We are now going to look carefully at that fifteenth
verse: "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which
thing I hate."
This next stage of the Church’s journey in its
departure, alas, from truth may easily be recognized historically. It applies
to the time when, after having passed through the heathen persecution, (and the
faithfulness of many an Antipas was brought out by it,) it got publicly
recognized and established in the world. The characteristic of this epistle
is,- although I do not now dwell upon it, I hope to take it up another time,-
the Church dwelling where Satan’s throne is. "Throne" it should be, not
"seat." Now Satan has his throne, not in hell, (which is his prison, and where
he never reigns at all,) but in the world. He is expressly called the "prince
of this world." To dwell where Satan’s throne is, is to settle down in the
world, under Satan’s government, so to speak, and protection. That is what
people call the establishment of the Church. It took place in
Constantine’s time. Although amalgamation with the world had been growing
for a long time more and more decided, yet it was then that the Church stepped
into the seats of the old heathen idolatry. It was what people call the triumph
of Christianity; but the result was that the Church had the things of the world
now, as never before, in secure possession: the chief place in the world was
hers, and the principles of the world everywhere pervadcd her.
The
very name of "Pergamos" intimates that. It is a word (without the particle
attached to it, which is itself significant) meaning "marriage;" and the
Church’s marriage before Christ comes to receive her to Himself is
necessarily unfaithfulness to Him to whom she is espoused. It is the marriage
of the Church and the world which the epistle to Pergamos speaks of - the end
of a courtship which had been going on long before.
There is
something, however, which is really preliminary to this,- mentioned in the very
first address - which I shall take up tonight, and which really comes in place
here. I could not so well bring it in when we were looking at the address to
Ephesus, because there it is evidently incidental, and does not characterize
the state of things. In the address to Ephesus the Lord says: "But this thou
hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate" (ii.
6). Here it is more than the "deeds" of the Nicolaitans. There are now not
merely "deeds," but "doctrine." And the Church, instead of repudiating it, was
holding with it. In the Ephesian days they hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans,
but in Pergamos they "had," and did not reprobate, those who held the doctrine.
The serious question, then, is, How shall we interpret this? I answer
that the word "Nicolaitans" is the only thing really which we have to interpret
it by. People have tried very hard to show that there was a sect of the
Nicolaitans, but it is owned by writers now, almost on all sides, to be very
doubtful. Nor can we conceive why, in epistles of a prophetic character - which
I trust I have shown these to have - there should be such repeated and emphatic
mention of a mere obscure sect, about which people can tell us little or
nothing, and that seems manufactured to suit the passage before us. The Lord
solemnly denounces it: "which thing I hate." It must have a special importance
with Him, and be of moment in the Church’s history - little apprehended as
it may have been. And another thing which we have to remember is, that it is
not the way of Scripture to send us to Church histories or to any history at
all, in order to interpret its sayings. God’s Word is its own interpreter,
and we have not to go elsewhere in order to find out what is there. Otherwise
it becomes a question of learned men searching and finding out for those who
have not the same means or abilities - applications which must be taken on
their authority alone. God does not leave us to that sort of thing. Besides, it
is the ordinary way in Scripture, and especially in passages of a symbolical
character, such as is the part before us, for the names to be significant. I
need not remind you how abundantly in the Old Testament this is the case; and
in the New Testament, although less noticed, I cannot doubt but that there is
the same significance throughout. Here, if we are left simply to the name, I
think the name alone is sufficiently startling and instructive. Of course, to
those who spoke the language used the meaning would be no hidden or recondite
thing, but as apparent as those of Bunyan’s allegories.
It means,
then, "conquering the people." The last part of the word (Laos) is the word
used in Greek for "people," and it is the word from which the commonly used
term "Laity" is derived. The Nicolaitans were just those: "subjecting, putting
down the laity," the mass of Christian people, in order unduly to lord it over
them.
There is another word which is very striking in this connection,
and found in this very address, side by side with this; a word quite alike to
this "Nicolaitans," although it is a Hebrew word and not a Greek; as you have
the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, so you have the "doctrine of Balaam;" and as
Nicolaitans means "conquering the people," Balaam means "destroying the
people." You have pointed out what he "taught" Balak. Balaam’s doctrine
was "to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things
sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication." For this purpose he enticed
them to mixture with the nations, from which God had carefully separated them.
