We ought to remember what we are in ourselves, when we talk about exercising discipline – it is an amazingly solemn thing. When I reflect, that I am a poor sinner, saved by mere mercy, standing only in Jesus Christ for acceptance, in myself vile, it is, evidently, an awful thing to take discipline into my own hands.
Excerpts from a Paper by J N Darby entitled ‘On Discipline’
John Nelson Darby
We ought to remember what we are in ourselves, when we talk about exercising discipline – it is an amazingly solemn thing. When I reflect, that I am a poor sinner, saved by mere mercy, standing only in Jesus Christ for acceptance, in myself vile, it is, evidently, an awful thing to take discipline into my own hands.
But the church may be forced to exercise discipline, as in the case of the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 5. I believe there is never a case of church discipline but to the shame of the whole body. In writing to the Corinthians, Paul says, “Ye have not mourned,” etc.: they all were identified with it. Like some sore on a man’s body, it tells of the disease of the body, of the constitutional condition. The assembly is never prepared, or in the place to exercise discipline, unless having first identified itself with the sin of the individual. If it does not do it in that way, it takes a judicial form, which will not be the ministration of the grace of Christ. Its priestly character in the present dispensation is one of grace.
All discipline until the last act is restorative. The act of putting outside, of excommunication, is not (properly speaking) discipline, but the saying that discipline is ineffective, and there is an end of it; the church says, “I can do no more.”
As to the nature of all this, the spirit in which it should be conducted, it is priestly; and the priests ate the sin-offering within the holy place, Lev. 10. I do not think any person or body of Christians can exercise discipline, unless as having the conscience clear, as having felt the power of the evil and sin before God, as if he had himself committed it. If that which is done is not done in the power of the Holy Ghost, it is nothing.
It is a terrible thing to hear sinners talking about judging another sinner, sinners judging sinners, but a blessed thing to see them exercised in conscience about sin come in among themselves. It must be in grace. I no more dare act, save in grace, than I could wish judgment to myself. “Judge not, that ye be not judged; for with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,” Matt. 7:1, 2. If we go to exercise judgment, we shall get it.
THIS world is a wilderness wide;
I have nothing to seek nor to choose;
I’ve no thought in the waste to abide;
I’ve nought to regret nor to lose.
John Nelson Darby
THIS world is a wilderness wide;
I have nothing to seek nor to choose;
I’ve no thought in the waste to abide;
I’ve nought to regret nor to lose.
The Lord is Himself gone before;
He has marked out the path that I tread;
It’s as sure as the love I adore;
I have nothing to fear nor to dread.
There is but that one in the waste,
Which His footsteps have marked as His own;
And I follow in diligent haste
To the seats where He’s put on His crown.
For the path where my Saviour is gone
Has led up to His Father and God,
To the place where He’s now on the throne;
And His strength shall be mine on the road.
And with Him shall my rest be on high,
When in holiness bright I sit down,
In the joy of His love ever nigh,
In the peace that His presence shall crown.
‘Tis the treasure I’ve found in His love
That has made me a pilgrim below;
And ’tis there, when I reach Him above,
As I’m known, all His fulness I’ll know.
And, Saviour! ’tis Thee from on high
I await till the time Thou shalt come,
To take him Thou hast led by Thine eye
To Thyself in Thy heavenly home.
Till then, ’tis the path Thou hast trod
My delight and my comfort shall be;
I’m content with Thy staff and Thy rod,
Till with Thee all Thy glory I see.
John Nelson Darby (1800-1882)
Written 1849
Edited version in Little Flock Hymn Book (1962, 1973) and in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs 1978 – No 139
Two principles regulate the ways of God with regard to us.
God keeps our hearts to cause them to see what His purpose is.
Christ intercedes for us with respect to our infirmities.
You have to understand the big difference between weakness and will. Both hinder us, but God distinguishes one from the other. “The word of God … is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb 4:12). Nothing, not one thought, is concealed from Him. His word is simple, plain, and clear; it speaks in your conscience: do you hear it? Or are you foolishly deluding yourself, feeding upon the illusions that you cherish? Are you resisting God, and provoking Him to jealousy? You cannot escape: He has a hold over your conscience, and will never give it up.
A young Christian lady, Miss A., accepted an offer of marriage from a worldly unbeliever. She tried to hide this from both her family and the Christian assembly she attended. However a brother from that assembly heard about the attachment, and spoke kindly to her, warning her of the sorrow that could ensue from such an unequal yoke. She persisted with the course she was on, and left home to live with a Christian friend. The friend was surprised at her request to facilitate the relationship, knowing that her fiancé was an unbeliever. However, shortly thereafter she fell ill with a violent fever, and admitted that this was the chastening of the Lord. She died three days later, having been convicted of what she had been doing. She died full of joy, and in complete self-judgment.
The following might have been from a word given at her funeral by JND. I don’t know. Here is a summary.
God can interfere in discipline to free His children from the sad spiritual consequences of their unfaithfulness. This young lady clearly knew she was acting against the will of God. But she did not know how, or have the strength, to stop. God was forced to take her away from this world, to keep her from a sin which she did not desire to commit, nor which she had not the strength to resist.
God knows the influence that the world has over the Christian’s heart – it appears amiable. Those, who are near Christ, are shielded in grace from its influence. Satan is at war with the believer, surprising us when we are not on our guard. He transforms himself into an angel of light, appealing to our worldly feelings and desires. When we are clothed with whole armour of God, resisting the devil is not the problem, because Christ has already overcome him. But he snares us, and we have to know our hearts, and discover the traps that he has set. A heart that is simple and occupied with the Lord, escapes many things which trouble the peace of those who are not near Him. But the troubled and tormented soul finds complete joy and restoration in the saving grace of the One that he has so foolishly forgotten. The Lord knows how to deliver as well as having compassion on us.
Two principles regulate the ways of God with regard to us.
God keeps our hearts to cause them to see what His purpose is.
Christ intercedes for us with respect to our infirmities.
You have to understand the big difference between weakness and will. Both hinder us, but God distinguishes one from the other. “The word of God … is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb 4:12). Nothing, not one thought, is concealed from Him. His word is simple, plain, and clear; it speaks in your conscience: do you hear it? Or are you foolishly deluding yourself, feeding upon the illusions that you cherish? Are you resisting God, and provoking Him to jealousy? You cannot escape: He has a hold over your conscience, and will never give it up.
God could have left you to yourself. He could have left you to experience very humiliating failures. With Israel God said, ‘Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone’ (Hosea 4:17). What punishment! What chastening it is to be left alone by God. But our God does not deprive us of the light of His countenance and the sweetness of His communion. He reaches us by His word, in order that our consciences may see things as He sees them. Christ has loved us so much that He humbled Himself even to death for us. Stop, poor soul, and ask yourself if your proposed intention is agreeable to Christ, the One who gave Himself for you to save you? He has your salvation at heart; He loves you, and does not desire that you should suffer the terrible discipline consequent on the folly of following your own will. God desires that you should not lose the enjoyment of His communion. He is full of mercy and has compassion on us and on our weaknesses. However, He is tender and pitiful in His ways; but remember that if we are determined to follow our own will, God knows how to break it. God is not mocked, and what a man sows he will reap; see Gal. 6:7. The worst of all God’s chastenings is that He should leave us to follow our own ways.
He warns His children by His word. If they do not listen, He intervenes in His power to stop them. He can then bless them. See Job 33:14-30. There was a bad state in Corinth; some of them were sick and others had even died. But Paul says, ‘If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.’ (1 Cor. 11:31). God is a consuming fire, and, when the moment of judgment is come, it begins at His house. (See 1 Peter 4:17). I do not doubt that a large part (not all) of the sickness and trials of Christians are chastenings sent by God because of things that are evil in His sight. We have neglected our consciences, and God has been forced to produce in us the effect which self-judgment ought to have produced. Things may need to be corrected so that we may live more in communion with God and glorify Him in all the details of our lives.
So as to our sad matter, it is absolutely impossible that a Christian should allow him or herself to marry a worldly person, without violating every obligation towards God and towards Christ. If a child of God allies himself to an unbeliever, it is evident that he leaves Christ out of the question, and that he does so voluntarily in the most important event of his life. He has chosen to live without Christ; he has abandoned Christ and refused to listen to Him. He has deliberately preferred to do his own will and exclude Christ, rather than to give up his own will in order to enjoy Christ and His approval. What a fearful life-long decision it is, to settle to choose an enemy of the Lord’s for a companion! The influence of such a union will draw a Christian back into the world. The end of those things is death. (Rom 6:21). The fact is, that unless the sovereign grace of God comes in, the Christian man or woman will always yield and enter little by little upon a worldly walk. Nothing is more natural. The worldly man has only his worldly desires. The Christian, besides his Christianity, has the flesh. Now he must abandon his Christian principles, and please his flesh, if he is to unite himself to one who does not know the Lord. And it cannot be a happy union; they will have nothing but quarrels – ‘How can two walk together except they be agreed?’ (Amos 3:3). He will have sacrificed his conscience, his Saviour and his soul to honour and/or money. His will is unrestrained, and he will have given up communion with his Saviour.
