THE CHURCH AND THE BIBLE: PARTICULAR
Our previous article was described as "The Church and the Bible: General," and was a consideration of the general responsibility of the Church for the Bible, Our present subject is "The Church and the Bible: Particular," passing thus from the general to the individual, Quoting in the previous article that great passage in Paul's first letter to Timothy (3:14, 16), in which the responsibility of the Church is so clearly set forth, we fastened upon his illustrative figure of speech which reveals the responsibility of the Church for that whole of truth, In the phrase, "the mystery of godliness," is radiantly set forth the whole content of the truth; and the truth, of course, is found in the Scriptures of truth, that is, in the Bible,
When we come to particular application we find that the figure, "pillar and ground," must be interpreted by the facts, what then is that which the apostle described as "the pillar and ground of the truth"? The apostle had carefully defined what he was referring to, before using the architectural figure, He used two words, "house" and "Church"; and in each case he defined the word, "the house of God," "the Church of the living God," We pause, therefore, to remind ourselves of what is intended by these descriptions, in order that we may understand how that house, that Church, is also the pillar and ground of the truth,
"The house of God," That is a very full word, and has various suggestiveness’s, First, a house is a dwelling-place, Second, a house is a family, Third, a house is a whole household, Finally, a house is a dynasty, The word is used in all those respects through the New Testament, The house of God is first the dwelling place of God, The house of God is the family of God, The house of God is, therefore, the whole household of God, and finally, the house of God is His Kingship, His Dynasty, His Kingdom, All those define the Church, She is the house of God.
Then continuing, the apostle defined his term, "the house of God, which is the Church of the living God," the ecclesia of the living God, the called-out and separated company, called by God, separated to God, having these peculiar qualities, that they are His, and His for a purpose, Once, in the Acts, we read of "the church in the wilderness," where the phrase refers to the old Hebrew economy and people, That use of the word ecclesia was the Hebrew use of the Greek word applied to that people constituting the Theocracy, the God-governed people,
But it had a Greek meaning, too, and the word entered into all the writings of the epistles. Every Greek city had its ecclesia, the governing company, in authority, In these days we should talk about the town council, Now Paul said, "the house of God, which is the Church of the living God," the Theocracy over which God is King, utmost, and alone; the governing force in the midst of human life, through which God makes known His laws, His will, His purposes,
The pillar and ground of the truth in the world is that Church, the house of God, the ecclesia of the living God, We may go back to other of Paul's writings concerning the Church, To him undoubtedly there was committed the stewardship of the mystery of the Church, In his crowning letter, Colossians, in the early movement we find the word "mystery" is used remarkably in three relationships, He wrote of "the mystery," which is the Church, Then shortly he used the phrase again, and wrote of the mystery of "Christ in you, the hope of glory," (perfection) A little later, we reach the culminating word, "the mystery of God, which is Christ," What is the mystery of the Church? The mystery of individual lives, in which Christ is formed, and is the hope of glory; and the ultimate mystery is Christ Himself.
Take that in the other order, not tracing back to origins as Paul did, but beginning with origins; the mystery of God is Christ, The mystery of the regenerated soul in which Christ is born, and Christ becomes the hope of glory, Multiply the units, and we have the mystery of the whole Church, that Church made up of individuals, in whom Christ is formed, the hope of glory, The Christ is the ultimate Mystery of God, The Church is the pillar and ground of that truth. We ask ourselves, then, this question in the individual realm, How is the Church, through her individual members, to contribute to the fulfillment of the ideal, that she shall be in word and deed in the world the pillar and ground of the truth? I am going to answer my question by using two words, which must have the individual application, The Church in all its grandeur and splendor is an institution made up of individuals, in whom Christ is formed, the hope of glory, If as individuals we are born again of the Spirit of God, Christ is formed in us by the mystery and the miracle of regeneration, Our first responsibility, then, is that of incarnation, and the second and consequent responsibility, never to be put first, is that of proclamation,
The Church is to fulfill her responsibility concerning the truth, first, by incarnation, D, L, Moody said, speaking on the Bible and the national relationship, shooting out the words almost like pistol shots, "Oh, yes, the nation needs the Bible; but take it from me, the Christian man is the world's Bible, and in many cases a revised version is necessary," I am not concerned with the second part of that statement; we are individually concerned with that, as to whether a revised version is necessary, but I am concerned with the first part, The Christian man is the world's Bible,
It was John Ruskin who once said, "You cannot give the Bible to your child, bound in morocco leather," Was he right? Never, it cannot be done! How am I to give them the Bible? Only as it is incarnate in my own life, That is what Ruskin meant, That is what Moody meant, It may be some are a little afraid and suspicious of the word "incarnation," I use it resolutely, for we should remember that is the perpetual principle by which God makes His will known, "The Word was made flesh," In an old economy it was necessary for Him to speak to men in divers portions and in divers manners, It was necessary and inevitable that there should be that early method made inevitable by the condition of humanity, but what did it amount to? What was the issue? The most ghastly failure, The people who had received the messages, and to whom had been given the oracles of God, broke down through all the running decades of their history, until they ended the whole business by crucifying the Son of God, It was when the Word was incarnate that it began to win its widening way, and proceed as a veritable power in the life of humanity, Actions are always needed before the words make sense. That was so in the life of Christ. That is the heart of incarnation.
