John 3:13, 31.
And no one hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, Who is in heaven.
Very mysterious verse.
He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaketh. He that cometh from heaven is above all.
1 Corinthians 15:47-49.
The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven.
As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
1 John 4:17.
Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, even so are we in this world.
As He is, even so are we in this world.
Hebrews 3:1.
Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus.
Partakers of a heavenly calling.
Hebrews 12:22.
But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels.
Ye are come to heavenly Jerusalem.
Philippians 3:20.
For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our citizenship is in heaven.
You will see that the connecting link with all these passages is heaven.
Ephesians 1:3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Ephesians 2:6.
And raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.
You ought to make a note of the approximately thirty-three times that the phrase kingdom of heaven is used in Matthew. In Matthew’s Gospel, thirty-three times the phrase kingdom of heaven is used.
Galatians 6:15.
For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
A new creation. The Authorized Version has “creature,” but “new creation” is the word I want you to underline.
Ephesians 2:15.
Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that He might create in Himself of the two one new man.
A new creation, a new man.
Ephesians 4:24.
And put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.
Colossians 3:10-11.
And have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him:
Wherein there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.
From that we learn that this new man is a corporate person.
Romans 16:25.
Now to Him that is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.
According to the revelation of the mystery.
Ephesians 1:9-11.
Making known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him,
Unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say,
In Whom also we were made a heritage.
Ephesians 3:3, 9.
How that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words.
It is chapter 3, verse 9—not chapter 4.
And to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God, Who created all things.
The stewardship, or dispensation, of the mystery.
Colossians 1:26-27.
Even the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to His saints,
To Whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 2:2-3.
That their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ,
In Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.
This evening, if the Lord wills, I want to cover two very important points. We have asked ourselves the question, “Why are you at Halford House? Why am I at Halford House?”
So far, we have sought at least to introduce the matter. We have given a short answer as to what we believe, and then we have said that this requires, of all those who are really devoted and faithful to the Lord, their complete and utter devotion to Him. First and foremost, they must give their loyalty to Christ, even if it means foregoing loyalty to things and people.
We have spoken about taking the ground of the body of Christ.
Last week we dealt with the first practical point: the headship—the absolute headship—of the Lord Jesus Christ in and over the church by the Holy Spirit.
That is why we always pray about things. At every level of the work, with all its weaknesses, failings, and breakdowns, we seek to get before the Lord. Whether it is the elders, this aspect or that aspect, or all of us together, whatever it is, we try to get to the Lord about every problem.
All our mistakes in the history of the work—mistakes of which we could spend the whole evening speaking because they are so illustrative and instructive—have been made because we did not first inquire of the Lord. Someone came up with a bright idea, which we all fell in with, or we went on a majority vote. That was the classic example at the very beginning, and from that day to this we threw out voting altogether.
All our mistakes have come because we did not first inquire of the Lord.
We have said that we have taken the ground of the body of Christ. We are in Christ; because we are in Christ, we are members of His body. That is the ground we have taken.
What is the second point? It may at first seem obscure, but believe me, it is anything but obscure.
The church, His body, is a heavenly thing and is therefore inexplicable on the natural level.
To take the ground of the body of Christ means that His body is a heavenly thing. It is a heavenly matter, in a heavenly position, with a heavenly life and heavenly resources. It is therefore inexplicable on the natural level.
At first that might seem very obscure, but I think, as we deal with it, you will see that it goes to the root of very much in modern Christianity.
The church is the heavenly body of her heavenly Head. You cannot have a heavenly Head and an earthly body. Either the head is earthly or the body is heavenly; there must be one or the other.
We know that our Head is in heaven. We know that He is from heaven. We read it in John 3:13:
And no one hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, Who is in heaven.
No fallen man has been able to attain heaven, but He that descended out of heaven—that is our Lord Jesus Christ—even the Son of man, Who is in heaven.
It was said of the Lord at a point when He was on earth. How, therefore, was He in heaven at that point? “Who is in heaven.” The Lord Jesus said that His present position was in heaven.
You have it again in John 3:31: “He that cometh from above is above all.” Then you have it in 1 Corinthians 15:47:
The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven.
That is Adam and all of us. We have all come out of him; we are of the earth, earthy. The second Man—that is Jesus Christ—is of heaven.