We see in the sad case of our young friend, that the discipline brought her to a judgment of self and the flesh. In her weakness, she laid down her burden at the feet of Jesus. She sought strength in Him alone. She accepted in her heart that she was only sin, that Christ was perfect righteousness, and God was perfect love. Though she distrusted herself, I do not think that the young lady had been stripped of self. Many Christians are in this condition. When we come to a knowledge of how deceitful and treacherous the flesh is, Christ has a larger place in the heart, and there is more calm, and less self.
Before she was entangled in her affection, our young friend would have shrunk with horror from the idea of the action she planned. Her heart had abandoned God; it dreaded man more even than God. God loved Miss A. and she really loved God. But God had to remove her from this world, because she did not have the courage to return to the right path. God took her to Himself. She died in peace, and through pure grace she triumphed.
What a solemn lesson it is for those who wish to depart from God and His holy word, to satisfy an inclination which it would have been easy to overcome at first, but which, when cherished in the heart, becomes tyrannical and fatal! May God grant to the reader of these lines, and to all His children, to seek His presence day by day.
All preaching should be lay preaching, since scripture does not allow anything else. All men who are able, should speak in church, under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Women have other ways of exercising their spiritual gifts.
All preaching should be lay preaching, since scripture does not allow anything else. All men who are able, should speak in church, under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Women have other ways of exercising their spiritual gifts.
The Effect of the Gift of God’s Spirit
If God give His Spirit to laymen in order to preach, if the use of this gift is hindered, there is general loss and the Spirit of God is grieved. Those who oppose lay preaching must maintain either that no laymen can have the Spirit of God in testimony, or if they have it, the sanction of man is necessary before it can be exercised. No sanction can be proved to be necessary from Scripture; therefore, no such sanction can be granted.
The question is not, whether a layman might be qualified; but, whether as a layman he is disqualified, unless he has been, what is commonly called, ordained. No such ordination was a qualification to preach in the early days of the church.
The question only arises as to their speaking in the church. The only prohibition is . “Let your women keep silence in the churches” (1 Cor 14:34). Not “Let your unordained keep silence”. Paul says, , “Every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation.” (v.26). Does he say nobody ought to speak except one who has been ordained? No! He says, “For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn” (v.31). So, women are not permitted to speak, and the rest are. This is God’s plan of decency and order. They are not to all speak at once, or every day, as God leads them, and gives them ability, for the edifying of the church.
Women have spiritual gifts, and directions are given for their exercise; but they are not to use them in the church. That is out of order, and not comely.
The Early Church
It may be asserted that these were times of extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, but this is a false argument. The Spirit of God does not break the own order that He has established. It would be most mischievous to say He did. Ordination breaks that order. Indeed, I believe that the laity is the only real instrument for building up of the church: “The Head, Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, to the edifying of itself in love.” (Eph 4:16)
It was clear that in Corinth there were many teachers, all teachers in fact. The Corinthians were warned about that, not belittling the office of teaching, but rather the effect of the imbalance; it would result in ‘greater condemnation’. However, it was clearly not necessary to be ordained in order to teach. Aptness to teach may be an important qualification for an elder or overseer; but it cannot be said from Scripture to be disorderly for a layman to teach in the church, if God have given him ability.
In the early days of Christianity the gospel spread rapidly. All the Christians preached: they went everywhere preaching the word; Acts 8:4. It was not just speaking, it was evangelising the word.” And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. (Acts 11:21). There was no consideration as to whether they were ordained or not. They were all lay preachers; there were no others.
Later Apollos preached. Far from being ordained before beginning to preach, he knew only the baptism of John. Only later, Aquila and Priscilla took him, and expounded to him the way of God more perfectly. In Rome, many of the brethren preached the word without fear. And there were itinerant preachers in 2 and 3 John.
Darby said he was not attacking ordination, only the assertion that laymen ought not to speak in or preach out of the church. He challenged any one to produce any scripture positively, or on principle, forbidding laymen to preach without episcopal, or equivalent ordination.
Even in the tabernacle system, where priestly authority was established, Joshua objected to Eldad and Medad prophesying in the camp, though they had not come up to the door of the tabernacle. The Spirit rested upon them. Moses said, “Would God, that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” (Num 11:29). Subsequently, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram desired the kingship of Moses and the priesthood of Aaron. This was their fault. These things are typical of our dispensation. In one sense Christ is alone as priest; in another we are all priests. This is the dispensation of the outpouring of the Spirit, qualifying for preaching any who can do so – in a word, speaking of Jesus.
The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit
At Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out on the one hundred and twenty, who were assembled together, and they began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance. Peter explained to the Jews, that it was the thing spoken of by Joel, the undistinguished pouring-out of the Spirit upon all flesh – upon people of all classes, servants and handmaidens, and their sons and their daughters prophesying. And what has been the subsequent history? The denial and loss of the only power of the dispensation. The power of the Spirit, in which God would give competency to restrain evil, has been slighted; and human office has been relied on. There has been the assumption of power, which had not been given to the church at all. Episcopal appointment came in in order to protect orthodoxy. However, if evil teaching exists, the remedy is not by hindering or rejecting lay preaching, but by the cordial co-operation of those who hold the truth; energetically sustained against those who do not hold the truth, whatever their office. Thus the distinction is between truth and error, not between human office and the Spirit. This is the most mischievous thing that the human mind could have devised. Thankfully there are those who have been ordained who recognize the Holy Spirit, rather than their office in pursuing their ministry and do not prohibit those not ordained from exercising theirs.
Replacing the Spirit by Human Office is the most Mischievous Thing that the Human Mind could have Devised
The times call for decision; and the only thing which will withstand evil and error, is truth. We, as saints acting under the Spirit, need to wield the truth as a common cause against error and self-will. Then God can be with us. He must justify His own, when it is to His glory, and their blessing. May He by His Spirit guide us into all truth!
Baptists are a sect, and enough to say, in my opinion I would not be part of it. If a brother believes he should be baptised, I would never seek to dissuade him, even though he had already been baptised and I believe him mistaken in the way he sees it. However, if he believes that it is according to the Word, he would be well, I think, to have it done. That does not break the unity of the body.
John Nelson Darby
The following letter (Letter No 431) written in French by John Nelson Darby, outlines his position on baptism – particularly believers’ baptism as practiced by the Baptists and other Evangelical Christians. I translated it as part of an earlier task as assisting a brother who desired to have some 475 letters of JND translated into English. However, I feel that due to the large amount of confusion that exists as to this important subject it is as well to publish my translation (slightly edited) here.
My French is far from perfect, and whilst this translation has been revised by another, I have also included the original text as a separate posting. Click here for …
In the state of confusion in which the Church finds itself, if its existence is even remembered, it is very natural that in such a matter one acts according ones individual conviction. But when it is a question of the destruction of the unity of the Church, it is a more serious question. The Baptists are a sect, and enough to say, in my opinion I would not be part of it. If a brother believes he should be baptised, I would never seek to dissuade him, even though he had already been baptised and I believe him mistaken in the way he sees it. However, if he believes that it is according to the Word, he would be well, I think, to have it done. That does not break the unity of the body.
The Baptists quote, “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.”
Having said that, I will give you a few general principles on this subject. I am not convinced at all by the rationale of the Baptists. I find in their reasoning, without their suspecting it, inversion of the basic principles of Christianity, and a complete ignorance of what Christian baptism is. They speak of the baptism of John, and that the Lord says “thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” Matt 3:15. Think about it. Does the Christian achieve righteousness in fulfilling ordinances? Is that a Christian principle, or is it an perversion of Christianity? Moreover the baptism of John means absolutely nothing for Christians; it was a baptism just for the Jews, a baptism, which assumed the entrance, through repentance into the privileges of the kingdom, and did not assume the death and resurrection of Christ, rather exactly the opposite. The baptism of John was not done in His name, nor in keeping with the truths announced in the gospel. Consequently those who had the baptism of John had to be baptised again later in the name of the Lord, as if they had never had received any baptism beforehand.(Acts 19:4-5) . I am then urged to be baptised in obedience to an ordinance in order to fulfill righteousness (principle which inverts the fundamentals of Christianity), and a baptism which excludes the death and resurrection of Christ (only true sense of Christian baptism). This baptism however belongs historically to a system which predated Christianity which one both Jews and heathens received. The death and resurrection of Christ formed the basis of a new creation, to which the baptism of John did not have any bearing. When I hear similar arguments, I am the more convinced that that those who use them (though they are very sincere) do not understand the first elements of the subject they are dealing with, and unwillingly and unknowingly invert the foundation of Christian truth.