That needful separation broken down was their destruction, so far as it
prevailed. In like manner, we have seen the Church to be called out from the
world, and it is only too easy to apply the Divine type in this case. But here
we have a confessedly typical people, with a corresponding significant name,
and in such close connection as naturally to confirm the reading of the similar
word Nicolaitans" as similarly significant. I shall have to speak more of this
at another time, if the Lord will.
Let us notice now the development of
Nicolaitanism. It is first of all, certain people who have this character, and
who - I am merely translating the word - first take the place of superiors over
the people. Their "deeds" show what they are. There is no "doctrine" yet. But
it ends, in Pergamos, with the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. The place is
assumed now to be theirs by right. There is a doctrine, a teaching about it,
received at least by some, and to which the Church at large - nay, true souls
also on the whole- have become indifferent. Now what has come between these two
things - the 'deeds' and the 'doctrine'? It is what we looked at last time -
the rise of a party whom the Lord marks out as those who said they were Jews
and were not, but who were the synagoge of Satan - the adversary’s attempt
(alas, too successful) to Judaize the Church.
I was trying to show you
last time what the characteristics of Judaism are. It was a probationary
system, a system of trial, in which it was to be seen if man could produce a
righteousness for God. We know the end of the trial, and that God pronounced
"none righteous; no, not one." And only then it was that God could manifest His
grace. As long as He was putting man under trial He could not possibly open the
way to His own presence and justify the sinner there. He had, as long as this
trial went on, to shut him out. For on that ground nobody could see God and
live. Now, the very essence of Christianity is that all are welcomed in. There
is an open door and ready access, where the blood of Christ entitles every one,
however much a sinner, to draw near to God, and to find at His hand
justification as ungodly. To see God in Christ is not to die, but live. And
what further is the consequence of this? Those who have come thus to Him -
those who have found the way of access through the peace - speaking blood into
His presence, learned what He is in Christ, and been justified before God - are
able to take, and taught to take, a place distinct from all others, as now His
- children of the Father, members of Christ, His body. That is the Church, a
body called out, separate from the world.
Judaism, on the other hand,
necessarily mixed all together. Nobody there can take such a place with God.
Nobody can cry "Abba, Father," really; therefore there could not be any
separation. This had been once a necessity, and of God, no doubt. But now,
Judaism being set up again, after God had abolished it, it is no use to urge
that it was once of Him; its setting up again was the too successful work of
the enemy against this gospel and against this Church. He brands these
Judaizers as the "synagogue of Satan."
Now you can understand at once,
when the Church in its true character was practically lost sight of, when
Church members meant people baptized by water instead of by the Holy Ghost, or
when the baptism of water and of the Holy Ghost were reckoned one, (and this
very early became accepted doctrine,) then, of course, the Jewish synagogue was
practically again set up. It became more and more impossible to speak of
Christians being at peace with God or saved. They were hoping to be, and
sacraments and ordinances became means of grace to ensure, as far as might be,
a far-off salvation.
Let us see how far this would help on the
doctrine of the Nicolaitans. It is plain that when, and as, the Church sank
into the synagogue, the Christian people became practically what of old the
Jewish had been. Now, what was that position? As I have said, there was no real
drawing near to God at all. Even the high priest, who (as a type of Christ)
entered into the holiest once a year, on the day of atonement, had to cover the
mercy-seat with a cloud of incense, that he might not die. But the ordinary
priests could not enter there at all, but only into the outer holy place; while
the people in general could not come in even there. And this was expressly
designed as a witness of their condition. It was the result of failure on their
part; for God’s offer to them, which you may find in the nineteenth
chapter of Exodus, was this: "Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice in deed,
and keep my covenant, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people,
for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a
holy nation."
They were thus conditionally offered equal nearness of
access to God - they should be all priests. But this was rescinded, for they
broke the covenant; and then a special family is put into the place of priests,
the rest of the people being put into the background, and only able to draw
near to God through these.