The Lord Jesus Christ came from heaven and is of heaven. His body is therefore, as He is, heavenly in nature and character.
This is precisely what it means in that wonderful but mysterious statement in 1 John 4:17:
Because as He is, even so are we in this world.
No one can relegate that to the eternal future. It says, “in this world.” He is from heaven; we are of heaven.
If we have been born, we have been born from above. That is why it is a new birth: born again, born anew, born from above, born of the Spirit. Because of that, we are in the kingdom of heaven.
We have received our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Man from heaven, and we have been joined to Him by the Spirit of God. So we are one.
Together, Christ and His body—the Head and the body—constitute the new man, the new creation. That is why we had those references concerning the new creation.
Circumcision and uncircumcision do not mean anything now; they avail nothing, but a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:17 is a wonderful word:
Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. But all things are of God.
I think that word has brought a lot of children of God into condemnation: “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.”
But if you look in your Revised Version, you will find in the margin an alternative rendering, just as accurate and just as possible: “Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation.”
I love that, because that is precisely true. There is no new creature in my old flesh. No good thing dwelleth in me naturally. My old flesh has been crucified, but in Christ there is a new creation.
Here is the new creation. He is the new Man, and He has begotten me and begotten you again. Do you understand? We are all of Him. We have a heavenly life and a heavenly Head.
The church’s character, the church’s resources, and the church’s life are all heavenly.
Even the position of the church, whilst on earth, is in heaven. That is why we read in Ephesians 1:3 that He “hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
If we had time, we could go all the way through Ephesians and show you that the position of the church is in the heavens. Here we are on earth, yet our position is in heaven.
That is not something to do with the future when we go through the so-called pearly gate. That is altogether a misunderstanding of the way the term heaven is used. It is not merely a future place; it is a sphere, a realm, into which you and I are introduced now.
One of the clearest hallmarks—upon which I believe we can be completely dogmatic—of that which is a genuine work of God, a work of the Holy Spirit, is always its distinctive heavenliness and spirituality.
Therefore, dear child of God, you can judge everything by this. You can go into this meeting or that meeting. The naïve can be swept away by what they see, by claims that are made, and by everything else. But in the end it is the distinctive spirituality and heavenliness of that work or ministry which is the hallmark of whether it is of God.
Anything that has the earth in it, you can be quite sure, is dangerous. Anything which is a mixture, or completely of the earth, is dangerous. Be careful of it.
It does not take more than a superficial reading of the New Testament—just a glance through its pages—to see how the use of the words heavenly, heaven, and in heaven is connected with the life and resources of the church. Wherever you look in the New Testament, you will discover that what I have said is so.
But what do we mean by heavenliness? That is the question.
I think it is summed up in the little phrase we often hear: “Too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly use.” Although we laugh at that, it goes to the root of the general idea of what heavenliness is.
In the general Christian mind—and certainly in the world’s mind, and, I am afraid, in many Christians’ minds—heavenliness means that you are abstract, vague, mystical, and impractical. Someone says, “So-and-so has a very heavenly character.” What they mean is, “They cannot wash up dishes.”
That goes to the root of it.
I remember asking a very tough missionary in the East, whom we all knew as Tiger, about a certain group. I have never forgotten the explosion: “Oh, heavenly-minded and of no earthly use!” That was all I got. I could not find another thing, and I had to go to other sources to discover what was meant.
But the word as we use it, heavenliness—though that actual term does not appear in Scripture—simply means: of heaven, out of heaven, from heaven, characterized by heaven.
When we speak of the heavenliness of the church, we mean that her life, her character—everything—is, as it were, formed out of heaven and sustained from heaven. You have got it?
The church may be considered in this way:
These describe and comprehend everything about the church that you and I know or have experienced.
Where was the church conceived? She was conceived in the heart of God, in the mind of God, from before times eternal—in heaven. It was a heavenly conception.
Where was she born? On the day of Pentecost, by the Holy Spirit, out from heaven. He never came up from the earth; He came out of heaven.
How is she governed? By her Head. Where is the Head? At the right hand of the Majesty on high—in heaven.