But there are further points which make me reject the Baptist system. That is,that I deny their principle of obedience to an ordinance and in particular to the ordinance (they say) of baptism. Baptism is a granted privilege, and the act is that of the person who baptises, not of the person baptised. I say that the thought of obedience to baptism is not in in the Word, or that there is a commandment addressed to men, it is that to be baptised
Baptism as a Privilege
Firstly, I say that the idea of obedience to an ordinance does not belong to the Christian system. I recognize that Christ established baptism and the supper, but obedience to ordinances was destroyed, in principle, at the cross. (Col 2:14 target=”_blank”Eph 2:15) target=”_blank”. When it is a matter of the supper “This do in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19), it is a directive as to the purpose of the symbol. Every time that we eat of it, we should do it with this purpose. This is not a commandment to do it, but a directive to make one intelligent in doing it.
For baptism in particular, the commandment is to given to go and baptise, that is to say that the act was the act of the apostles in receiving the gentiles into the Church. And this is so true that the apostles could not be baptised, but they did baptise those who received their teaching.
Through examining the cases presented, I find that the baptism is considered to be a privilege granted to somebody whom one admits in the house of God, and is never an act of obedience nor of testimony. The apostle says ”Can any one forbid water that these should not be baptised, who have received the Holy Spirit as we also did?” (Acts 10:47). ”What hinders my being baptised”, says the eunuch (Acts 8:36) Evidently in this case it was not a matter of obedience, but an accorded privilege, an admission into the privileges that others enjoyed. I would remark in passing, although an adult, heathen or Jew, must believe to be baptised, the words “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.” Acts 8:37KJV as foreign to the Word by everybody who are concerned with the authenticity of texts. The apostles received the order from the Lord to baptise.
I would add that the Baptists’ idea that baptism is a symbol of what we are is also contrary to the Word because it says “buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised (Col 2:12). That is then not based on the assumption that we are already dead and raised. On the contrary, in figure, we die and are raised in baptism itself, that is to say that we were not that beforehand. That is the sign of the thing through which we enter, not the sign of our state to ourselves.
I totally reject the whole Baptist system, because I have received teaching from the Word of God. I am fully convinced that it is entirely false. There is an order to baptise given to the apostles, but baptism is not the subject of a particular commandment to the one who is baptised. The difference is from beginning to end in the character of the act. If I give to my business agent an order to remit a hundred francs to such and such a person, he is obligated to obey me. If I give a letter of title to somebody, the obedience the recipient is totally a different matter.
Baptism is the Reception of a Person into the Christian Assembly down here in this World
However to reject what is false is not the only thing one has to do. It is a matter of knowing the truth in order to be able to glorify God; but the question has become much simpler. Baptism is the reception of a person into the midst of the Christian Assembly down here in this world. I do not believe that one who reads the New Testament freely could deny that. Who then must be received into this assembly, baptism being recognized to be the means of receiving them (for I agree with the Baptists on this point)? I accept that in regard to the persons baptised, heathen or Jewish, in a word as to any who have not received baptism (as also for a Quaker or the child of a Baptist), those who believe ought to be baptised, because one can only receive an adult (who can act of his own accord) on his won responsibility. It is all simple so long as one does not try to push the tide back, with the big stick in his hand as Charlemagne harassed the Saxons.
But the remaining question is this – Should children of believing parents be received into the Assembly?
I should say a word as to the Assembly itself, because what has given rise to a lot of difficulties is the ignorance of what the assembly of God is on earth. I say ‘the Assembly’ not assemblies. Those baptised become, by baptism members of the Christian Assembly on earth, not of an assembly. However this assembly is the house of God where the Holy Spirit dwells. The world is the desert where Satan dwells. The Assembly is “a habitation of God in the Spirit” Eph 2:22). In this Assembly one is admitted by baptism, and it is true that it is the habitation of the Spirit for Hebrews 6 supposes that one can be partakers of the Holy Spirit without having been converted. In this case the one having the Spirit thus, was not really part of the body of Christ, but he possessed the Spirit, in the sense of a gift, being in the house where the Spirit lived and acted. So Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit. In this case, it was in the Spirit’s presence, not the gift, but for the point we are concerned about it is the same. However it is a matter of knowing if the children of Christians can be received into this house, or are they to be left in the world where Satan reigns. It is not a matter of commandment. I deny any commandment for any ordinance, baptism in particular. There isn’t one for an adult. It is a matter of knowing God’s will is in regard to this privilege. However it is clear to me that according to the Word, children should be received. It is fully evident that there would have to have been a change in God’s system of things in order not to receive them – a change which moreover has never been announced. However, here are a few passages which makes me see in a positive way the thoughts of God in regard to this. Before citing them I pose a recognized principle, because I believe it scriptural, that baptism is the Lord’s desired way to be received outwardly into the assembly of God, and its meaning is the death and resurrection of Christ. But here, in passing, I must also again remark that the views of many on this point are decidedly unscriptural. They assume that the ordinances, baptism in particular, are the sign of the state where somebody finds themselves and participates. However this idea is opposed to the testimony of the Word. The baptised person participates in an act of ordinance which is no sign at all that he participated beforehand. Thus, baptism is not a sign that a man participates in the death and resurrection of Christ. Baptism is (in figure), the participation in these things by the act itself. The testimony of Col 2:12 is positive in this regard: ”buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him”. That is an act that the participation has taken place; it is not a sign of the participation that precedes it. It is the same in regard to the Supper. One eats (in figure) the body that was broken (1 Cor 11:24 KJV & Martin/Osterheld, not JND or JND-French and the blood that was shed. It is not a figure that one has done it already. The same principle is found in Rom 6:4. Other passages confirm the same.
Baptism and Little Children
Having made this principle clear, and having shown that the Baptist principle is not well founded, that the Word contradicts their idea that baptism is the sign that one is already dead and risen again, whereas the Word teaches that we figuratively die there and are raised. Having, as I say, brought all this into the light, I come to the passages which authorize me to believe that children of Christians are objects of this favour, baptism being the means of their being able to enjoy it.
Matthew 18 is a striking passage, showing how God considers the children. The Lord takes a little child (v2), not a converted person (He even distinguishes in v6 the difference between a believing child and others) and declares that one must become such, and that their angels continually see the face of their Father who is in the heavens (v10), that is to say that they are the objects of His special favour. But the testimony is something much more exact than that. They are lost; Christ has come, He says (v11) “to save that which was lost.” “For it is not the will of your Father who is in the heavens that one of these little ones should perish.” (v14). In receiving a little child in His name, I receive Christ, and I recognize that, even being children, this little being is lost; but that it is the object of the Father’s love which I know, and whom there is not other means of salvation, even for a child, than the death and resurrection of Christ. So I introduce it into the house by this means. The testimony is therefore very clear, we are born children of wrath.
I have already shown that baptism is not a witness rendered to the state of the individual, but the admission that the individual is a testimony to the value of the work of Christ. The Baptist will now say to me, I know “But you admit a little heathen child” The Word tells me totally the opposite. It says that if one of the parents is a Christian, the children are holy. However they are not holy by nature, it is a relative holiness, that is to say as a right of entry into the house. That is the sense of this word in the Bible. They are not soiled or profane. A Jew who married a woman from the nations was profaned, and their children profaned, and the woman was to be sent back with them. But in Christianity it is a system of grace, and the woman, instead of making her husband profane, is sanctified and the children are holy. And this is the proper force and the evident bearing of the passage, because it concerned the question of whether a believer should divorce his unbelieving wife. Thus the children, being holy, have the right to enter into the house and it is a real advantage that they enjoy.
To speak of legitimate children is nonsense, because only modern laws have made a distinction in such a case.
One may perhaps ask me, why then do we not give the supper to children? I answer: Because the light of the word prevents me. The supper, considered from this point of view, is a figure of the unity of the body. We are all one body, and so we all participate of the one loaf. For in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body, (1 Cor 12:13), that is to say that one must be baptised of the Holy Spirit to take the supper.
