01.10. Chapter 10 - The Assembly in its Practical Working
Chapter 10 The Assembly in its Practical Working
We will now consider the local assembly itself in its living operation as filling (in the Holy Spirit’s power) the place for which God designed it. It must fill this place to satisfy and be owned by God, and the ruined spiritual condition of the Church as a whole has not lowered His standard for it. He is gracious or who could stand before Him, but this does not imply that He tolerates even the least departure from His Word. If He did He would give up His holiness, truth and love. The Church has failed miserably, and this failure has changed the circumstances in which we are placed today. It has made our path more difficult and has deprived us of much of the help that we should have gained from one another. But this failure does not force anyone to be disobedient to anything that God has spoken, nor does it deprive us of either the wisdom or power to “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God” (Col 4:12). Difficulties only help us realize more of what He is for us: as Joshua and Caleb said of the giants that Israel would have to fight in possessing the promised land, “They shall be bread to us” (Num 14:9), for faith is strengthened by those demands on it that expose the weakness of unbelief.
Thus, we are to look at the assembly in the character which the Word of God has given it, unhindered by any reasonings derived from the changed conditions of today. The assembly of which we are speaking is not the whole church of God, but the local assembly which in God’s thoughts, however, represents the whole Church in the locality, being those alone who can actually assemble — the practical Scriptural gathering together of the members of Christ, simply as such.
If all the members of Christ were gathered together, we would see the entire Assembly as the body of Christ. Thus, each local assembly is the body of Christ in the place in which it is (that is, each assembly is the body of Christ in practical operation. If there are other Christians in the locality, they are part of the body of Christ, but they do not gather together on Scriptural ground, and thus, in practice, do not represent that wonderful body. Ed.) The assembly is a divinely-constructed organization* and the only organization that God ever owns as of Him — all-sufficient to give us all that can be rightly expected or desired.
Let’s look first at the members of the body of Christ. They are spoken of individually in the same terms as the whole body is, because each individual is a picture of the whole body of Christ. The whole body is joined together and united to the Head by the Holy Spirit who indwells it all. The Holy Spirit likewise brings every member into a living and practical relationship with every other and with Christ. Indwelt by the Holy Spirit, “he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit,” so that “your bodies are the members of Christ” (1Co 6:17; 1Co 6:15). The whole of each individual belongs to Christ, and there is no one and no part of anyone permitted to be worldly or self-controlled. Thus, not only is the white garment of practical righteousness to cover us completely, but the “cord of blue,” the heavenly color, is to be seen on the hem of it, just where it comes in contact with the earth (Num 15:38). The moral basis for all right fellowship with God and with one another is lacking unless we “purpose in our hearts” to live our whole lives — our every faculty of mind and body — for God. We must allow ourselves to be (spiritually) taken out of this world by being set apart to Himself, and then to be sent back into it again as His representatives (John 17:15-18). If we won’t do this, we do not and cannot fill our place in the assembly regardless of how much we physically take part in the meetings, because our place essentially is a spiritual one and can only be spiritually filled! Our Lord’s words, “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Mat 12:30) are true in particular matters as well as in a general way. If we are not with Him in any habit or practice, in that respect we are against Him and are in the miserable condition of being divided against ourselves. As a consequence we lose spiritual vigor and lack ability to make progress in God’s things or even to stand firm in Satan’s presence. Paul says that things that are “lawful” to him — not specifically unscriptural — are not all “expedient” (wise) and he immediately adds, regarding these things, “All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any” (1Co 6:12). Lawful things might develop a power or influence to which even Paul feared becoming captive.
Now, the question of fellowship with one another begins here. Are we personally in true and whole-hearted fellowship with Christ, with no fence to keep Him from certain portions of our lives? Has obedience to Him no secret limitations? Do we divide between what is ours and His? Do we know that to have Him own everything that is ours, is the only way we can enjoy and find satisfying sweetness in those things?
Only thus will our bodies, in practice, be the members of Christ. Then, our hands will be for His work, our feet for His errands, our lips for His communications and His praise. Our entire lives will express communion with Him.
Whatever shortcomings we have to confess in actual attainment, nothing less than the above must be our honest desire and aim, or how can there be a walk with God? How can He agree to other terms than these? Would it be for His glory or our good if He did so?