How is she sustained? She is kept by the power of God. Where does the power of God come from? Through the Head, by the Holy Spirit. It is heavenly.
She has a growing heavenly character. In other words, she is being conformed to the image of Him Who died to save her.
Finally, where will the consummation take place? The consummation will take place in heaven. We are going to be caught up.
It began in heaven. It came from heaven with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. It is governed, developed, protected, and anointed from heaven. One day, glory! One day it will be caught up by the power of the Holy Spirit to meet her Lord in the air. Then there will be the marriage supper of the Lamb. Where? In heaven—not down here, up there.
The church will appear with Him. “I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven.” Caught up to be with the Lord, she will then appear with Him in a universal way to and upon this earth.
Thus, there is about the true church that which is wholly inexplicable to the natural man. It is a mystery to him. The man in the street simply cannot understand the church.
Let us get that clear: I am not talking about what we call “the church.” I am talking about the true church. It is an enigma to him. He cannot understand it. It is a mystery. He asks a few questions, gets a few replies, and is more mystified than ever.
It is inexplicable to him because it is wholly outside his realm and sphere. He is on the earth; the church is in heaven and out from heaven. He simply cannot understand it.
The fact that the true church is concrete and practical does not make it less mysterious. Away with this idea of the invisibility of the church. It can be seen, handled, and touched. It is human and located; that is the church on earth.
The fact that it is so concretely and tangibly expressed only makes it more inexplicable to the world.
If the whole thing were completely abstract, vague, and “all up there,” perhaps it would be easier. But the fact is that they see something. They see cohesion, unity, love, and a practical outworking of something. They may see failure and breakdown as well, but they see things they cannot explain.
It all seems ordinary. It all seems human. It seems very much like any other fellowship, club, society, or organization. Yet it is an enigma, because its source and fountainhead are somehow not the same.
The easiest way to understand it is this: to the natural man, the true church is as inexplicable as Christ was when He walked on this earth.
Was Christ visible? Of course He was visible. Was Christ tangible? Of course He was tangible. Was Christ human? Yes. They said, “Is not this the son of Joseph? We know Him; He is the carpenter.”
That was the enigma.
If He had been rather like Melchizedek, without beginning and without end, simply drifting in somehow, it might all have been easier. But He was not. On one side He seemed so ordinary, so much like the rest of us; but the next minute He was an enigma.
He could feed five thousand men, apart from women and children. He could feed another four thousand men, apart from women and children. He could walk on the sea. He could raise the dead.
That was completely inexplicable. Yet what made Him more mysterious than anything was that He seemed to have two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, and a body just like us. He ate like us, grew weary like us, slept like us, and cried like us. Well, Who is He?
You see, He is of heaven.
The church is precisely that. She is to be felt and touched, known and seen, in the same way; yet she is an enigma. Where does she get her resources? Where does she get her power? Where does she get her life? How does she go on? How do these people get to know, as they say, the will of God? How do they find it out?
This is both the impact and the glory of the church.
The church loses almost completely its impact when she loses her heavenly character—when she becomes explicable.
The glory of the church is that she is from heaven. She has a life this world does not know of. She has a Lord this world has rejected. She has a power beyond anything in this world.
The world asks, “How did it come into being?” Supposing they ask us, do you not find it difficult sometimes to answer? The more you know about the history of a company like this, the more difficult it can be. Where should we begin? Shall we go back to Egypt? Shall we go back before Egypt? Shall we start with prayer gatherings? But that is only the surface of the thing.
How did it begin? It was born somehow. Everything that is really of God is born of the Spirit. How can you explain that to the natural man or to the world?
They imagine there must be a human personality somewhere. Yes, there are human personalities, but that makes it even more inexplicable. You can have other personalities, and the thing does not happen. What is it?
How is it governed? Someone asks, “Are you governed by bishops, an archbishop, a priest, fathers, or elders?” You say, “Well, it is rather hard to explain. We have elders, but we get on our knees and ask God.”
Then they say, “You ask God? You do not mean you are asking some departed person? You do not ask Him about practical things—carpets, gardens, whether you should take this course or do that?”
Oh yes, we do. But then, “How does God speak to you? Does He speak with an audible voice? Do you hear a voice like a loudspeaker in the middle of the room saying, ‘You will do so-and-so’?”