“Children, obey your parents” could not be said to children who were not inside. One does not address such precepts to heathens. I see then that Christ, who received the child, wants us to receive such in His name, and by doing that we receive Him, Himself. Notice that in Matt 18 the Lord applies the parable of the lost sheep to the little children (or to the letter it was to a little child who was there). I repudiate entirely any dedication to God apart from baptism. Not only is this Baptist practice a human innovation, but (without wishing it I admit), it pretends to be able to present the children to God without the death and resurrection of Christ. If one cold present them to God by the death and resurrection of Christ they are then subjects of baptism. To do otherwise is to deny Christianity: not to devote them is impossible for a Christian. In my opinion, the Baptist deprives his child of the protection of the house of God and of the care of the Spirit and leaves it in the world where Satan reigns, instead of (though it is fortunately inconsistent) to bringing it up in the discipline of the Lord…
Summary
Finally I deny entirely that there is a commandment to be baptised, as a matter of obedience. I say that the principle is false and that baptism is always presented in totally the opposite way from that which is the basis of the Baptist system. Reception into the church, the enjoyment of privilege of being brought into the house where the Spirit is, by citing the baptism of John, is to be ignorant of the first principles of Christianity and of the nature itself of Christian baptism. Baptism as the Word considers it, is a reception by the church, according to the favour of God, because they are holy. It is the opposite of the profanity of a Jew who had married a foreigner. In the case of a Christian the children are holy, whereas in the case of the Jew they are profane. I repeat this because I am seeking to use this word not to weaken the scriptural proof, whilst it only makes the truth and the bearing of these passages of scripture clearer.
Here is an outline of what, I am perfectly convinced, is the true idea according to the Word. This Word allows absolutely nothing of the Baptist system. Nevertheless if somebody, individually thinks that he has not been baptised, I do not blame him if he gets baptised. Rather, I respect his conscience like the conscience of one who believes he should only eat herbs. But if one makes a sect out of this lack of light, then I condemn it totally. However it is obvious that the Baptist position is one of pure ignorance, It is truly impossible that a man can speak of fulfilling righteousness, in being baptised according to the example of Jesus with John the Baptist, if he has the lest light of the ways of God in Christ. He may be sincere but his ignorance as to the truth of the gospel is very great….
Here are few words on this the extent and blessing of Christ’s priesthood.
The blessing of Abram, by Melchisedec, reads: “Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be the Most High God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand” (Gen. 14:19) . Paul presents Melchisedec as a type of Christ, according to the word of the oath: “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” (Psalm 110:4).
Melchisedec in Order; Aaronic in Function
Christ the Lord is not currently exercising His Melchisedec priesthood. Not that He is not a priest after that order – we know fully that from the Hebrews, and Psalm 110, and that He is not of any other order. The Lord is currently exercising priesthood according to the typical character of Aaron’s on the day of atonement, as Hebrews also shows. The whole of the present order of things answers to the day of atonement. The High Priest has gone within the veil, with the blood of the sacrifice – of Himself – His own blood. So there He is, whom the heavens must receive till the time of the restoration of all things, which God hath promised by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. The Lord, a priest in perpetuity after the order of Melchisedec, exercises priesthood practically for us according to the type of Aaron, though not according to the order of Aaron, as within the veil, on the great day of atonement. We see this in Hebrews 8 & 9.
Christ as High Priest
He has gone within, not the typical veil, but into heaven itself (above all heavens), now to appear in the presence of God for us. He has gone, not with the blood of bulls and goats, patterns of things to come, but with His own blood – a better sacrifice by which the heavenly things themselves could be purified. Jesus is said to be crowned with glory, an honour compared with the consecration garments of Aaron and his sons after him.. (Compare Heb. 2:7 and Ex. 28:2, in the LXX, where the words are literally “for honour and glory.”)
Melchisedec vs. Nebuchadnezzar
in the type of Melchisedec, Christ has a glory of its own character. It is the Lord’s glory, the glory of the Son of the Father. The priesthood of Melchisedec is a royal dominion, representing the Most High God, and also speaking also for man to God as to praise. Nebuchadnezzar was given universal dominion, as king of Babylon, and he abused his power. In evil and apostasy, he set up a false god – an image. But the result was that God was owned by the king as “the Most High God”: He was punished till he learned that the Most Highruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will (Dan 5:21)
But there is another portion of the divine inheritance corrupted and debased, the scene of power, however, and blessing – the heavenlies. “The saints of the Most High (that is, of the heavenlies – Heb. elionin) shall possess the kingdom.” (Dan 7:22) But we wrestle with principalities and powers, with spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies (Eph. 6:12); that is, apostate power holding the earth, and spiritual wickedness, principalities and powers holding the heavenlies. Therefore both the earth, and the heavenlies are possessed by a present evil power.
The Day of the Glory of the Lamb
However, in the day of the full glory of the Lamb, there shall be one Lord, your Maker, Whose name is the LORD of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, … the God of all the earth (Isa 54:5). In that day shall Jerusalem be called the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered to it. (Jer 3:17). The nations will be blessed through Him. The Son of man, Son of David, King of the Jews, Jesus of Nazareth, will be on the throne, not on the cross. He will be owned not just in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but in every language of power which despised Him. So we find that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, He should gather together in one all things in Christ; both which are in heaven and which are upon the earth. (Eph 1:10). We have the sure mercies of David by virtue of His resurrection. They will be made sure to the Jews (Acts 13:32-34), when He sits upon the throne of David His father, and reign over the house of Jacob for ever (Luke 1;32), all nations serving Him.
But we have a better portion. We are to be with Him in heavenly places, as His body, the Church. We have not merely the fruits, but the power working towards us, power that was wrought in Him, when God raised him from the dead …and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. (See Eph. 1:19; Eph. 2:7.) We see the saints in the heavenlies, sitting there as raised with Christ, and having overcome through grace, sitting down in His throne, as He overcame and sat down in His Father’s throne. Hence we see His universal dominion, all power given Him in heaven and on earth, – the Son of God, Son of man, Lord over all, as well as God over all, blessed for evermore.
Priest upon His Throne for Blessing
Now there is another character. He is a Priest upon His throne (Zech. 6:13); and here we have the real full exercise of the Melchisedec priesthood. He sits on His Father’s till His foes are made His footstool, and is now gathering all things in heaven and on earth into one. He will sit on His own throne.
Dreadful evil came in: Satan, sitting in heavenly places, had made the poor inhabitants of earth worship demons, gods many and lords many, persecuting and degrading the children of God. Earthly power was associated with false worship and apostasy, as we see typified in the great image set up by Nebuchadnezzar. Now that which was specifically opposed to this was this title of the Most High God; so Nebuchadnezzar has to confess the Most High God. Now Melchisedec says, “Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth ” (Gen 14:19). As the title of the Most High God is given here, witnessed in the priesthood of Melchisedec, so also will the blessing proceed.
Oh what blessing will be there, when there will be no principalities and powers in heavenly places to taint the very source of blessing. There will be no corruption below to make evil what God had made good, nor any spirit of corruption and rebellion to bring the curse of opposition to the blessed God. Oh what blessing there will be when the Most High takes possession of heaven and earth, and our High Priest is His High Priest! Thus we have total exclusion of all other gods but one, the only One.
With the Most High as Possessor, where will the tempter be then? Not in heaven, the Most High possesses that; not on earth, the Most High possesses that. But Melchisedec, though priest of the Most High God, has other characters. He is King of righteousness, for where righteousness is, there is blessing. He is king of Salem, which is king of Peace; for the fruit of righteousness is peace; the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever. The Melchisedec priesthood is the security of the blessing from the Most High God, with the union of heaven and earth under Him.
But we have also to look at the object of this blessing – Abram, the father of the natural seed. Then he is the father of Israel (and in Israel the blessing of many nations), blessed of the Most High God, by the King of Peace and of righteousness, the representative of the natural seed of Israel, blessed from on high. Thus, in the title of God – in the priest himself – in the object of universal blessing, we see the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ (Eph 1:9). The Jews are the objects and channels of earthly blessing; but we are sitting in heavenly blessings, priests with Him.
Aaron Intercession; Melchisedec Blessing
The Aaronical priesthood was a priesthood of intercession – He ever liveth to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25). The saints of God, in our weakness are the constant object of His sure and never-failing care and intercession. He appears in the presence of God for us.
But the priestly act of Melchisedec is blessing, not intercession; blessing from the Most High God. He is the King of righteousness and peace, and He blesses the seed of God’s acceptance. Evil is removed, the enemies destroyed, (God’s strange work), and blessing flows unhindered, out through the great High Priest, the Priest of the Most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth. How our hearts long for the day of universal blessing from the Most High God of heaven and earth! How heaven and earth will ring with the witness of the blessing of the heavenly creatures, and the earthly seed unfettered in its praise! All are one in Him; one with the Father, the Most High God; and who Himself took on Him Abraham’s seed, now come forth in His kingly glory to bless us from God Most High, and God from us – the Man of blessing, the Blessing Man, the Lord Most High.
Now Melchisedec brings forth bread and wine: the bread of Salem where the King dwelt, and wine, drunk new, of the kingdom, to give the joy of deliverance and the refreshing of love. Their Melchisedec makes them to sit down to eat, takes the yoke from off their neck, blessing always, as the less is blessed of the greater.