Think of what is implied in the expression “body of Christ” where the Holy Spirit links all together in harmonious subjection to the will of the Head and gives in each, a living unity with one another. This living unity plainly is the practical “unity of the Spirit” which Paul tells us to “endeavor to keep” (Eph 4:3). Paul doesn’t mean the unity of the body (which God keeps), but the unity of that which makes it in practice the body fitted to Christ, the Head. This is what should be seen in the assembly of God if it is fulfilling its proper character — a living, speaking, working unity of obedience inspired by devoted love. What a testimony to Him of even “two or three” gathered together in this spirit! It was this way at the beginning of the Church when “the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said any of them that any of the things which he possessed was his own” (Acts 4:32). This is the true spirit at all times, whatever may be the difference as to how it is expressed. Where the above is not true, men “seek their own [things, and] not the things of Jesus Christ” (Php 2:21). Various interests lead in various ways, the wisdom of the world comes in to secure these ways and the door is opened to every kind of departure. It is only the sense of what is ours in Christ, where all have all in common, and joy is increased by sharing with others, that keeps the heart from evil and produces much fruit for Him. Thus, we see again why Philadelphians are those who keep Christ’s Word. Communion only exists where the heart is held by the revelations of God’s grace and we are kept in communion by the fresh manna (spiritual food), gathered every day. The reading (Bible study) meeting thus is a great test of the state of an assembly, for it is there, if things are right, that the knowledge gathered during the week by the individual brethren is tested and made sure by discussion and comparison, which helps to make truth the realized possession of the soul. Here we may learn too, if there is the frankness of brotherly love, the individual needs for the truth so that the truth can be used for real edification (help, building up, strengthening). In these ways, we can test how completely we have got hold of the truth, while what has been learned by each is thrown into the common fund to enrich the whole. It would surprise even those who know the least, to know how much their questions, suggested by their own need, help the very people who answer them. This is one of the many ways in which the minister is ministered to.
Thus, the Bible study meeting is never made needless by more detailed and connected teaching. In fact, such added teaching only creates a special need for the Bible study meeting so that the food laid before the whole may be individually digested.
Indeed, “the sons of this world are wiser, in their generation, than the sons of light” (Luk 16:8). Someone who inherits a large worldly possession soon realizes the need to become acquainted with what he has so much personal interest in, but in the case of spiritual wealth, given us by God, how few of us earnestly lay hold of it. When, in the early 1800s, the Holy Spirit moved to recover His people to one another and to revive the almost lost idea of the Assembly of God, the Bible study meetings were a prominent sign of the awakened interest in His Word, and that God’s people were claiming for themselves their portion in it. No class of men, however gifted, educated or accredited, were allowed to stand between them and their possession. So, any decay in the Bible study meetings means the lessening of that eager enthusiasm for the truth and a lessened consciousness of the Holy Spirit as the One who gives the power needed to personally possess the truth.
God never intended theology to be for a class of men called theologians. Rather, all treasures of His Word are for all His people. Nothing is hidden except from the careless and indifferent — those who willingly exchange their heavenly birthright for a serving of the world’s pottage. Teachers are only God’s pledge of His eagerness to have all to know His Word. He has not restricted the possession of spiritual knowledge to teachers. Teachers are to show others that, in the living fountain from which they drew, there is the living water for all, as free to others as for themselves. Teachers make God’s Word to stand out before the eyes of those who have not as yet found it where God put it for them. A motto of encouragement to those who have faith in a God who cannot lie, is, “Everyone who seeks, finds” (Mat 7:8). The success of teachers is shown by their ability to make others independent of them — to make the Church of God realize its ability for self-edification (self-help). The apostle Paul says that Christ has given gifts to men, “some, apostles; some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto (with the view towards) the work of ministry, unto the edification of the body of Christ, until we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect (complete) man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:11-13). The work of ministry is what all the saints are to be perfected unto — made completely skilled in God’s Word. Every believer is free to “covet earnestly the best gifts” (1Co 12:31) and is responsible to use all the ability that he has to enrich others. “The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man for profit” (1Co 12:7). Although there are special evangelists, all are free and called on, each in his own measure, to evangelize. Although there are special teachers, all are free and responsible to communicate to others what God has given them of His truth. Love of each other and love of souls is to have liberty to be manifested and is to be encouraged everywhere.
