When the ruin of a beautiful order has occurred - when the ship, once perfectly trimmed, has been strained and dismasted - it is evident that all true hands on board have a very different service, and submit to a very modified order, to that at first appointed. It would be vain or foolish for anyone on board to suppose that because they had not sunk, the first order could be observed; yet no other order is right. The great question, and the only one of any value is, How are we to preserve what remains, and how, in keeping with the commission under which the ship started, are we to make for our destination? The assembly must be comprehended under two aspects; the one, as God's house on earth and the other, the body of Christ. Had the truth of the latter been preserved in the power of the Holy Spirit the virtues of the wise woman in Proverbs 31 would have secured order, and her Lord's honour in the house. The house is the habitation of God through the Spirit; and if the diversities of gifts, according to the administration of Christ in the body, had been maintained, the external disorder could never have occurred. But if the heart of the whole system becomes enfeebled, surely everything connected with it must indicate the lack of vigour. We must retain these two aspects of the assembly unto the end, and when there is any clinging to one, to the exclusion of the other, there is always an incorrect idea of the charge committed to us, and consequently an imperfect way of discharging our responsibility. The great tempest which strained every timber of the assembly was when Paul was imprisoned; and "all who are in Asia", the scene of his greatest labours there, turned away from him. The great helmsman was driven from his post.
Man's power deprived the assembly of him - the apostle of the gentiles, the master-builder; consequent on this, the assembly lost the consciousness and acknowledgment of Christ's sway therein, as we see in 2 Timothy that it was not able to resist the babblings of the worst kind. The assembly was not internally in true spiritual power then, and hence outwardly it had become like a great house, with vessels to honour and dishonour. The individual in spiritual power then was to separate himself from the vessels, though he could not from the house, or external aspect of the assembly. This the apostle sets forth as the only course for service when the ruin had set in. But evidently the majority, as in Acts 27, did not agree with the apostle in that day, nor in this; and it is this split, or difference of judgment, and consequent practice, which discloses the disunited and unsuccessful energies in the assembly like the sailors in knots in the ship, recommending and pursuing different plans for righting the ship, which must end disastrously, because the common good is not unitedly sought and preserved. Now the section who do not see with Paul, necessarily devoted themselves, at any rate, to the maintenance of outward order, and to do this when inherent power had lapsed, from lack of faith, they assumed power and office as a substitute, and the more numerously they were supported, the more power ostensibly they acquired. They systematically assumed all the offices, from the vicar of Christ, down to the deacon; anything and everything, to give the church or ship the semblance of being in trim.
Paul, as we shall see from 2 Timothy, did not lose sight of the external order which should distinguish the body of Christ on earth. The pit into which Paul's opponents fell, was that they ignored the truth of the body of Christ, while they aimed at order on the earth. Paul presses on Timothy the maintenance of the truth which would preserve both, as far as it was possible, when ruin had set in. How could any one expect a ship to be the same, when the mast and sails were swept away, and the hold full of water, as when it was in perfect trim and in full sail? The apostle, in 2 Timothy, instructs the servant in the truth for the last times; but he directs his attention to the assembly, in the peculiar and singular light, in which it was only given to him; so that the servant who does not learn from 2 Timothy, must lose the course and commission of the assembly, in its innermost responsibilities. It is true Peter, Jude, and John instruct us respecting the house, or assembly building, more exclusively, while Paul alone instructs us respecting the assembly as the body of Christ. I do not say that he overlooks the house aspect, but I say he only combines both, or speaks of the body, while still keeping in view the house; while the other apostles speak of the house, and do not refer directly or indirectly to the body; and yet their instruction is essentially necessary; for if the servant confined himself only to 2 Timothy, he would only have the house as it was in connection with the body, and how it was affected by the weakness of the latter; whereas, if he were at the same time imbued with the teaching of Peter, Jude, and John, he would see how the house was damaged by the builders and he would be instructed as to his duty when the rights of Christ on earth were rudely disregarded or misrepresented.
In 2 Timothy I am instructed in the internal state and the consequent service.