So we have the accomplished character of the Most High God, as to all things in heaven and earth: universal blessing, joy, the unity of all things in Christ, the priesthood of Melchisedec, and the blessing of the redeemed of God.
Conclusion
May the blessing of Melchisedec, of Christ, the Lord, the King, dwell on our spirits. It is our joyful portion now that He intercedes for us. He is Head, and leader of our praise. How imperfectly we declare the joy of all this! May the Spirit of God teach us a more skillful tune, because the chord struck unskillfully has awakened the thoughts of praise in our hearts; and after all, our feeble notes here are but poor witnesses to that new abiding song of praise. We have a better portion than reigning – our calling to be with Him. His reign will be the source of sweet and rich blessings to a delivered earth.
Since writing this newsletter in 2014, I have come to it that much of what I had written was faulty. The biblical principles are of course right, but in the application of them we need to avoid what is sectarian. In seeking to judge one, it is easy to slip into another. In 2017, my wife and I had to leave the company of Christians we had met with for over 40 years – that was sad, We have continued to seek to walk in the Light of the Assembly – but that does not need another book. Hence I have withdrawn this publication, Please feel free to contact me– sosthenes@adoss.co.uk.
This subject has engaged me a lot recently, not least because Satan is doing his best to spoil what is closest to the heart of our blessed Lord. As soon as man’s mind, with its politics and organisational ability, starts to get involved the result is sorrowful. The service of praise continues; believers still enjoy bible readings and preachings, but is the Lord still the centre of everything?
Some years ago I was on a plane from San Francisco to Sydney. Across the aisle from me there was a family of Taylorite Exclusives. I cried to the Lord for a word for them. In my bag I happened to have a volume of James Taylor Sr’s ministry (that is the older JT – not his infamous son!). I found there something I have never found since, though I have tried with the ministry search engine. It read ‘There comes a time when we realise that the Lord is the centre, not the system’. So often we make the system the centre, our own sect, our little meeting, our circle of Christian friends or whatever, and we protect it in every way we can.
I am producing another booklet including a paper I have written Walking in the Light of the Assembly. It is still a draft, so I would appreciate yourcomments and suggestions before putting it forward for publication. I also include three helpful letters by Charles Coates, and one by J N Darby on the ‘Bethesda’ (ie Open) matter.
May we all have a greater appreciation of the infinite resources available to the Church of Christ, and be filled with grace. We have been forgiven so much, so we are to be ‘kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you’ (Eph 4:32).
Theological Seminaries – Do we need them?
There are many sincere believers, and sound teachers who work in these institutions. There are many earnest young Christians, men and women, desirous of serving the Lord, who attend them, and have gone on to serve Him faithfully. But is there any scriptural basis for them?
I have looked at a few websites recently and there are some noble statements. The Dallas Theological Seminary, for example, is very much influenced by the ministry of John Nelson Darby, and has produced some worthy alumni, such as my friend Paul Wilkinson. It states, ‘The mission of Dallas Theological Seminary is to glorify God by equipping godly servant-leaders for the proclamation of His Word and the building up of the body of Christ worldwide.’ Nobody could criticise that – in fact the church needs more and more workmen. But what do many desire? A Doctor of Ministry degree? A wonderful graduation ceremony in robes? And how much does it cost? not that a degree should be without cost, of course. Timothy was told ‘for those who shall have ministered well obtain for themselves a good degree, and much boldness in faith which [is] in Christ Jesus.’ (I Tim 3:13 JND). They get their degree by ministering; they do not get their degree in order to minister.
Furthermore, like any college, it is a social institution with sports, clubs etc., and you only need to look at Facebook to see that. Nothing wrong, of course, with sport and social activities, but are they part of the church?
There was the School of Tyrannus in Corinth. It was a place to read and discuss the word, and for interested persons to come to the Lord. If it was a formal school, I don’t think it was more than a place of convenience for Paul. Then there was the home of Aquila and Priscilla. I don’t think either had a doctorate, but they were able to take Apollos (who maybe had one) expound unto him the way of God more perfectly (Acts 18:26).
So, maybe the best place to learn is in the assembly. We are to learn in the school of God. There is a good book by James Butler Stoney (1814-1897) – Discipline in the School of God. Maybe this is a good place to start. Though we had best start on our knees first.
Baptism
This is a subject which creates quite a bit of debate. Believers’ baptism, infant baptism, household baptism – which is right? Baptism by water puts us on Christian ground; it puts us into the house. It does not confer salvation on us. It does not put us into the assembly (or church) – By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body (1 Cor 12:13) – That is because of God’s work, and our faith, which itself is God-given. In an earlier project, I translated a very helpful letter, which I have put on ADOSS – see Why I could not be a Baptist. – Believers’ Baptism – Infant Baptism – Household Baptism – the House and the Assembly.
ADOSS Website
Even after a few months, the ADOSS website is getting a bit unwieldy. I am therefore reorganising it, using ‘posts’ rather than ‘pages’ and indexing using categories. Hopefully I shall avoid dead links, but apologies if you find some.
Money, Money, Money
A song of the world, by Abba, I think! But I really get upset when I receive messages, some in heart-breaking terms, asking for money. Maybe there is a genuine need; I don’t know, and cannot judge. I am happy to help a known individual who I have met, and shared Christian experiences together who have a need. Other than that there are organisations who know what local needs are, and are worthy of financial support.
I don’t like saying ‘No’, so please do not ask. I will just point you to our heavenly Father who knows what we need and will give us everything necessary to prove His goodness. Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.3But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matt 6:31-33)
After maintaining that separation from evil must be the principle of unity, Darby was at pains to show that it cannot be the power to gather Christians. Holiness may attract them together, but the power to gather is grace, working in love – love through faith. If Christians gather purely out of separation from evil, they become occupied with the evil, which is not of God.
We are to be separated from evil, but separated to God. And that is in love, so we abound in love towards one another, our fellowship being with the Father and the Son, grace alone having revealed God’s heart. Active love gathers us together.
A summary by Sosthenes of John Nelson Darby’s
Grace, the Power of Unity and of Gathering
After maintaining that separation from evil must be the principle of unity, Darby was at pains to show that it cannot be the power to gather Christians. Holiness may attract them together, but the power to gather is grace, working in love – love through faith. If Christians gather purely out of separation from evil, they become occupied with the evil, which is not of God.
We are to be separated from evil, but separated to God. And that is in love, so we abound in love towards one another, our fellowship being with the Father and the Son, grace alone having revealed God’s heart. Active love gathers us together.
In God’s nature there is both holiness and love. As Christian saints we possess these because of the life that has been given to us. Holiness, is needed by all who approach God, but love, the spring of activity, provides the energy for us to do so. God is holy – God is not just loving, but love. Wherever love is found, it is of God, for God is love. This is the blessed active energy of His being. And God displays His love in the riches of His grace to sinners. It is to their eternal blessing as He will show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus (Eph 2:7)
God imputes no sin to the Church. Through grace and redemption this fact is always blessedly and eternally true.
We are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. (Eph 1:4). God is holy; God is love, and in His ways, blameless. We are sinners. but in His love God has put sinners in the place of holiness and blamelessness. He has shown us favour in the Beloved – In Christ the Son, the blessed one. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins (what we need) – so we can enter where we can be to the praise of the glory of His grace – and this according to the riches of his grace (Eph 1:6-7)
Our Heavenly Position
When Christ was here He was alone; grace was rejected here, but in His death redemption was accomplished and atonement made. Jesus has revealed God, even though His power is seen in creation, and we thus know Him to be love and light too. Blessed knowledge!
In the exercise of that love God gathers to Himself those who display that love in Christ. He is the great power and centre.
In bringing us into unity, God has the highest thoughts for us. In Eph 1:3, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. In John 20:17, Christ speaks of us as His brethren. Our wonderful part in sweet and blessed grace is up there in the best and highest sphere of blessing, where He dwells.
We therefore have an inheritance. The Holy Ghost is the earnest of the inheritance, (Eph 1:14) but not of God’s love. That is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us. (Rom 5:5).
“Separation from Evil, God’s Principle of Unity.”
Darby’s earlier tract “Separation from Evil, God’s Principle of Unity” bore on state of the Church of God in general, and not any member in particular. However, anybody denying the basic principles of that tract is not on Christian ground at all. Is not holiness the principle on which Christian fellowship is based? And the real message of that tract is simply that.
The Danger of becoming Occupied with Evil
Separation from evil, distinguishes the person who separates from the person who is separated from. The danger when we separate we get over-occupied with our position as separate – this tends to make our position important to us. Our treacherous human hearts being what they are, mix up our position with self. If separation from evil becomes the gathering power, then what is in my mind is my position, and I am over-occupied by its importance.