Thus a separate and intermediate priesthood
characterized Judaism; and, for the same reason, what we should call now
missionary work there was none. There was no going out to the world in this
way; no provision, no command to preach the law at all. What, in fact, could
they say? That God was in the thick darkness? That no one could see Him, and
live? It is surely evident there was no "good news" there. Judaism had no true
gospel. The absence of the evangelist and the presence of the intermediate
priesthood told the same sorrowful story, and were in perfect keeping with each
other.
Such was Judaism. How different, then, is Christianity! No
sooner had the death of Christ rent the veil and opened a way of access into
the presence of God than at once there was a gospel, and the new order is, "Go
out into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." God is making
Himself known, and "is He the God of the Jews only?" Can you confine the gospel
of Christ within the bounds of a nation? No, the fermentation of the new wine
would burst the bottles.
The intermediate priesthood has, by the
gospel, now been done away; for all Christian people are priests now to God.
What was conditionally offered to Israel is now an accomplished fact in
Christianity. We are a kingdom of priests; and in the wisdom of God it is Peter
- ordained of man the great head of ritualism - who, in his first epistle,
announces the two things which destroy ritualism root and branch for those who
believe him. First, that we are "born again," not of baptism, but "by the word
of God, that liveth and abideth forever; . . and this is the word which by the
gospel is preached unto you." Secondly, instead of a set of priests, he says to
all Christians: "Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a
holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ" (ii. 5). The sacrifices are spiritual - praise and thanksgiving, and
our lives and bodies also (Heb. xiii. i2, i6; Rom. xii. i). This is to be with
us true priestly work, and thus do our lives get their proper character: they
are the thank-offering service of those able to draw nigh to God.
In
Judaism, let me repeat, none really drew nigh; but now, the people - the laity
(for it is only a Greek word made English) - and that in a better way than the
Jewish priest could. The priestly caste, wherever it is found, means the same
thing. There is no drawing nigh of the whole body of the people at all. It
means distance from God, and darkness - God shut out from the people.
Now, THAT is the meaning of "the Clergy." I want you to look at it very
carefully. I want you not to think it a mere question of a certain order of
Church government - as people are very apt to do. I want you to see the
important principles which are involved in this, and how really the Lord has
cause, as He must have, to say of Nicolaitanism, "which I also hate." And my
aim and object tonight is to try to make you hate it as God hates it.
I am not speaking of people - God forbid. I am speaking of a thing. Our
unhappiness is, that we are at the end of a long series of departures from God,
and as a consequence we grow up in the midst of many things which come down to
us as "tradition of the elders," associated with names which we all revere and
love, upon whose authority in reality we have accepted them, without ever
having looked at them really in the light of God’s presence. And there are
many thus whom we gladly recognize as truly men of God, and servants of God, in
a false position. It is of that position I am speaking. I am speaking of a
thing, as the Lord does -"which thing I hate." He does not say, "which people I
hate." Although in those days evil of this kind was not an inheritance as now,
and the first propagators of it had, of course, a responsibility peculiarly
their own, self-deceived as they may have been; still, in this matter as in all
others, we need not be ashamed or afraid to be where the Lord is. Nay, we
cannot be with Him in this unless we are. And He says of Nicolaitanism, "which
thing I hate."
Because, what does it mean? I will tell you in brief
what the very idea of a clergy is. It means a spiritual caste, or class; a set
of people having officially a right to leadership in spiritual things; a
nearness to God derived from official place, not spiritual power: in fact, the
revival, under the names and with various modifications, of that very
intermediate priesthood which distinguished Judaism, and which Christianity
emlpatically disclaims. That is what a clergy means; and in contradiction to
these the rest of Christians are but the laity, the seculars, necessarily put
back into more or less of the old distance, which the cross of Christ has done
away.
We see then why it needed that the Church should be Judaized
before the deeds of the Nicolaitans could ripen into a "doctrine." The Lord
even had authorized obedience to scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses’
seat; and to make this text apply as people apply it now, Moses’ seat had,
of course, to be set up in the Christian Church: this done, and the mass of
Christians degraded from the priesthood Peter spoke of into mere "lay members,"
the doctrine of the Nicolaitans was at once established.