How blessed is an assembly in this condition, with every person realizing that the fullness of all spiritual knowledge is open to him (or her) to enjoy; that the best gifts are his to covet; and that he is, by the wonderful fact of his having the Holy Spirit, the ordained minister of Christ to the world and also the ordained servant and helper of his brethren! How intolerable is the thought of class restrictions to limit and hinder the grace of God to His people! Yet, we constantly tend to sink into it. The development of gift is hindered by class distinctions and this is a major reason why so few among us are going forth to labor in the ample fields and why the gatherings have so little strength and stability! We don’t need to talk about a laity to have one! ’Gift’ is unlikely to develop among God’s people if they sink down into careless, silent submission to others regarding their spiritual privileges. On the other hand, when spiritual life is strongest, we will be most conscious of our needs of one another. Spiritual feebleness always means a strong world element in our lives. The spiritual child of God can have no fellowship in the world’s occupations, aims and pleasures. There will be little spiritual help to one another when our occupation is with the world; our spiritual links will become theoretical, formal, sentimental. But where spiritual life is practical and earnest, its needs will be felt and the grace realized which has united us together. Wherever we find life in nature, it is in conflict with death; and the organization (order) that always accompanies life is its defense against death. Nor is organization a sacrifice of individuality, for every part of the body is distinct from the rest and has its own work and responsibility. Only by maintaining this individuality can the welfare of the whole be maintained. Likewise in the body of Christ, everyone has a place to fill; a place that no other can fill. Thus, every person is necessary! The Church of God is an organization — the body of Christ — the body on earth of an unseen Head in heaven. The body is always looked at as on earth, just as the Head is in heaven; and as governed by that Head, one with Him. Joined by the uniting Holy Spirit, the Church is God’s representative in the world, to be the expression of His mind, His will, His nature. Every individual also is this, but that is not enough. It has pleased God to link these individuals together. Thus, individual duty is not pleasing to God if one’s God-given place is not filled in the body. There is to be an “epistle of Christ” (one epistle, not epistles) which, as Paul tells the Corinthians, “you are” (2Co 3:3).
Since we are livingly linked together in such a manner and for such a purpose, how necessary it is that, as gathered together, we constantly seek God’s mind to learn what He has for us to do as yoke-fellows together — you and I working together in His service. The value of organization for this, seems least appreciated by those who should know it best — by those who have had recovered to them the knowledge of God’s own perfect organization for His work (the Church) which demands the very utmost of our united energies!
Organization is everywhere appreciated among Christian workers today. Nothing can be done without it. Organizations now are so abundant that they are becoming parasites on the bodies from which they sprang, and they often over-burden what they were designed to support. Thus, there are good reasons for the distrust that some of us have of them. These organizations are undisciplined and the destroyers of discipline. All distinctive faith is in danger of being lost in many organizations due to their loose associations with unconverted persons — Christians with the deniers of Christ, in an unequal yoke, forbidden by God under the severest penalties (2Co 6:14-18).
Further, by their human rules, many of these organizations suppress the conscience and substitute the will of the majority, or of an ’official’ for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So, we have learned to link all this with the very thought of organization and thus tend to look on every suggestion of it with suspicion — as being, at best, unspiritual. But what then shall we do with the body of Christ, which is both a Scriptural and divine organization? Our common relationship to one another causes us to “consider one another to provoke (stir up) to love and to good works” (Heb 10:24); with which the apostle connects “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting (encouraging) one another” (Heb 10:25). Don’t such words imply that we should assemble together to consider both individual needs and the Lord’s work among us, in ways and times more than open meetings, Bible studies, and prayer meetings, as these exist among us, can unitedly supply?
Isn’t fellowship with one another sadly limited if there is not fellowship in the Lord’s work among us and around us — if there is no gathering together to consider this? Such gatherings should be the rule, not the exception, and should be earnestly entered into as essential to our corporate duties and thus to our right spiritual health. In many denominations Christians come together to consider the Lord’s work, to express their interest in it and to identify themselves with it. Is it necessary that we, as two or three or more gathered to the Lord’s Name, are cut off from all gathering together for such purposes? I believe that wherever such a lack of gathering exists, it is a most serious lack. It tends to restrict our interest in one another and deprive us of much of the good that should come from the differences among us, which make mutual help so necessary.