As a Christian separates from evil, it is the evil acting on the conscience of the new man, which drives him out. He knows it to be offensive to God but if he becomes occupiedwith the evil, he is in a dangerous situation. Naturally he is anxious about those he has left, to justify and demonstrate to them clearly the ground on which he left. Meanwhile those he has left tend to cover things up in order to explain their position. So our friend becomes occupied with proving the evil to others. This is slippery ground for the heart, to say nothing of danger to love. This is not holiness, nor separation from evil. It harasses the mind, and cannot feed the soul.
God separates us from evil, but He does not fill the mind if we continue to be occupied with it; because God is not in the evil. Where conflict with evil not maintained in spiritual power, communion is lost, and it becomes impossible to maintain unity.
Real Holiness is not merely Separation from Evil, but Separation to God from Evil
What is holiness? Holiness is separation to God. We are brought to God and to know Him. The prodigal came to himself and said “I will arise and go to my father.” God says “If thou wilt return, return unto me.” (Jer 4:1) A soul is never really restored until it returns to God. Even if the fruits of flesh have been confessed, forgiveness and restoration are from God in love.
God is above all. The new holy and divine nature, being exercised in life, revolts from evil when it has to face it. Natural conscience involves the rejection of evil. But real holiness is not merely the rejection and the separation from evil, but separation to God from evil. God is our object. Real holiness, then, is separation to God, as well as from evil; for only thus are we in the light, for God is light. (1 John 1:7)
So instead of the heart being occupied with the evil, which it abhors, it is filled with good. This does not weaken separation, but puts the evil quite out of mind and sight. Hence the heart is holy, calm, apart from, and abhorring evil. God is good, and we can be positively filled with God in Christ. As we become occupied with good, we become holy. Hence we can abhor evil, without occupying ourselves with it.
The soul goes from sin to love, and goes there because love was displayed in Him that was made sin for us. Love is the power that separates us from evil, and ends all connection with it; for if I die then to the nature I used to live to, I live hereafter in the blessed activity in love.
Through the Holy Spirit’s working, purifying our affections our souls are drawn to what is good. We recognise evil, not by a mere uneasy conscience, but by sanctification. This is all in the power of God’s grace.
Love precedes holiness
Love comes before holiness, wither mutual amongst the Christian saints , or individual in enjoying 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 Thess. 3:12, 13. Also “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. … 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.” (1John 1:4-6). So separation from evil involves walking in the light, in God’s revealed character in Christ, in the truth as it is in Jesus in whom the life was the light of men (John 1:4). If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But what makes the fellowship?
Christ therefore becomes the centre. Jesus had won John’s heart, and was the gathering power into fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. John knew that by the Holy Spirit. He knew that is what made the fellowship.
The true Character of Christian Fellowship – with Him, where He is, where Evil cannot come
As we have been restored to God together, we can gather to a common Christian fellowship. We are to have fellowship in something, that is, with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus says “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). Now here was perfect love, entire separation from all sin and in condemnation of it. But He is risen and ascended, so It is a heavenly place that 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 is the true character of the assembly, the church, for worship in its full sense. It remembers the cross, it worships, and all known in heaven before God.
Our fellowship or communion, is in that which is good – heavenly, no evil being there. Hence it is said: “If we walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” (1 John 1:7) The only way in which we can walk out of darkness is by walking in the light, that is, with God: and God is love, and were He not, we could not walk there.
And this is true even if realised imperfectly.
Active Love Gathering Us
In love we are bought into fellowship, love acting to bring us together. In love we have our part. Love, while sanctifying and maintaining God’s holiness, makes us partakers of it, revealing God and gathering weary souls.
Love is active. Jesus has revealed God, and we know Him to be love and light; He has given us eternal life. The Lord said : “My Father worketh hitherto and I work ”. (John5:17) He gave himself . . . that he might gather into one the children of God, which were scattered abroad. (John 11:52)
It is evident to the Christian that love gathers to holiness, and on the principle of it. Grace alone fully reveals God; without grace that to which we are to be gathered cannot be seen. Grace reaches the heart.
Law and Grace
The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:17). The law told man what he ought to be. It did not tell him what he was, nor did it tell him what God was; that remained concealed. The truth is not what ought to be, but what is – the reality of all relationships as they are, and the revelation of Him who must be the centre of them. And that cannot be without grace, for man is a ruined sinner, and God is love.
Through grace, God Himself, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are revealed as They are, and also what man is in perfection, in relationship with God. We see the contrasts: obedience and disobedience, holiness and sin, God and man, heaven and earth. With the fullest revelation of Himself, we see His counsels with Christ as the centre. Hence grace is the acting power in and is alone capable of revealing truth; for Christ’s being here is grace; His working is effective grace.
Now grace is the gathering power, gathering into unity, for it must, being divine, gather to itself. Every renewed soul must know that all such are drawn together to Christ.
Grace reigns through righteousness. It does it by uniting souls in the power of the Holy Spirit to Jesus, the one who was here, was on the cross, but now as Christ in heaven, where our true place is by faith.
This is love, infinite, divine; and, through the Holy Ghost, we have fellowship with Him. We join in it. Now that, we perceive, is the gathering power for Christians who desire to be separate from evil.
J.N. Darby (1800-1882)
John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), an Anglo-Irish evangelist, was led to the fierce conclusion that all churches, as man-made institutions, were bound to fail. The believer’s true hope was the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. With others Darby gathered in a less formal way, free of clergy and human structure, founded on a desire to be separate from unholy organisations
Darby, after resigning his curacy in the Church of Ireland, became a tireless traveller, talented linguist and Bible translator. His influence is still felt in evangelical Christianity.
In this paper John Darby notes that whatever God sets up perfectly, main ruins. This applies equally to the Church publicly. But it remains the Church, and it is for us to be faithful to the Lord whilst accepting our part in its public failure. We are in the last days and the Lord’s coming is imminent, so we are exhorted to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude:3).
Despite the public situation, we need to have a conscience as to what is evil, and keep close to the Lord, We must heed the Holy Spirit, judging evil, and resting the word, not the teachings of men. We must be prepared to act alone or with just a few. Then we can then get a view of God’s work. So we should know what God’s mind is for us on our path, individually and collectively. And we can trust in God, not in our own reasoning – in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength:” (Isaiah 30:15)
A summary by Sosthenes of John Nelson Darby’s
“The Faith once delivered to the Saints”
In this paper John Darby notes that whatever God sets up perfectly, main ruins. This applies equally to the Church publicly. But it remains the Church, and it is for us to be faithful to the Lord whilst accepting our part in its public failure. We are in the last days and the Lord’s coming is imminent, so we are exhorted to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude:3).
Despite the public situation, we need to have a conscience as to what is evil, and keep close to the Lord, We must heed the Holy Spirit, judging evil, and resting the word, not the teachings of men. We must be prepared to act alone or with just a few. Then we can then get a view of God’s work. So we should know what God’s mind is for us on our path, individually and collectively. And we can trust in God, not in our own reasoning – in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength:” (Isaiah 30:15)
As Christians, God in grace has put us on a path, both individually and collectively. It is important therefore for to know where we are on that path and what God’s mind for us on it. Our circumstances may vary, but God’s principles never vary. While God’s thoughts do not change, we need spiritual discernment to see where we are, and how we can go on with God, without departing from the great principles laid down for us in God’s Word.
God said to a rebellious people, under attack in Hezekiah’s time “in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength:” (Isaiah 30:15). The people were being called “not my people” (Hosea 1:9). God’s mind never changed as to His people, but they were protected during Hezekiah’s time. Later they were to experience judgment. Still those who trusted would be preserved.
Man spoils what God sets up
In Adam, Noah, Aaron, Solomon and Nebuchadnezzar, God set up something good. Man spoilt it. That is because of his poor human nature. We must bear this in mind this when assessing our position, otherwise it will become our own ruin. We cannot plead God’s faithfulness and promises in order to sanction evil.
As God carries on, a remnant is preserved in tune with Him. So just before the Lord came there were small numbers – Zacharias, Mary, Simeon, Anna – they were awaiting redemption. They knew one another and were intelligent too as to the Lord’s entry. Meanwhile Israel rejected Christ when He came.
There was soon Failure in the Early Church
If we look at the Church, God’s assembly on earth, in the early days of the Acts of the Apostles, 3000 were converted in one day. All had one heart and one mind; they had everything in common, and the place was shaken where they were. The power of the Spirit of God was there.
Evil got in when Ananias and Sapphira made things out to be different from what they were. But because the Spirit of God was there, these two fell dead and fear came upon all, both inside and outside. However, that line of corruption has continued, so that even before the close of scripture the whole profession was mixed up with the world, and judgment was called for. Just look at the church now, the Roman Catholic system included!
Have a Conscience about our Position in the Church
Due to a lack conscience, most do not have a sense of the condition that they are in, and also how God is working. To be intelligent spiritually, as being part of the professing church, we need a sense of our condition.