Understand me
fully that I am in no wise questioning the divine institution of the Christian
ministry. God forbid; for ministry, in the fullest sense, is characteristic of
Christianity, as I have already in fact maintained. Nor do I (while believing
that all true Christians are ministers also by the very fact) deny a special
and distinctive ministry of the Word, as what God has given to some, and not to
all, though for the use of all. No one truly taught of God can deny that some,
not all, among Christians have the place of evangelist, pastor, teacher. I
believe I make more of this than current views do; for I believe that every
true minister is a gift from Christ, in His care as Head of the Church, for His
people, and one who has his place from God alone, and is responsible in that
character to God, and God alone. The miserable system which I see around
degrades him from this blessed place, and makes him in fact little more than
the manufacture and the servant of men. While giving, it is true, a place of
lordship over people which gratifies a carnal mind, still it fetters the
spiritual man, and puts him in chains, everywhere giving him an artificial
conscience towards man, hindering in fact his conscience being properly before
God.
Let me briefly state to you what the Scripture doctrine of the
ministry is; it is a very simple one. The Assembly of God is Christ’s
body; all the members are members of Christ. There is no other membership in
Scripture than this, the membership of Christ’s body, to which all true
Christians belong: not many bodies of Christ, but one body; not many churches,
but one Church.
There is, of course, a different place for each member
of the body by the very fact that he is such. All members have not the same
office: there is the eye, the ear, and so on, but they are all necessary, and
all necessarily ministering in some way to one another.
Every member
has its place, not merely locally and for the benefit of certain other members,
but for the benefit of the whole body.
Each member has its gift as the
apostle teaches distinctly. "For as we have many members in one body, and all
members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ,
and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to
the grace that is given to us," etc. (Rom. xii. 4-6).
In the twelfth
chapter of i Corinthians the apostle speaks at large of these gifts; and he
calls them by a significant name - "manifestations of the Spirit." They are
gifts of the Spirit, of course; but more, they are "manifestations of the
Spirit;" they manifest themselves where they are found - where (I scarcely need
to add) there is spiritual discernment - where souls are before God.
For instance, if you take the gospel of God, whence does it derive its
authority and power? From any sanction of men? any human credentials of any
kind or from its own inherent power? I maintain that the common attempt to
authenticate the messenger takes away from, instead of adding to, the power of
the Word. God’s word must be received as such: he that receives it sets to
his seal that God is true. Its ability to meet the needs of heart and
conscience is derived from the fact that it is "God’s good news," who
knows perfectly what man’s need is, and has provided for it accordingly.
He who has felt its power knows well from whom it comes. The work and witness
of the Spirit of God in the soul need no witness of man to supplement them.
Even the Lord’s appeal in His own case was to the truth He
uttered: "If I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?" When He stood forth in
the Jewish synagogues, or elsewhere, He was but, in men’s eyes, a poor
carpenter’s son, accredited by no school or set of men at all. All the
weight of authority was ever against Him. He disclaimed even "receiving
testimony from men." God’s word alone should speak for God. "My doctrine
is not Mine, but His that sent Me." And how did it approve itself? By the fact
of its being truth. "If I speak the truth, why do ye not believe Me?" It was
the truth that was to make its way with the true. "He that wills to do
God’s will shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I
speak of Myself." He says: I speak the truth; I bring it to you from God; and
if it is truth, if you are seeking to do God’s will, you will learn to
recognize it as the truth. God will not leave people in ignorance and darkness
if they are seeking to be doers of His will. Can you suppose that God will
allow true hearts to be deceived by whatever plausible deceptions may be
abroad? He is able to make His voice known in those who seek to hear His voice.
And so the Lord says to Pilate, "Every one that is of the truth heareth My
voice" (John Xviii. 37). "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they
follow Me;" and, again, "a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from
him; for they know not the voice of strangers" (John x. 27, 5).
Such
is the nature of truth then, that to pretend to authenticate it to those who
are themselves true, is to dishonour it, as if it were not capable of
self-evidence; and it dishonours God, as if He could be wanting to souls, or to
what He Himself has given. Nay, the apostle says: "By manifestation of the
truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God"
(2 Cor. iv. 2). And the Lord speaks of its being the condemnation of the world
that "light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil" (John iii 19). There was no lack of evidence:
light was there, and men owned its power to their own condemnation when they
sought to escape from it.
Even so in the gift, there was "the
manifestation of the Spirit," and it was "given to every man to profit withal."