This is precisely the kind of thing the world is mystified by. How do you hear the voice of God? How do you find the will of God? At first they say it is nonsense.
I remember when Bill first came. I had a little talk with him and said, “Now, Bill, you do realize you are not employed by us, do you?” He said, “Oh, yes.” I said, “You are employed by God. And God is going to pay you your wages.”
“What do I do about that?” he asked.
“You come and tell us, and we pray.”
Every week he asked for the sum, and every week it was there. Later he told us that he thought it was merely religious talk. He imagined we simply went down to the bank, drew the money out, and gave it to him.
Then came the famous occasion when he asked for three hundred pounds, and it was not there.
He came to me on Thursday morning and, by then having learned our phraseology, said, “Has the money come?”
I said, “No. Strange enough, it has not.”
I asked whether he had done the work properly. He thought perhaps there were screws which should have been put in and a latch which was wrong. I told him, “You go and do that, because God sees everything.”
Then he asked, “Do you think the money is going to come?”
“When do you need it?”
“Two o’clock, so I can get it into the bank by Friday.”
“It will be here by two.”
The second post came, but there was nothing except bills. At lunchtime we did not know what to do, so I said to the others—it was cleaning day—“We will go upstairs and pray.”
About ten or eleven of us went into the living room upstairs. Every cushion in the premises went upstairs. We had a little time of prayer.
Bill came through just after two. He walked in through the back door, went upstairs, and opened the library door. Then we heard it shut quickly.
Bill told me afterward, “I had never felt so sick in all my life, because I heard someone say, ‘Lord, we have not got that three hundred pounds. We have got to have it now.’”
He said, “I clutched my stomach. I had been sick many times through drink, but I had never felt so sick. I went down the stairs like a drunk man. I thought, ‘God, they have not got the money. They have not got the money. I have been trusting them. What am I going to do?’”
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, there was three hundred and one pounds. He was the one who came up to the door and said, “You can stop praying. Here is the money.”
Inexplicable.
The amusing side is that he tried to explain it to his bank manager, because the bank manager wanted to know whether we were creditable people.
“Oh, yes,” Bill said, “they have got no money.”
Literally, the bank manager said, “Oh, yes?”
But you see, it was inexplicable.
How is the church governed? Outwardly, you have certain things, but inwardly there is something else: it is the Lord Himself. How do you explain that to men?
How is it financed? People say, “You must have a collection. You must have a lot of rich people.” But when they get to know us, they ask, “Well then, what is this company? How has it happened?”
When we first started the work here, a very dear evangelical leader said to me, “You have got to be practical. You have a mystical side to your nature. You have got to have a collection. You will not get anything, and the church will not get anything.”
I said, “Why not?”
He said, “You will find out. You cannot be all up in the air about this. God’s people have got to be reminded.”
I was so annoyed that I said, “God’s people have got to be reminded? I think God can do without their cash. If God cannot get you to give to Him and do His work except by continually shoving a collection plate under your nose, you might as well keep the cash. Go and buy an ice cream with it.”
I am not saying that a collection is necessarily wrong. But the reason we do not have collections is that we believe there is a higher way.
It says in the Word, “Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” In a collection plate, not only does your left hand see what your right hand does, but everyone else sees it too. That is the psychological idea behind the collection: people feel shamed into giving something.
You know the feeling. You nudge someone and say, “I have not got anything. Can you lend me something?” You cannot bear to let the plate go by. It takes courage—or meanness.
How is it financed? By the Lord. He said:
And my God shall supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
How wonderful it is when people ask, “Where do you get your money?”
My mother was always after us about where the money came from. She was the best detective in the place, trying to track it down. “It must have come from so-and-so,” she would say. They have to explain it somehow; they cannot understand it.
I shall never forget when my mother came back one day after speaking to Phyllis. Phyllis said they had had a problem with a sink; it was blocked. “So,” she said, “we put a wire down it and prayed about it, and then we wiggled away.”
My mother was simply mystified. She did not think such people existed.
Inexplicable. Yet you have Someone to fall back on Who has promised to be absolutely faithful.
How is the church sustained? On a more serious note, think of the outward annihilation of the church in certain parts of the earth. What happens? It comes up.