The principle has been repeated ever since, it is being repeated still. Our missionaries go out—thank God for all of them—and take with them the Scriptures, translated into the tongue of the people to whom they go; but the victories of the missionaries of the Cross in the world have not been won merely by the circulation of the Scriptures, but by the missionaries' lives themselves, The truth has been incarnate in life,
To apply this, I go back to something we considered in a previous article, when we spoke of the value of the Bible in the life of the nation and its inhabitants, We then said that it gives the ethical conception out of which civilization has grown; that it gives the conception of God which has created the great compassions and philanthropies of human history; that it gives the conception of man which has generated discontent with false conditions, out of which all true reforms have sprung; and finally it proclaims an Evangel, which is a message of hope to the failing world, and tells that world how to realize the will of God, and how humanity derelict can be remade,
Take these matters, but in another order, We have first an Evangel, How is that Evangel to become powerful amongst men? By preaching it? Yes, God has chosen the foolishness of preaching, (1 Cor. 1:21) and the foolishness of things preached by the standard of worldly wisdom, There must go out into the world a company of men and women who are themselves forgiven men and women, who go through life humble and yet confident, men and women who reveal the fact, remembering what they were, and all they are as the result of the infinite grace of God; confident in the power that has been given to them to overcome sin; men and women who go out into the world fighting sin in their own lives; those are the men and women who carry the Evangel, That is the method of making the Evangel prevailing and powerful, Not the method of the orator or the dialectician, but that of men and women in whom the Evangel has produced results, so that other men and women can see what those results are,
Take the conception of morality, How are we to make its standards powerful in the world? Only through men and women who live themselves by them, who observe the law, and who reveal the love that caused the law, who go out as the witnesses to the righteousness of God in the terms of human experience and life, the incarnation of the truth.
We said that the revelation that the Bible has given of man has created discontent with false conditions, How are we going to make that living to the world? By becoming ourselves serving men and women, working with God, at war with every form of evil that blasts the human race, and taking our steps speedily to every Pool of Bethesda, where the broken, bruised, and wounded are to be found, with the miracle of healing; a company of those who go out in this way, sending forth the truth in incarnate form.
If compassion be the necessity of the nation, and its value is found in the Bible, how are we going to make men believe in the God of the Bible, who is the God of love? Only as we are love-mastered men and women, Not by burning incense to the ideal of love, but by yielding ourselves to its mastery and by serving man under its influence, That is all purely individual,
But the Church is also called upon in its corporate capacity to incarnate the truth, She will do it as she practices her fellowship with God—that first, always, Therefore, upon the basis of the fellowship with God, she practices fellowship with each other, How often we have been told, that in the early days of the Church, they used to say, "See how these Christians love!" I wonder how far they are able to say that of us today? And yet the Church of God, in her corporate capacity, knowing the fellowship of God, knowing fellowship within her borders, is a radiant revelation to the world of the truth for which she stands—by incarnation,
Then second, by proclamation; and the relationship is very close, There is a ministry within the Church. "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers," (Eph. 4:11) Examine these gifts, and they will all be found to be concerned with the truth, with the Word of God, All are in the ministry of the Word. The apostle were pioneers, one who formulates the doctrines of the Church, The prophet is one who goes out and speaks to men the great moral standards of the Church. The evangelist is one who goes out with his Evangel, and invites men and women into the fellowship of the Church, through faith in Jesus Christ, The pastor and teacher (that is one office) is the one who watches over those who are so gathered, that they may be trained, and grow up in the nurture, and in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, That ministry is within the Church,
Of the four, we have two orders which express the message of the Church to the outside world—the prophet and the evangelist, The work of the apostle was largely within the Church, as also the work of the pastor and teacher, But the prophet goes out to face the nation, to face men, to face parliaments, to face all conditions with the prophetic utterance of the ethic of righteousness, But he must do it in the name of the Church, If the Church is not behind him, his witness is poor,
That is also true in the case of the evangelist, It is when the evangelist is speaking as the mouth‑piece of the Church, of men and women born again, and calling men into that relationship, that he speaks with power,
Go back to the day of Pentecost when thousands were swept into the Kingdom of God, How can it be accounted for? What brought those crowds together? There were no announcements that Peter was going to preach, There was no arrangement made for Peter's preaching, on the human level, Certainly there were no bills with his portrait on them! But great multitudes came together and what brought them together? There was a supernatural element, They heard "a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind," (Acts 2:2) But watch them as they assemble, We see first of all mental perplexity, then mental defeat, and then mental inquiry.
Mental perplexity, "What meaneth this?" That is the ultimate question, but they were perplexed, What perplexed and amazed them? A Church on fire, a newly baptized company of believers, in all of whom Christ was formed, the hope of glory, from whose eyes was shining the light never seen before; and on whose lips were songs. There was the supernatural element of the Holy Spirit which was heard in the songs, They were not preaching, They were singing, They were ecstatic utterances of praise, with the tongues of fire that were given on that day, When the city was arrested by the Church on fire and came and asked the question, "What meaneth this?" then the chance of the preacher had come, Then Peter rose and said, "This is that which hath been spoken by the prophet Joel," and if you ask how it came to pass, "Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God, He hath shed forth this," He promised He would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to earth for your Comforter. (John 14:16) This means He has arrived in the throne room of heaven. He has asked and the Father has answered.
Fascinating as that story is, I am only concerned with the fact that the preacher's chance was created by a Church on fire, So it always is, So it will ever be, The true prophet of God speaks with authority, and the evangelist of God utters his call with authority when behind him is the witness of the new-born host of men and women filled with fire and with song,
That is the ultimate work of the Church, Only as she does this will men and nations and the world feel the force of it, Thank God for those who distribute the Word, Thank God that in spite of all the forces that seem to be gathering against it, the Bibles get shared and placed in spots where it can be read. It is being scattered, But the scattered Word in printed form will never bring the nation to a realization of its value, or to obedience of its message, No, it is by that Word incarnate in the life of its members, as they go out, to use once more the phrase hackneyed and yet wonderful, "living epistles, read and known of all men," "that they have been with Jesus,"
So the particular application coming from the more general is one that can only be made by every individual man and woman for himself and herself, How far am I, in life, a true translation of the Word of God?
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