By the very fact that he had it he was responsible for using it - responsible
to Him who had not given it in vain. In the gift itself lay the ability to
minister, and title too; for I am bound to help and serve with what I have. And
if souls are helped, they need scarcely ask if I had commission to do it.
That is the simple character of ministry - the service of love,
according to the ability which God gave; mutual service of each to each, and
each to all, without jostling or exclusion of one another. Each gift was thrown
into the common treasury, and all were the richer by it. God’s blessing
and the manifestation of the Spfrit were all the needed sanction. All were not
teachers, still less public teachers, of the Word; still, in these cases the
same principles exactly applied. That was but one department of a service which
had many, and which was rendered by each to each according to his sphere.
Was there nothing else than that? Was there no ordained class at all
then? That is another thing. There were, without doubt, in the primitive Church
two classes of officials, regularly appointed,- ordained, if you like. The
deacons were those who, having charge of the fund for the poor and other
purposes, were chosen by the saints first for this place of trust in their
behalf, and then appointed authoritatively by apostles mediately or
immediately. Elders were a second class,- elderly men, as the word imports,-
who were appointed in the local assemblies as "bishops" or "overseers," to take
cognizance of their state. That the elders were the same as bishops may be seen
in Paul’s words to the elders of Ephesus, where he exhorts them to "take
heed to . . . all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers." There they have translated the word, "bishops," but in Titus they
have left it - "that thou shouldst ordain elders in every city, as I had
appointed thee; if any be blameless . . . for a bishop must be blameless" (Acts
xx. 28; Tit. i. 5,7).
Their work was to "oversee," and although for
that purpose their being "apt to teach" was a much needed qualification, in
view of errors already rife, yet no one could suppose that teaching was
confined to those who were "elders," "husbands ot one wife, having their
children in subjection with all gravity." This was a needed test for one who
was to be a bishop; "for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall
he take care of the church of God ? " (I Tim. iii. 1-7).
Whatever gifts
they had, they used, as all did, and thus the apostle directs, "Let the elders
that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, specially they who labour in
the word and doctrine" (ver. 17). But they might rule, and rule well, without
this.
The meaning of their ordination was just this, that here it was
not a question of gift, but of authority. It was a question of title to take up
and look into, often difficult and delicate matters, among people, too, very
likely in no state to submit to what was merely spiritual. The ministration of
gift was another thing, and free, under God, to all.
Thus much, very
briefly, as to Scripture doctrine. Our painful duty is now to put in contrast
with it the system I am deprecating, according to which a distinct class are
devoted formally to spiritual things, and the people - the laity - are in the
same ratio excluded from such occupation. This is true Nicolaitanism, - the
"subjection of the people."
Again I say, not only that ministry of the
Word is entirely right, but that there are those who have special gift and
responsibility (though still not exclusive) to minister it. But priesthood is
another thing, and a thing sufficiently distinct to be easily recognized where
it is claimed or in fact exists. I am, of course, aware that Protestants in
general disclaim any priestly powers for their ministers. I have no wish nor
thought of disputing their perfect honesty in this disavowal. They mean that
they have no thought of the minister having any authoritative power of
absolution; and that they do not make the Lord’s table an altar, whereon
afresh day after day the perfection of Christ’s one offering is denied by
countless repetitions. They are right in both respects; but it is scarcely the
whole matter. If we look more deeply we shall find that much of a priestly
character may attach where neither of these have the least place.
Priesthood and ministry may be distinguished in this way. Ministry (in the
sense we are now considering) is to men, priesthood is to God. The minister
brings God’s message to the people; he speaks for Him to them. The priest
goes to God for the people; he speaks, in the reverse way, for them to Him. It
is surely easy to distinguish these two attitudes.
"Praise and
thanksgiving" are "spiritual sacrifices:" they are part of our offering as
priests. Put a special class into a place where regularly and officially they
act thus for the rest, they are at once in the rank of an intermediate
priesthood, - mediators with God for those who are not so near.