The devil seems to have dealt a death blow, to have wiped the thing out, and then suddenly you find it there—not only there, but stronger than it has ever been in its history.
The baptism of fire and blood has only brought the thing more truly into being. Nero discovered that. The Roman Empire has long since collapsed, but the church has not.
How is it sustained when so many other things have faded out, when they have been liquidated by autocrats or dictators? It is because it is from heaven.
Then someone asks, “How do you join it? How do you join the church?” Can you explain that to the natural man?
If you have a membership, you can explain it straight away. You can explain finances if you have collections, appeals, and all the rest. But if you have not, how do you explain how someone joins the church?
You say, “You must be born of the Spirit.”
“Born? Are they cranks there? What does it mean?”
It is inexplicable.
This is much more important than perhaps most of us realize. Whether a thing is explicable or inexplicable is the tragedy of so much that goes by the name of Christ.
It is wholly explicable to this world. The natural man can understand it entirely, because it is like any other worldly organization.
“How do you join it?” Join the membership, get the right hand of fellowship, pay a little bit, look right, say the right things in your greeting, perhaps get two people to sponsor you. That is what it virtually amounts to, and you are in.
“How is it run?” Committees, councils, and boards galore. Everything else in this world is run by committees, boards, and councils. It is entirely explicable.
“How is it financed?” You only have to look at notices outside some churches to see them begging, grovelling for money.
The whole thing is explicable: the way it is organized, financed, governed, and joined. It is just like any other society. What is the difference between that and a stamp-collecting society, a bird-watching club, or any other club? They are run basically on the same lines: elected officers, nominated leaders, subscriptions, and appeals when funds run low.
Indeed, some worldly organizations run their finances a good deal better than some so-called churches.
It is this heavenly nature and character which the enemy is continually attacking and assaulting. There are two ways in which he attacks.
The first is that he seeks to create an earthly counterfeit: something wholly of this earth, using the name of God, the name of Christ, the things of God, and the Word of God, but absolutely and wholly of this world.
It has a form of godliness, but denies the power thereof: humanly established, humanly formed, humanly governed, humanly financed. That is one line of attack.
The other, which must concern us most here, is to bring down that which is heavenly to earth, to an earthly level; to compromise it so gravely that it becomes a mixture—neither wholly of earth nor wholly of heaven.
My dear friend, in that you will find nearly the whole of church history. What denomination, which began as a heavenly move of God, has not ended up on earth—as worldly and earthly as anything else?
God is very practical, very, very practical. He says that we are to serve the counsel of God in our own generation. I have absolutely no doubt that if we could be here in one hundred years’ time, should the Lord tarry, we would see the same thing happen here.
It is the earth-bound, earthward tendency in everything. Once it comes to the second, third, and fourth generations, it loses its wholly heavenly character and becomes a mixture.
Little things are introduced which you and I do not even think about. They seem so legitimate, so good, and so desperately needed. They are introduced, and they are the end.
Few people see the end of a seed being planted; they only see the need.
I have no doubt the same thing will happen here as it happens everywhere else. But our point is today: serving the counsel of God now, in our own generation.
We should also take careful note that we do not have to make the church inexplicable.
Some Christian leaders and groups seem to think that because the church is heavenly and therefore inexplicable, it is our job to make it inexplicable and mysterious—to sort of “heavenize” everything.
There is a kind of singularity, a kind of peculiarity—more unkindly, we could call it eccentricity—among Christians which is wholly lamentable.
When a person was odd before they were saved, and it is a temperamental matter, the Lord often uses that oddness. But God save us from people who become odd because they have been saved. There are plenty of them, and plenty of groups which get into that trap as well.
Our Lord Jesus was not eccentric. He was not peculiar. He was certainly singular, but He was not peculiar or eccentric. He was not one of these odd, queer birds. He was absolutely normal—absolutely normal.
Flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, as it were. We could understand Him. That is the enigma.
I do not find one of these mysterious, queer, eccentric types heavenly at all. I think, “Well, of course, that could all be explained.” They talk about hearing voices and seeing visions, and you think, “Well, they have a vivid imagination anyway.”
But when I meet someone who is absolutely normal, and they begin speaking about hearing the Word of God, then that is an enigma if I am a man in the world.