Further, the ministry of that help binds us together. Such lack of gathering together makes our Christian activities to be disconnected and feeble, and deprives us of many doors that would be found open to us; exposing us to the reproach of being, as a whole, not very useful.
Why is it that we who have and can present the gospel as simply as others, even are capable of being attacked with such reproaches? Why have we been left so far behind in the evangelism of the world by others with much less light (truth), but zealous in their cooperation with one another for such purposes? Have we been too weighted down by the truth we have? If our truth is dead truth — head knowledge without the heart-felt practice backing up that knowledge — this probably is the answer, but not if it is living truth. Truth in its living power is weight as wings are to a bird. Had we gone in the same zeal, after the same people that others have sought, no ecclesiastical prejudice could have robbed us of the blessing. The hindrance has been something beside the truth or the position that we hold.
There has developed among us the dangerous tendency to break up on slight occasion over non-fundamental matters, even though Philadelphia is a brotherhood. We often fail to cultivate that spirit of brotherly fellowship, of which the hand-to-hand occupation in the Lord’s work is certainly a very important part. We have left room for the development of gift and have been very thankful to see evangelists, teachers and others raised up among us, but we have lacked the seeking, by gathering together in the ways suggested above, to make the Lord’s work a matter of common responsibility and widest fellowship!
Business meetings and brothers’ meetings will not fill the gap. We need something wide enough to take in all the Lord’s interests on earth, free enough to give everyone a place in it and practical enough to concern itself mainly with the places in which we live and in the spheres in which we daily move. We want something that constantly will remind us of our individual duties as the Lord’s workers; be suggestive, encouraging and helpful in our fulfillment of them; fit us more together in practice as the co-members of the body of Christ; make us realize His mind for us as a whole, and give us practical wisdom for the days in which we live. We want to be like the men of Issachar who came to Hebron to make David king, “who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1Ch 12:32). We want something that will develop all the truth we have into practical expression for the help of all those around us. The Church of God plainly is an organization, but we have yet to use it for all the purposes intended by God for His organization — the organization that God has given the responsibility of representing Christ and of being the practical expression of His mind on earth. So, even if we are only two or three in each place, instead of thousands, while sadly acknowledging the broken condition of things, we are just as responsible to show what the Church of God should be — a living, united, working, cooperating membership, a body moving in unison with the mind of its unseen Head, in the energy of the Holy Spirit who formed and inspires it. No one suggests that since we all can read our Bibles at home, there is no need for our coming together for Bible study; or that, since we can pray at home, there is no need for prayer meetings in the assembly. Why, then, should the work meetings — the means for practical communion — be the only thing thought unnecessary?
Yet, for the lack of such work meetings, the prayer meetings become vague and general because definite individual and corporate needs are not known. Service that is merely personal or shared only by a few, in which general fellowship is not sought, is not prayed for. Then our Bible studies lack the personal application, the freshness of interest that only is supplied by incidents of service, but which often are unknown except to individuals. Instead of a practical working unity, we often are only individuals, touching each other at a few points, but hidden from each other in most, except as personal friendships join us here and there. As a consequence, without the larger interests of the body of Christ to steady them, these friendships tend to form us into parties and in times of pressure, break us up into them!
How little we “consider one another, to provoke (stir up) unto love and good works” (Heb 10:24). Exhortations often are pointless due to lack of knowledge. How little in general are we near enough to each other in our inner lives to be able to encourage or exhort! Yet as children of God and members of Christ, we are in a relationship one to another that is nearer and more abiding than any other can be!
Thus, we need in everyday practice to draw nearer together as Christians. With the stress of the world on us, we need to take each other by the hand and strengthen each other in the things of God. In the presence of evil we need to show a strong, united front. In a world away from God, but over which His mercies linger, we need a more practical fellowship in the gospel and we need to encourage everyone to take an earnest part in preaching it. In all that concerns the Church of God, we must have something that will give us better opportunity to know that we are “members one of another.” As partakers of the mind of Christ, we need to give this more united, practical expression.