The
Lord’s Supper is the most prominent and fullest expression of Christian
thankfulness and adoration, publicly and statedly. But what Protestant minister
does not look upon it as his official right to administer this? What "layman"
would not shrink from the profanation of administering it? And this is one of
the terrible evils of the system, that the mass of Christian people are thus
distinctly secularized. Occupied with worldly things, they cannot be expected
to be spiritually what the clergy are. And to this they are given over as it
were. They are released from spiritual occupations to which they are not equal,
and to which others give themselves entirely.
But this must evidently
go much further. "The priest’s lips should keep knowledge." The laity, who
have become that by abdicating their priesthood, how should they retain the
knowledge belonging to a priestly class? The unspirituality, to which they have
given themselves up, pursues them here. The class whose business it is, become
the authorized interpreters of the Word also, for how should the secular man
know so well what Scripture means? Thus the clergy become spiritual eyes and
ears and mouth for the laity, and are in the fair way of becoming the whole
body too.
But it suits people well. Do not mistake me as if I meant
that this is all come in as the assumption of a class merely. It is that, no
doubt, but never could this miserable and unscriptural distinction of clergy
and laity have obtained so rapidly as it did, and so universally, if everywhere
it had not been found well adapted to the tastes of those even whom it really
displaced and degraded. Not alone in Israel, but in Christendom also, has it
been fulfilled: "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule
through their means, and my people love to have it so!" Alas, they did, and
they do. As spiritual decline sets in, the heart that is turning to the world
barters readily, Esau-like, its spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage. It
exchanges thankfully its need of caring too much for spiritual things, with
those who will accept the responsibility of this. worldliness is well covered
with a layman’s cloak. And as the Church at large dropped out of first
love, as it did rapidly, the world began to come in through the loosely guarded
gates, and it became more and more impossible for the rank and file of
Christendom to take the blessed and wonderful place which belonged to
Christians. The step taken downwards, instead of being retrieved, only made
succeeding steps each one easier; until, in less than 300 years from the
beginning, a Jewish priesthood and a ritualistic religion were everywhere
installed. Only so much the worse, as the precious things of Christianity left
their names at least as spoils to the invader, and the shadow became, for most,
the substance itself.
But I must return to look more particularly at
one feature in this clerisy. I have noted the confounding of ministry and
priesthood; the assumption of an official title in spiritual things, of title
to administer the Lord’s Supper, and I might have added also, to baptize.
For none of these things can Scripture be found at all. But I must dwell a
little more on the emphasis that is laid on ordination.
I want you to
see a little more what ordination means. In the first place, if you look
through the New Testament you will find nothing about ordination to teach or to
preach. You find people going about everywhere freely exercising whatever gift
they had; the whole Church was scattered abroad from Jerusalem, except the
apostles, and they went everywhere preaching (literally, evangelizing) the
Word. The persecution did not ordain them, I suppose. So with Apollos. So with
Philip the deacon. There is in fact no trace of anything else. Timothy received
a gift by prophecy, by the laying on of Paul’s hands with those of the
elders, but that was gift, not authorization to use it. So he is bidden to
communicate his own knowledge to faithful men, who should be able to teach
others also; but there is not a word about ordaining them. The case of elders I
have already noticed. That of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch is the most unhappy
that can be for the purpose people use it for. For prophets and teachers are
made to ordain an apostle, and one who totally disclaims being that, "of men or
by man." And there the Holy Ghost - not confers power of ordaining any, but
says, "Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereto I have called them" -
for a special missionary journey, which it is shown afterwards they had
fulfilled. See Acts viii. 1,3; Xl. 19-21; xiii. 2-4; xviii. 24-28; i Tim. iv.
14; etc.
Now, what means this "ordination"? It means much, you may be
sure, or it would not be so zealously contended for as it is. There are, no
doubt, two phases of it. In the most extreme, as among. Romanists and
Ritualists, there is claimed for it in the fullest way that it is the
conveyance, not merely of authority, but of spiritual power. They assume, with
all the power of apostles, to give the Holy Ghost by the laying on of their
hands, and also for priesthood in the fullest way. The people of God, as such,
are rejected from the priesthood He has given them, and a special class are put
into their place to mediate for them in a way which sets aside the fruit of
Christ’s work and ties them to the Church as the channel of all grace.