In the others, I am instructed in the external, in order to help souls individually. Hence the servant who is only instructed in Peter, Jude, and John, thinks exclusively of what is due to Christ on earth, claims all flesh for Him, and attempts to enforce this by the assumption of office, and the adoption of all human instrumentality, instead of accepting the ruin, and strengthening only the things that remain. The servant then learns in 2 Timothy, that separation from evil, and confidence in God's resources, are the only means to surmount the ruin. The truth that God has revealed, he must continue in, with his eye full on the appearing of Him who will "judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom". He is to preach the word; the whole counsel of God is to be proclaimed. He is to stand for the Lord, and the Lord will stand with him. He is not to expect countenance or co-operation from others; he must reckon rather on isolation, when he has to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine; for instead of being attracted to the truth, they will run after teachers, that suit their ears. "After their own lusts ... heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears". The ship's company acknowledges no presiding power; yet the servant is to go on, making the gospel the great groundwork of all his ministry. There is defect in the foundation, when there is a defect in our walk for Christ. No one can understand how to be here for Christ, who is inadequately or imperfectly acquainted with what Christ has done; as in Exodus 29, when the consecration of the sons of Aaron was instituted, the sin-offering and the burnt-offering were presented first; every part from the very beginning was laid, and made perfectly sure and positive, before the actual consecration was brought in. So in the servants now-a-days; the gospel must be the great groundwork, and then from it, the foundation - "make full proof of thy ministry".
It is not to end there, but it is to begin there; and "the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you". A very necessary benediction to the servant in the last times. Now the truth in Peter for the last times, is more the practical side for each believer; as in the first chapter of the second epistle, giving him the "day star", as his hope, and not the light of prophecy.
He regards them as living stones in the spiritual house, but we do not find in his epistles the body, in any expression, though there is nothing that militates against it.
He warns of the false teachers in chapter 2 and as in the first chapter, the coming of the Lord is to encourage them, so in the last chapter, "the day of the Lord" is to sever them from everything; that they may "be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless". Jude exhorts us to contend for the faith; showing the duty of the remnant to rescue and discriminate, in the midst of earthly religiousness, corrupt teachers, and clerical assumption.
Now John insists on the grace of life, as it was at the beginning; while warning of the many antichrists; the denial of the doctrine of Christ; and in the Revelation, while showing, in the seven assemblies, the house aspect on the earth, he points out that the four last would continue to the end, each having for a time a special prominence in succession; yet when the fourth, that is Laodicea, had reached its climax, the assembly would be spued out of the mouth of Christ; it would then be characteristically hopeless.
When truth ceases to be operative, there is no longer any hope for the house on earth; and as this increases characteristically, the influence of Philadelphia, which is the revival of the first standing, must be visibly declining, or the spewing would not be threatened as inevitable. If there was hope of Philadelphia rising over Laodicea as it had over Sardis, then the spewing out, or summary termination of the house on earth, would not have been threatened. Now this refers to the house, yet John sees that the end is marked by the bride, who with the Spirit says, "Come" to the Lord. Then he, as I apprehend, sets forth the truth that the servant is to insist on, in a two-fold way, in the last days; the truth which will deliver from Thyatira and Sardis, and preserve or extricate from Laodicea, on the one hand; and on the other, the assembly, as it is known to Christ; the bride in company with the Holy Spirit inviting Him to come; so that there is the house and the body in John without his referring to the doctrine of the latter or its characteristics; for the new Jerusalem is the house aspect I suppose. The summing up is, that the servant requires varied lines of truth in the last days; and that all these are necessary, and subserve for the disorganized state of the assembly; and the heart truly stored with them will be adequate for the exigencies of service, in the midst of assembly ruin. If Paul only be known and followed, Christ's rights on earth, as the kingdom of heaven, would be over-looked, because they would only be recognized according as there was moral power or state suited for the body; whereas if Peter, Jude, and John be exclusively adhered to, the rights of Christ locally would be fully admitted and enforced, but the corporate testimony would be lost sight of, though there would be individual state. Paul teaches the servant how to care for the house with reference to the body, mainly insisting on what he is to be for it. Peter teaches how Christ's building is to survive, in spite of false teachers, encouraged by the "day star", and severed from the earth, by the "day of the Lord".
Jude teaches how the saints are to contend for and conserve the faith; to rescue and discriminate, looking unto Him who is able to keep them from falling, and present them faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. John teaches the utter and eventual failure of the visible building, but the disclosure of the bride to the "bright and morning star", as Rebekah, when presented to Isaac. She comes to him, and therefore is practically, with the Spirit, inviting Him to "Come".