Membership in the body of Christ automatically means service. Every part of a body is in necessary working relationship with the whole, and there is no independency. Each part needs and serves and is served by the whole. God has acted on this principle throughout nature and nowhere more fully than among men. God said, “it is not good that man should be alone” (Gen 2:18), so He made a helper for him — woman, the complement of himself. He united the weaker to the stronger so that by her weakness, his strength is better served. She is given to him to be ministered to, so that she may minister to him also, drawing him out of himself, developing his heart — a blessing that all he gives to her cannot repay. Similarly, society has been built up by men having different interests and jobs; and even the regions of the earth are helpful by the differences of their productions in binding together the nations of the earth. A city is the highest development of this principle among men; all must work together to make it function properly, and God has prepared for His people “a city that has foundations” (Heb 11:10) where all will function perfectly together, forever.
Thus, ministry is both God’s law of nature and the expression of His nature, which is love. “Love seeks not her own”; “by love [we] serve one another.” Love is freedom, happiness, the opposite of all legality, the spirit of heaven, giving and reflecting blessing. That fullest description of love in 1Co 13:1-13 finds its proper home and means of expression in the body of Christ. Here, the necessity of all parts to one another is just what provides for and makes necessary the constant outgoing of love to one another which binds all together and greatly reduces the chance of unnecessary division. There are some small animal half-organisms that grow by division, but the higher the organism, the more its unity is enforced by the refusal of division! A part lost is not supplied again: the creature is maimed and goes mourning its loss, refusing substitution.
Such is the body of Christ — the highest pattern of fitting together that can be: and if only two or three can, practically, be together, this does not free them from their obligation to all the members. Love abhors the thought of this as freedom to do as we please, to play loose with God’s Word. Rather, love holds fast the true local expression (the local assembly) of the greater thing (the whole Church) which has failed, yet love sees that this holding fast does not degenerate into mere sectarian display. True love looks out and beyond as partaking of the divine love towards all, not forgetting the tie that exists between all Christians. It looks out over the whole field of Christ’s interests and identifies itself in heart with all, seeking ever to widen the outlook and extend the sphere of practical sympathy. Thus, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings become more definite but larger in scope and more according to the sadly-forgotten apostolic rule, “for all men” (1Ti 2:1).
If such a spirit moved us, we might see other divine movements among Christians elsewhere, even though, mixed in with that which is of God, there are elements too purely human and doctrines and practices too unscriptural to allow us to walk with them in practical fellowship. We also would learn that God has practical and profitable lessons for us from all around, if we were only humble enough to learn from all sorts of teachers, and wise enough to “take forth the precious from the vile” (Jer 15:19), the mandatory condition for our being “as God’s mouth.” We frequently would find things that would be a rebuke to us in what others said or wrote, and this would test us much. It would show if we proudly desired to believe that all spiritual wisdom was with us, and outside was only darkness.
I do not mean to encourage people to run here and there which in general is only the expression of restlessness and lack of proper occupation with our own things. We are to keep our feet in the known path and not allow them in doubtful ones! The heart is to be enlarged, not the path, which always must be a narrow one — the one clearly outlined for us in Scripture. A wanderer is too little heedful of God’s path to be able to guide another into it. “Let him who names the Name of the Lord, depart from iniquity (unrighteousness)” (2Ti 2:19) should keep us from every doubtful thing, which may therefore be evil, as well as from known evil. It also will keep me from that in which I may see the working of the Holy Spirit, as long as it still is mixed up with things that I have to judge as contrary to His mind.
I firmly believe that we scripturally gather together as worshipers and hearers of God’s Word, but we almost never have gatherings of the whole as workers under the Lord, our Head, to seek His mind for us, wherever, however expressed, in all the largeness that we must recognize His Mind to have. I believe that such meetings are necessary to maintain the full reality of true Christian fellowship with each other and with the Lord alike; and to help make the assemblies a living, intelligent representation, however feeble, of the body of Christ. This book has in no way fully covered all that the Lord has for us in the address to Philadelphia in Rev 3:1-22. But if the Lord is pleased to use what we have gleaned to exercise the consciences of His people as to what is surely a special word from Himself for the present day, the object of this book is attained.
F. W. Grant. (edited)