I cannot understand it. This man is so normal. He laughs like me, cries like me, sleeps like me, walks like me, and lives almost like me in one way. Yet he knows something I do not know. That is heavenliness.
If you want an example of heavenliness, think of our Lord Jesus. You will be preserved from all these weird ideas that float around.
We have two or three illustrations of this. We have the Book of Acts from Pentecost onwards. What is it but an illustration of something wholly inexplicable to man—heavenly in nature and character?
You see that church coming into being on the day of Pentecost. See how it moves through the Book of Acts. It has failings and faults, all human beings, very much human beings; yet how inexplicable it is.
Take the Gospel according to Luke and the Book of Acts, and entitle them:
You have exactly what I am driving at. One is as inexplicable as the other: the heavenly body of a heavenly Head.
The other illustration is the testimony in baptism. When we are baptized, we bear testimony to the fact that we are in something heavenly. In the waters of baptism, we have been cut off from the old, from the earth.
That does not mean we have no trouble with the old man or old woman. But the fact is that we are in Christ, and that is the testimony—the glorious testimony.
In the last few minutes we have, I want to begin to speak about the second principle:
The church, His body, is an organism and not an organization.
Romans 12:4-5 says:
For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office:
So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.
I am not going to read 1 Corinthians 12, but if you read from verses 12 and 13 onward, you will find this organism illustrated again.
Ephesians 4:15-16 says:
But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him, Who is the head, even Christ;
From Whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
It is something organic. You grow up into Him Who is the Head. The body, fitly framed and knit together, increases with the increase of God. It builds itself; it is an organic thing.
Then look at Colossians 2:19, “holding fast the Head.” You have the same thought again.
Most evangelicals give lip service to the truth that the church is an organism. I know very few evangelicals, or Bible colleges, where it is not taught. Everyone agrees; they all give lip service to it.
It is in the practical outworking that there is contradiction, inconsistency, and breakdown. Everyone is prepared to say, “It is an organism, an organism, an organism; the church is an organism.” But when it comes to practical outworking, it is the most extraordinary thing: everyone forgets that it is an organism.
Many evangelicals seem to feel that being non-denominational in spirit is enough. You may belong to a denominational church, but if you are non-denominational in spirit—broad, loving, free, and open—that is all that is required.
Others go further and say that, provided one is in a non-denominational church, that is all that is required. Denominationalism, they say, is the real blight and curse among Christians.
But denominationalism is only the symptom; it is not the disease. Get this clear: it is only the symptom; it is not the disease.
The disease is a very deep-seated thing indeed, and I would call it organizationalism.
Organizationalism is the disease. Every denomination has somehow evolved from organization. As things become more and more organized and top-heavy, the thing dies and becomes a set, rigid organism.
We are not saying that God does not use or bless people in such things. Of course He does; they are His children, and God cares for His children. But do not confuse the blessing and saving activity of the Holy Spirit with God owning the thing.
God may use it, but He does not own it. God will dispose of it one day; it will all go back to where it belongs—to Rome. Birds of a feather flock together, and the thing gravitates to its true centre.
You can have something completely non-denominational and yet as organized as anything else. There is no life there. Young people especially sometimes ask, “What is the point of all this talk about the recovery of the church? We are in something absolutely non-denominational, but it is as dead as dead can be. It is so heavy and so lifeless.”
Then people leave so-called New Testament groups and go to the other extreme, because they say, “God does not seem to bother very much about whether it is New Testament or not.”
The fact is that organizationalism, even if it is New Testament in pattern, is the disease.
Anything which substitutes human organization—however New Testament in appearance—for that which is organic, the work and product of the Holy Spirit’s energies and life, is organizationalism.
It is an extraordinary fact, dear family: you only have to get twelve people together, and they start organizing themselves.
When we were in the East, there were only about sixteen of us. What did we do? We had an extraordinary meeting to elect officers. We gave ourselves a little membership, and then we had officers.
The Holy Spirit graciously brushed the whole thing aside. After that extraordinary meeting, although we had elected the lot, we never once took notice of it.
Is it not extraordinary? The thing is in us—in our lifeblood, in our very system. It is, as it were, impossible to get it out of us.