We may have to act Individually
Abraham acted alone – Look to Abraham … I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him (Isaiah 51:2) . Being little was of no consequence. God blessed him; He will bless us still more.
The Church teaching? – and the Holy Scriptures
The Church’s teaching? People say the church teaches this and that, but who is that? The church? What do they mean? We never see the church teaching. The church does not teach – it is taught; individuals teach. But remember that there is no inspired person in the church now to teach with absolute authority. So for authority we must turn to the Word of God itself. We must learn from Peter and Paul.
Paul reminds Timothy of the things he had learned – the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation (2 Timothy 3:15).
The scriptures are the direct authority of God; they determine everything. Meanwhile we have His Spirit to communicate things. We have ministry too, which is a help. But it is a poor thing if we look only to men as guides.
We are in the Last Days –and it is a time of Judgment
It is on the authority of scripture that we know that we are in the last days. Unfortunately many people do not appreciate that. Being in them requires us to have a judgment as to the general condition around us. What so many do, even if they have right feelings as to the condition, is to shelter in what they regard as the church’s teaching, a wrong principle as we have seen.
We see from scripture that the Church has departed from God, and ruined what He set up. That was already happening when Jude wrote: it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude:3).
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17). In Ezekiel judgment was to start at God’s house – begin at my sanctuary, (Ezekiel 9:6).
As to the last days John said, Even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. (1 John 2:18). God has born with the state of the church for centuries: it has not improved. Now God is calling souls to Himself in grace (as He did Israel).
Our hearts should take notice: what was set up so beautiful in the power of God’s Spirit – what has it all come to? It casts us on the strength that can never fail!
The Lord Judging the Churches
In Revelation 2-3, Christ addresses the seven churches in Asia. He was not speaking to the churches as Head of the body, though He is always that, but as looking on them in their responsibility to maintain His interests down here on the earth. This was Christ walking in the midst of the candlesticks, judging the state of the churches. The Churches had to listen to what He had to say. What had they made of the blessings that had been entrusted to them? For example, to the young assembly in Thessalonica (Thessaloniki) the Bible speaks of works, labour, faith, love, patience and hope; but to mature Ephesus it is just works, labour and patience – faith and love were missing. Indeed in Ephesus the spring was missing – judgement was needed, and the candlestick would be removed if they did not repent. Hence the faithful were exhorted: He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. (Revelation 2:7 etc).
The Public Ruin of the Church
Christians were losing their place. “All seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ’s.” (Philippians 2:21) , but they did not cease being the church. Nevertheless it says, “In the last days perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own selves and so on; (2 Tim. 3:1-2). Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13). There is the professing church, such as it is, and things would return to the level of heathendom. Mere formality was leading to infidelity or superstition and it was clear that this is how things were going.
The Church has failed publicly in being the epistle of Christ. It is not a question of apportioning blame or attacking persons, because we are all involved. Things were set up so beautifully in the power of God’s Spirit – what have they all come to? It has not ceased to be the church of God. But the state of the Church has to be judged. But grace fits the condition.
The Answer to the Church’s Condition is in Jesus
Christ is as sufficient for the Church now, as He was at when He first set up the church in its beauty and blessedness. We have to look at His word and see what His mind is, whilst not hiding our eyes from the state we are in. There is power to overcome in the midst of evil.
Things get mixed up – the good and the evil go on together. The wise and foolish virgins slept together, but things changed at the words ‘Behold the bridegroom cometh’ (Matthew 25:6). The Lord’s coming is imminent. Our relationship with God is to be more than our testimony to men, otherwise we will break down and fail. We mustrenew our strength. We must remain in that which was from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father (1 John 2:24). The great secret of Christian life is our intercourse with God by the Holy Spirit. And that makes nothing of ourselves.
When the children of Israel failed in Joshua’s time, they had to get back to Gilgal – complete separation from the world. But the angel of the Lord went to Bochim, the place of tears. This means that as well as being separate, we should feel the situation.
All that will live godly in Christ Jesus will be Persecuted
It does not say that every Christian will be persecuted, but all that will live godly (2 Timothy 3:12). The world will not stand a man showing the power of the spirit of God. It drew out the enmity when Christ was here, and it does now. All those who seek to be faithful to the Lord in days of departure can expect that.
Seeing the Church Here
I see what God set up; I see the unity of the body, and Christ as the Head. That is what the Church was to be on earth. Jesus said “Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18). It is Christ’s building, and that building is going on still. It is not finished. Paul says of the building, fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2:21). Now that is what Christ’s work is – men call it the invisible church.
We are building, and if rightly, on the foundation laid by Paul. If I build with the wrong materials wood, hay, stubble my work will be destroyed. But Hades gates will not prevail. 1 Corinthians 3:12 .
The Work of the Holy Spirit
As an individual I find that the secret of power of good against evil, outside or inside, is the presence of the Spirit of God, – the Word being the guide. Paul said to some going on badly, “Do you believe, beloved friends, that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost?” ( 1 Corinthians 6:19). Then what kind of persons ought we to be?
It is the same collectively, “know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16 ). The presence of the Spirit gives power for real blessing – whether in the church or the individual.
Now, we have true and full redemption; the Holy Spirit dwells in those who believe. We can be the expression of what Christ was Himself when He was down here. When a person is really a Christian, God dwells in him; he is sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the power for all moral conduct. If we really believe this should not we be in subjection and not grieving the Spirit?
Things which are inconceivable to man are revealed unto us by God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9). The Spirit of God and the spirit of the world are always in contrast. What God has revealed is in spite of our state, and this includes our apprehension of the Church in these days of ruin.
In 1 Corinthians 2 the Holy Spirit is seen in three ways
Things are revealed by the Spirit;
Things communicated in teaching by the Spirit;
Things spiritually discerned – received by the power of the Spirit.
A Warning
I cannot have my private judgment in the things of God. The moment I get my own thoughts into divine things I start judging the Word of God. Not accepting God’s word in Scripture is one sign of the evil of our times. But if I own the Word of God, brought by His Spirit, I hear what God says to me: it judges me; I do not judge it. It is the divine word brought to my conscience and heart, and who am I to judge God when God is speaking to me? But it has to be the Word of God – what was inspired at the beginning, and nothing else.
If I were to say I understand and judge the Word of God by itself, I am a rationalist – it is man’s mind judging the revelation of God. But where I get God’s mind communicated by the Holy Ghost, spiritually discerned, I get God’s mind. God has given us the wisdom and power to meet the state of ruin in which we are now, just as at first when He set up the church. That is what I have to lean upon.
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J.N. Darby (1800-1882)
John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), an Anglo-Irish evangelist, was led to the fierce conclusion that all churches, as man-made institutions, were bound to fail. The believer’s true hope was the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. With others Darby gathered in a less formal way, free of clergy and human structure, founded on a desire to be separate from unholy organisations.
Darby, after resigning his curacy in the Church of Ireland, became a tireless traveller, talented linguist and Bible translator. His influence is still felt in evangelical Christianity.
When John Nelson Darby, a former clergyman himself, published ‘The Notion of a Clergyman, dispensationally the sin against the Holy Ghost.’ with its understandably provocative title, it was said that he was accusing every clergyman or appointed leader of committing the sin against the Holy Spirit. He was at pains to show that this was far from the truth.
Darby’s issue was that any human appointment, whether by delegation or election, substituted the direct sovereign action of the Holy Spirit, by that of man. This is the notion of a clergyman. The system is wrong. It substitutes man for God. True ministry is by the gift and the power of God’s Spirit, not by man’s appointment.
If the authority of the clergy is derived from man, it follows that anything that is of God, by the Holy Spirit must be condemned by the system and classed as evil. This, then, is the sin against the Holy Spirit in this dispensation.
A summary by Sosthenes of John Nelson Darby’s
“The Notion of a Clergyman, Dispensationally the sin against the Holy Ghost”
When John Nelson Darby, a former clergyman himself, published ‘The Notion of a Clergyman, dispensationally the sin against the Holy Ghost.’ with its understandably provocative title, it was said that he was accusing every clergyman or appointed leader of committing the sin against the Holy Spirit. He was at pains to show that this was far from the truth.
Darby’s issue was that any human appointment, whether by delegation or election, substituted the direct sovereign action of the Holy Spirit, by that of man. This is the notion of a clergyman. The system is wrong. It substitutes man for God. True ministry is by the gift and the power of God’s Spirit, not by man’s appointment.
If the authority of the clergy is derived from man, it follows that anything that is of God, by the Holy Spirit must be condemned by the system and classed as evil. This, then, is the sin against the Holy Spirit in this dispensation.
