03.09. The Children Of God Have Nothing To Do But To Meet Together In The Name Of The Lord
The Children Of God Have Nothing To Do But To Meet Together In The Name Of The Lord With what design then am I writing? Is it that Christians should do nothing? No! I have written from a desire that there should be less presumption and more diffidence in what we undertake to do: and that we should feel more deeply the ruined condition to which we have reduced the Church.
If you say to me, ’I have separated myself from the evil that my conscience disapproves, that which is at variance with the word’ - it is well. If you urge that God’s word requires the saints to be one and united; that it tells us that, there where two or three are gathered together, Jesus is in the midst of them, and that therefore you "assemble yourselves" together, I say again, it is well. But if you go on to tell me that you have organised a church, or combined together with others to do so; that you have chosen a president or a pastor, and that, having done this, you are now a church, or the Church of God of the place you inhabit - I put this question - My dear friends, who has commissioned you to do all this? Even according to your principle of imitation (although to imitate power is an absurdity: and the kingdom of God is "in power"), where do you find all this in the word? I see no trace of the churches having elected presidents or pastors. You say that for the sake of order it must be so. My answer is, I cannot get off the ground of the word-"He that gathereth not with me scattereth." To say that it is necessary that it should be so, is to reason after the manner of men. Your order, being constituted by the will of man, will soon be seen to be disorder in the sight of God. If there are but two or three met together in the name of Jesus, He will be there. If God raises up pastors from amongst you, or sends them among you, it is well; it is a blessing. But ever since the day when the Holy Spirit formed the church, we have no record in the word that the church has chosen them.
What then, it will be asked, must we do? That which faith ever does - acknowledge our weakness and take the place of dependence upon God. God is sufficient in all ages for His church. It is of the last importance that our faith should hold fast the truth, that whatever the ruin of the church on earth, there is ever in Christ all the grace, and faithfulness, and power needed for the circumstances in which the Church is. He never fails. If you are but "two or three," who have faith for it, meet together: you will find that Christ is with you. Call upon Him. He can raise up whatever is needed for the blessing of the saints; and doubt not He will do so. The blessing will not be ensured to us through a pretension on our part to be something when we are nothing. In how many places has not blessing to the saints been hindered by this choosing of presidents and pastors? In how many places might not the saints have assembled together with joy in the strength of that promise made by Christ to the "two or three," if they had not been scared by this pretended necessity for organisation, and by charges of disorder (just as if man was wiser than God), and if their fear of disorder had not persuaded them to continue a state of things which they confess to be wrong? Nor does the constitution of these organised bodies by man hinder the domination of a single individual, or a struggle between several. It tends rather to produce it. That which the church specially needs is the deep feeling of her ruin and necessity, a feeling which turns for refuge to God - with confession, and keeps clear from all known evil - acknowledges the authority of Christ, as He who rules as Son over His own house, and the Spirit of God as the sole power in the church; and by so doing, acknowledges every one whom He sends, according to the gift such a one has received, and that with thanksgiving to Him, who by such gift constitutes such brother a servant of all under the authority of the great Head, the great Shepherd of the sheep. To acknowledge the world to be the church, or to pretend to again set up the church, are two things equally condemned and unauthorised by the word.
If you say, what then is to be done? I rejoin - Why are you ever thinking of doing something? To confess the sin which has brought us where we are, to humble ourselves low before the Lord, and, separating from that which we know to be evil, to lean upon Him who is able to do all that is necessary for our blessing, without assuming to do more, ourselves, than the word authorises us to do - such is the position, humble it is true, but proportionately blessed by God. A point of the utmost importance, which they who wish to organise churches seem to have altogether lost sight of, is that there is such a thing as POWER, and that the Holy Spirit alone has the power to gather and build up the church. They seem to think that, as soon as they have certain passages of scripture, they have nothing to do but to act them out; but under the garb of faithfulness, there is in this a fatal error - it consists in leaving aside the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. We can only act out the word of God by the power of God. But the constituting the church was a direct effect of the power of the Holy Ghost. To leave aside that power, and still hold to the pretension of imitating the primitive church in what flowed from that power, is strangely to delude ourselves. Only I must remark that, where a direct act of obedience is concerned, the Christian has not to wait for power: the constant grace of Christ is his power to obey the word. In what precedes, I speak of power to do a divine work in the Church.
I know that those who esteem these little organised associations to be the churches of God, see nothing but mere meetings of men in every other gathering of God’s children. There is a very simple answer on this matter. Such brethren have no promise authorising them to set up again the churches of God when they have fallen, whilst there is a positive promise that, where two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus, He is in their midst. Thus there is no promise in favour of the system by which men organise churches, whilst there is a promise for that "assembling together" which so many of the children of God despise. And what do we see to be the consequence of the pretensions of these bodies? Those who contrast these pretensions with the reality, are disgusted and repelled: while multitudes of them are formed apart from each other, on the various views and opinions of those who formed them; and thus the desired object is hindered, namely, the union of God’s children. Here and there the pastor’s gifts may produce much effect; or it may happen that all who are Christians may be living in unity, and there will be much joy; but the same thing would have resulted though there should have been no pretension whatever to be the church of God.
_____ [1] Or, rather, the Christians of whom they consist.
[2] The principal champion of the dissenting churches, an excellent man, was there.
[3] Lardonism and some bodies of analogous character alone maintain a consistent course in this respect, and are consequently completely in error. By a happy inconsequence in those who are now forming little churches of God in different places, they nevertheless consider believers who do not form part of them as being in the fullest sense of God’s church.
John Nelson Darby