Among Protestants you think, perhaps, I need not dwell on this; but it is done
among some of these also, in words which, to a certain class of them, seem
strangely to mean nothing, while another class find in them the abundant
sanction of their highest pretensions. Those, on the other hand, who rightly
and consistently reject these unchristian assumptions, do not pretend indeed to
confer any gift in ordination, but only to "recognize" the gift which God has
given. But then, after all, this recognition is considered necessary before the
person can baptize or administer the Lord’s Supper - things which really
require no peculiar gift at all. And as to the ministry of the Word, God’s
gift is made to require human sanction, and is "recognized" on behalf of His
people by those who are considered to have a discernment which the people, as
such, have not. Blind themselves or not, these men are to become "leaders of
the blind;" else why need others to be eyes for them, while their own souls are
taken out of the place of immediate responsibility to God and made responsible
unduly to man? An artificial conscience is manufactured for them, and
conditions are constantly imposed to which they have to conform in order to
obtain the needful recognition. It is well if they are not under the control of
their ordainers as to their path of service also, as they generally are.
In principle this is unfaithfulness to God: for if He has given me
gift to use for Him, I am surely unfaithful if I go to any man or body of men
to ask their leave to use it. The gift itself carries with it the
responsibility of using it, as we have seen. If they say, "But people may make
mistakes," I own it thoroughly ; but who is to assume my responsibility if I am
mistaken? And, again, the mistakes of an ordaining body are infinitely more
serious than those of one who merely runs unsent. Their mistakes are
consecrated and perpetuated by the ordination they bestow; and the man who, if
he stood simply upon his own merits, would soon find his true level, has a
character conferred upon him by it which the whole weight of the system must
sustain. Mistake or not, he is none the less one of the clerical body - a
minister, if he has nothing really to minister. He must be provided for, if
only with some less conspicuous place, where souls, dear to God as any, are put
under his care, and must be unfed if he cannot feed them.
Do not
accuse me of sarcasm; it is the system I am speaking of which is a sarcasm: a
swathing of the body of Christ in bands which hinder the free circulation of
the vitalizing blood which should be permeating unretrictedly the whole of it.
Nature itself should rebuke the folly. What enormous inference is deduced from
such Scriptural premises as that apostles and apostolic men "ordained elders"!
They must prove that they are either, and (granting them that), that the
Scripture "elder" might be no elder at all, but a young unmarried man just out
of his teens, and on the other hand was evangelist, pastor, teacher - all
God’s various gifts rolled into one. This is the minister, - according to
the system, indeed, the minister, - the all in all to the fifty or five hundred
souls who are committed to him as "his flock," with which no other has title to
interfere! Surely, surely, the brand of Nicolaitanism is upon the forefront of
such a system as this!
Take it at its best, the man, if gifted at all,
is scarcely likely to have every gift. Suppose he is an evangelist, and souls
are happily converted, he is no teacher, and cannot build them up. Or, he is a
teacher sent to a place where there are but a few Christians, and the mass of
his congregation unconverted men. There are no conversions, and his presence
there (according to the system) keeps away the evangelist who is needed there.
Thank God! He is ever breaking up these barriers, and in some irregular way the
need may be supplied. But the supply is schismnatical and a confusion: the new
wine breaks the poor human bottles.
For all this the system is
responsible. The exclusive ministry of one man, or of a number of men in a
congregation has no shred of Scripture to support it; while the ordination, as
we have seen, is the attempt to confine all ministry to a certain class, and
make it rest on human authorization rather than on divine gift; the people,
Christ’s sheep, being denied their competency to hear His voice. The
inevitable tendency is to fix upon the man the attention which should be
devoted to the word he brings. The question is, is he accredited? If he speak
truly is subordinated to the question Is he ordained? or, perhaps I should say,
his orthodoxy is settled already for them by the fact of his ordination.
Paul, an apostle, not of men, nor by man, could not have been received
upon this plan. There were apostles before him, and he neither went up to them
nor got anything from them. If there were a succession, he was a break in the
succession. And what he did he did designedly, to show that his gospel was not
after man (Gal. i. 11), and that it might not rest upon the authority of man.
Nay, if he himself preached a different gospel from that he had preached (for
there was not another), yea, or an angel from heaven (where the authority, if
that were in question, might seem conclusive), his solemn decision is, "let him
be accursed."