The word ‘clergy’, or the clerical principle, has the characteristic mark of apostasy in it – that is the substitution of man’s privileged order on God’s Church. This has resulted in the Holy Spirit’s being despised in the Church. Instead of those who had the lot of being instructors or spiritual overseers, ministers have now made themselves lords over the people and even the very Church itself. So people speak of “going into the Church”.
Because this power is attached to the ministry, it has become the Church itself in the eyes of the world. The world can therefore save itself the trouble of being religious by throwing all on to the clergy, so that irreligious people can regard religion is the clergy’s business, not theirs. The substitution of the clergy for the Church is essentially apostasy.
It may be asked whether this is not really the sin against the Holy Spirit, merely resistance to Him. However anything that interferes with the Holy Spirit’s vicarship of Christ in the world is a direct sin against Him is pure, dreadful, and destructive evil. It is the very cause of destruction to the church. Alas, even if not knowingly or willingly, every clergyman is contributing to this.
The Exclusive Authority of the Clergy
The Holy Spirit gives the word by whoever and whenever He choses. But if clergymen have the exclusive privilege of preaching, teaching, and ministering communion, which is what they claim, then in their eyes anything else must be disorder and schism.
This accusation is therefore levelled directly against the sovereign operations of the Spirit of God. That is ascribing to the power of evil that which comes from the Holy Spirit. This is the sin (or blasphemy) against the Holy Spirit. – This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils…whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him (Matthew 12:24,32).
God’s truth is always profitable, and by it the testimony is maintained in the world. But the principles of the truth were established before their being subjugated by the papal power. Believers have now to rest on the Lord, or sink into the system. But dependence on the Lord is by the work of the Holy Spirit. That is not resting on the official church, so it is condemned by the clerical system. Hence, the very notion of a clergyman is effectively apostasy and rebellion against God.
Appointment of Clergymen and Bishops
Are all clergymen and bishops, occupying a humanly appointed office, converted themselves? Whilst many are truly godly, there are some who are even haters of God. If so why are they in that position in the church? It must be that there is honour attached to the position and that they are authorised to confer honour on others.
Most godly clergymen and bishops will admit that their appointment is not by God. Accordingly, in their position of being clergymen, they are forced either to resist God in the Holy Spirit or to resist the bishops and higher authorities from whom they derive their authority. Darby ventured to say that the most successful clergymen were the blindest, darkest and most ignorant in the external practice of religion.
And what about the bishops? Their appointment varies, but they may receive Letters Patent, in Britain by the Sovereign, with the support of the secular authorities. They, with their invested authority, are not appointed by God at all, but often by godless, worldly politicians. And if they are honest they will recognise it, even though the system must charge anybody who does not accept their authority with dissention and schism.
Resistance to the Gospel
When the gospel is preached, there is witness to the Redeemer’s love: people are bought into the communion of the Lord’s love, to bear witness to their sole dependence on His dying love. This witness is by ordinary lay persons. But their testimony is not accepted because they are not, nor have been brought together by – clergymen!
It will therefore be observed that where there is lay evangelical activity, which is blessed of God, opposition will come from the clergy. Some will even condemn it as evil. In Britain this will be from the vicars and bishops, in American from the presiding bishops and clergy, in Southern Europe, Latin America and Egypt from the Catholic and Coptic priests, in the Greek church from the papas – even if their numbers fall.
Darby cited a movement at that time in Ireland known as the Home Mission. Opposition from the Establishment was so strong that meetings were forcibly broken up, and those involved were excommunicated. This is despite the fact that thousands flocked to hear and enjoy the gospel. No doubt the clergy thought that it was their exclusive prerogative to preach, and therefore they should hinder any who were not ordained.
The situation is the same whether in Protestantism or Roman Catholicism. Indeed the status is the same; they are mutually respected, [witness the 21st century ordinariate]. If one is bound to acknowledge the one, he is bound to acknowledge the other in the same title and office. They are their own witnesses that there is no difference between them in title as clergymen. The only difference is that one authority is passed down from the Pope, the other from the Sovereign. In either religion, this is the notion that meets you, as the barrier to God’s truth and work.
The Clergy in the Dark Ages and Afterwards
As Christianity became the imperial religion, the church sunk into worldliness and embraced the world’s methods and standards. The world therefore became its head. The world cannot manage a spiritual office, but it can manage global, national, regional and local authorities. So it set up these authorities to minister, guide and manage the church.
For a long time, due to ignorance and superstition, ecclesiastical offices wielded more power than kings and the secular nobility. Later secular power reassumed supremacy, but the ecclesiastical structure remained the same. The world’s geographical secular powers used the church as an instrument to manage the mass of people. Those who desired to put themselves in Christ’s hand would be regarded as rebellious, because people were taught to rely on the Church rather than on Christ’s hand by the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile the official church’s – not the true Church of God’s – influence declined. The church, bound up with the world, has become merely a compound of secular influence and remaining superstition, where spiritual energies are cramped.
The Clergy in the Reformation
The reformation introduced a statement of individual faith, and broke off from the power of Rome and Popery. But it did not separate the Church from the world. Outward signs changed, but Christ and His Spirit did not rule. Darby said he believed that eventually the principle of the clergyman would result in the re-introduction of the power of Popery, since in all cases the religion is based on a doctrine of succession, not on the presence of the Holy Spirit. No Protestant minister, as a clergyman, can prove his title any more than the Pope can. It is not a question of what doctrine is held, though in a great number of instances the clergy do not preach the truth, and many would question whether some are even Christians.
The Influence of the Clergy
As a position, the rank of clergyman has an amazing pernicious influence on the minds of people. This has grown up though its association with the world, and a hindrance the operation of God’s Spirit. Indeed, it charges the operations of the Spirit of God with evil, as rebellion to its authority, because it does not act within its defined territorial limits, or conform to its secular and ceremonial arrangements. Nor too does the true Church recognize ecclesiastical hierarchy. Their godly and faithful brethren, acting under the Spirit of God are rejected, and branded divisive schismatics.
The Gifts to the Church
There are gifts: He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers” (Eph. 4:5, 7, 11); so in 1 Corinthians 12, To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit But these are known only as gifts. The notion of a Clergyman substitutes something which cannot be said to be of God at all in the place of all these. And is not found in Scripture either.
Not being Lords over God’s Heritage
Peter spoke of those who were elders or instructors: Neither as being lords over God’s heritage (κλήρων, kleron), but being ensamples to the flock. (1 Peter 5:3). That is the real meaning of the word kleros or lot. The only use therefore of the word ‘clergy’ in Scripture is, as applied to the laity, contrasted with ministers, charging them to assume no lordship.
Speaking of “My flock”
How often have we heard that expression from the mouth of a minister or clergyman – “My flock,” as if it were a virtue to think of the congregation as such. To claim that is a shocking blasphemy, even if not done so knowingly or wilfully. Not even an apostle would have dared to claim the flock as his own. It was God’s flock which they might be given to oversee – Christ’s sheep – which they might be entrusted with a portion of, a lot (kleros), to feed and guide. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20:28-30)
Vicars, pastors or ministers who talk about their sheep, or their flock, put themselves in the place of God or His Christ. They do so because they are clergy: they count it their title as clergy – they would effectively be as gods. What will they say before the Righteous Judge?
The Clerical System vs. Individual Clergymen
Nevertheless, Darby, having been a clergyman once himself, had high esteem for many individuals amongst the clergy, and he did not doubt that there were many others as worthy that he did not know. But it is not an individual question, but one affecting God’s glory and the whole order of the Church. For the official church publicly has departed from God, and has become what it is, both in name and title. It has become the concentration of that which, by its denial of the Holy Ghost and gratuitous blasphemy against Him, brings destruction on all to which it is attached.
Conclusion – The clergy identifies the Church with the world, not God with the Church
The clerical system identifies the church with the world, not God with the Church. Being of the world it is of Satan, and the world denies, rejects, and even blasphemes the Holy Ghost.
JND concludes: What is the remedy? It must be the recognition of God’s Spirit wherever He operates, personally bowing to His guidance and direction. The Christian will see as the hand of God, in the Comforter who has been sent to abide with us, and works in us by obedience. As a result we can possess its joy in boldness, against all that grieves Him. This we do against joining the world, which cannot own or receive Him, and which denies the truth, of which He is the witness.
May the Lord give us to discern things that are not of the Holy Spirit, and to separate the precious from the vile.
J.N. Darby (1800-1882) – Dublin 1828.
John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), an Anglo-Irish evangelist, was led to the fierce conclusion that all churches, as man-made institutions, were bound to fail. The believer’s true hope was the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. With others Darby gathered in a less formal way, free of clergy and human structure, founded on a desire to be separate from unholy organisations.
Darby, after resigning his curacy in the Church of Ireland, became a tireless traveller, talented linguist and Bible translator. His influence is still felt in evangelical Christianity.