Think of the many little so-called New Testament groups that have split up and been shipwrecked on this: “Who is going to be leader? Who is going to be elder? Who is going to have this ministry or that ministry, this position or that position?”
What a caricature it is. They talk about the church, but they are not in it in experience. Potentially, of course, they are, but not really in experience.
There are not only those who go in the direction of organizing everything and substituting human organization for the Holy Spirit. There are also those who go to the other extreme, using the fact that the church is an organism as an excuse for looseness and disorder.
That nearly always leads to indiscipline, disorder, weakness, and licence.
The church is not a free-for-all.
What, then, do we mean by an organism? What is the difference between an organism and an organization?
According to the Oxford Dictionary, an organism is a whole with interdependent parts sharing a common life.
An organism has an organization—sometimes a complex and highly developed organization—but all of its organization develops from the life within it. All of it is formed and developed by, and according to, the life within.
My body is an organism. I have the most amazing organization in this body: an inbuilt thermostatic control.
If your thermostatic control goes haywire, you know it. Mine has gone haywire, and I know it. If you have suffered from it, you begin to perspire for no apparent reason, while feeling cold. There is someone in this company who suffers badly from that sort of thing.
You have many other things in your body connected with circulation and everything else: highly intricate and complex organization.
Where did it all come from? Did the body read a medical book? Was it instructed in its early days by mother or father as to how it should organize itself? No. It had a life, and the whole thing was in it, within the life.
Every one of you, some years ago—we shall not go into how many—was just that size: a little blob of flesh and blood. But the organization was all there, every bit of it.
Every bit of you sitting there—though changed every seven years—came out of that little blob. The organization came from within it.
The only time we have to worry, read books, receive diagnoses, and seek help is when something goes wrong.
That is precisely why you have certain things in the New Testament—Timothy, Titus, Corinthians. Something had gone wrong. People have taken the diagnosis given when things went wrong and made it the New Testament pattern.
It is incredible. One group says, “This is the pattern; we got it in the New Testament.” Another says they have got it from the New Testament; someone else says the same.
An organization, as we commonly understand the term, is that which is framed, set up, or put together by man according to a set pattern, blueprint, or standard of rules and regulations.
Its organization depends entirely on man. It is not from life within, but from a law applied from without. It is dead, static, and lifeless.
A good example is your body compared with a motorcar. My body is an organism. Just over thirty years ago, my body was born, and everything I have—except these clothes—came out of that little blob. The whole thing has come from that life.
Tonight, in 1968, I have a 1968 body. You may not like it, but it is a 1968 body. You have a 1968 body. You have not got a body dating from the year of your birth; you have a contemporary body.
But if you had a car from thirty years ago, it would be precisely a 1938 car in 1968. It is an organization. It is static. It does not renew itself from life within. It has no way of developing, adjusting, or adapting itself.
You have 1968 traffic conditions, 1968 speed, and 1968 roads, but you may have a 1938 car. What can you do about it?
Your body, however, is a 1968 version. If the Lord tarries and you live in 1988, you will have a 1988 person. It will not be a 1968 one in 1988, because your body is an organism.
The church is an organism.
When you look at church history, it is really like a car graveyard. You have denominations all around: an organization built in sixteen-something, seventeen-something, or eighteen-something, and there they are. They are all somehow out of time in 1968.
Some use nineteenth-century language; some use seventeenth-century costumes. You laugh, but that is what they do. They use seventeenth-century language and costume to reach twentieth-century people.
God says, “I AM that I AM,” not “I have been that I have been.” He is ever-present. He is the living God, not the past God. He wants to express Himself all the time in a living, vital way.
We shall have to end this evening, though there is much more I would like to say.
Even a superficial reading of the New Testament reveals that the church is an organism: the living, functioning, growing body of Christ, with the Holy Spirit initiating, leading, filling, qualifying, gifting, empowering, anointing, instructing, and correcting all the way through.
Notice the remarkable absence of rules and regulations in the New Testament for setting up a church. This might shock some people, because they say, “There must be a New Testament pattern.”
I say there is not. The only way you can get a New Testament pattern is by going through the whole thing, taking a little from here and a little from there, gleaning, and putting it all together.
