houses in the ROCK.

Warm love, dear brother, The Lord cheer you, and indeed may you encourage YOURSELF in the Lord your God.

Affy. in Him, Wm. Hy. Westcott.