Every church—Presbyterian, Methodist, and so on—claims to be built on the so-called New Testament pattern in one way or another.
Seeing the awful chaos that has resulted, surely somewhere in the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, one small letter could have been devoted entirely to the organization of the church. Do you not think so?
Do you think God could not foresee the chaos? If the church were an organization, could He not have clearly said, “Now look, this is the organization of the church: this is this, that is that, and the other is the other”?
Where do we find it?
Corinthians is dealing with an appalling state of affairs. The Corinthian letters would never have been written if something had not gone wrong in the church.
Where did people get their organization in the first place, may I ask, in the Book of Acts? Where did they get it? It developed. It developed from within.
There was only one time they cast lots, and many theologians believe it was a ghastly mistake. They filled the place of Judas. But after that, we never find them casting lots again.
Once they had the risen Head by the Holy Spirit, they inquired of Him. He did it.
When you come to 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, why were they written? Because things were going wrong.
If you read the letters carefully through in a modern version, you will see that Paul foresees a turning away, a falling away. He says, in effect, “Now, Timothy, these are not regulations. These are the qualifications—the spiritual character and spiritual measure—you must look for.”
You can be quite sure that the Holy Spirit is raising up men to be elders or deacons, or for any other function. These are the qualities you will find in them.
But the science, the technique, is not there. “Lay hands on no man suddenly.” In other words, give time for organic development.
There is no intended blueprint in the New Testament. That is how I think we will end this evening.
The New Testament does reveal principles inherent within the life of God. If those principles are lifted out of life and made dead regulations and rules, the whole thing dies. But if they are kept as principles and obeyed as principles of life, then there is increase, multiplication, development, growth, and so on.
Some of you may be mystified by this, so I want to illustrate two little bulbs.
Nowadays, things are all processed, and onions are much cleaner than they used to be. But I wonder how many of you would really know the difference between an onion and a daffodil bulb if we put them on a plate. You would know afterward if you ate them.
But that is an onion, and that is a daffodil.
Is it not extraordinary that a daffodil has never become an onion? They are so alike. Yet in the whole of history, a daffodil has never become an onion, and an onion has never become a daffodil.
You could plant a hundred onions all around a daffodil, and it would still come up as one daffodil in the middle of an onion patch. You could plant one onion among hundreds of daffodils, and the onion would still be an onion.
Why?
Because the onion has onion life, and the daffodil has daffodil life. The pattern is in the life.
The pattern of a daffodil is in the daffodil life. Put it in the ground, the life begins to take over, and the pattern is in the life. It develops always as a daffodil, and the onion develops as an onion.
I could hold a few pips in my hand: perhaps a pear pip, an apple pip, and a few others. They all look small and alike. But if I plant them, one becomes a plum tree, one an apple tree, and one a pear tree.
Why do they not become mixed up? It never happens, because in one there is apple life, in another pear life, in another plum life, and so on.
Now listen: Christ in you is the Christian life. Christ in us is the church. The pattern is in the life.
Once we let the life of God flow through us, the pattern manifests itself. You will get church life, church gifts and ministries, and church increase. It will all be there. But it is the life, so do not get too bothered about the other. Let us get on with really being together.
In other words, we must make sure that we are holding fast the Head and allowing the life to flow through us together, by the cross and through the Spirit.
That is why there are so many peculiar little groups which never have church life, but have an awful lot of talk about it.
Somewhere, somehow, some people have got to pay the price. Some have got to lay down their life completely through the cross of our Lord Jesus. Then the life starts to flow; and with the life come the building, the pattern, the matching, and everything else.
Next week we will take up that matter and then go on to another matter or two.
Lord, we pray together that Thou wouldst really give us enlightenment this evening. We need it, Lord. Oh, that we might really understand what it means, our Father, that the church is a heavenly thing.
Lord, wilt Thou reveal that to our hearts? Wilt Thou so work in us that we shall be truly heavenly people?
Then again, Lord, we bring this matter of the organic nature of Thy church, that Thou wouldst really reveal it. Thou knowest that this lies at the root of so much that has broken down or is failing, even among so many of Thy children who long to see something of the recovery of Thy church.
O Lord, we pray that Thou wouldst enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we might know this thing inwardly. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.