Authority then is nothing, if it be not the authority of
the word of God. That is the test - is it according to the Scriptures? If the
blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch? To say, "I could
not, of course know, I trusted another" will not save you from the ditch.
But the unspiritual and unlearned layman, how can he pretend to equal
knowledge with the educated and accredited minister, devoted to spiritual
things? In point of fact, in general he does not. He yields to the one who
should know better, and practically the minister’s teaching largely
supplants the authority of the word of God. Not that certainty indeed is thus
attained. He cannot conceal it from himself that people differ, wise and good
and learned and accredited as they may be. But here the devil steps in, and -
if God has allowed men’s authorities to get into a babel of confusion, as
they have - suggests to the unwary soul that the confusion must be the result
of the obscurity of Scripture, whereas they have got into it by disregarding
Scripture.
But this is everywhere! Opinion, not faith; opinion to
which you are welcome and have a right, of course; and you must allow others a
right to theirs. You may say "I believe" as long as you do not mean by that "I
know." To claim "knowledge" is to claim that you are wiser, more learned,
better, than whole generations before you, who thought opposite to you.
Need I show you how infidelity thrives upon this; how Satan rejoices
when, for the simple and emphatic "Yea" of the divine voice, he succeeds in
substituting the Yea and Nay of a host of jarring commentators? Think you, you
can fight the Lord’s battles with the rush of human opinion instead of
"the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God"? Think you, "Thus says John
Calvin, or John Wesley," will meet Satan as satisfactorily as "Thus saith the
Lord"?
Who can deny that such thoughts are abroad, and in no wise
confined to papists or ritualists? The tendency, alas, is in the heart of
unbelief ever departing from the living God, as near to His own to-day as at
any time through the centuries His Church has traveled on; as competent to
instruct as ever - as ready to fulfil the word "He that will do His will shall
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." The eyes are of the heart, and not
the head. He has hidden from wise and prudent what He reveals to babes. The
school of God is more effectual than all colleges combined, and here layman and
cleric are equal: "He that is spiritual discerneth all things," and he alone.
Substitute for spirituality there is none: unspirituality the Spirit of God
alone can remedy. Ordination, such as practised, is rather a sanction put upon
it - an attempt to manifest what is the manifestation of the Spirit, or not His
work at all, and to provide leaders for the blind whom, with all their care,
they can not insure not being blind also.
Before I close, I must say a
few words about "succession." An ordination which pretends to be derived from
the apostles must needs be (to be consistent) a successional one. Who can
confer authority (and in the least and lowest theories of ordination authority
is conferred, as to baptize and to administer the Lord’s Supper) but one
himself authorized for this very purpose? You must therefore have a chain of
ordained men, lineally succeeding one another. Apostolic succession is as
necessary on the Presbyterian as on the Episcopalian plan. John Wesley, as his
warrant for ordaining, fell back upon the essential oneness of bishop and
presbyter. Nay, presbyterians will urge against episcopalians the ease of
maintaining succession in this way. I have nothing to do with this : I only
insist that succession is needed.
But then, mark the result. It is a
thing apart from spirituality, and from truth even. A Romish priest may have it
as well as any; and, indeed, through the gutter of Rome most of that we have
around us. must necessarily have come down. Impiety and impurity do not in the
least invalidate Christ’s commission. The teacher of false doctrine may be
as well His messenger as the teacher of truth. Nay, the possession of the
truth, with gift to minister it and godliness combined, are actually no part of
the credentials of the true ambassador. He may have all these, and be none. He
may want them all, and be truly one nevertheless.
Who can believe such
doctrine? Can He who is truth accredit error? the righteous One,
unrighteousness? It is impossible. This ecclesiasticism violates every
principle of morality, and hardens the conscience that has to do with it. For
why need we be careful for truth, if He is not? And how can He send messengers
that He would not have to be believed? His own test of a true witness fails:
for "he that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory; but he that seeketh His
glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him." His
own test of credibility fails, for "if I speak the truth, why do ye not believe
Me?" was His own appeal.
No: to state this principle is to condemn it.
He who foresaw and predicted the failure of what should have been the bright
and evident witness of His truth and grace, could not ordain a succession of
teachers for it who should carry His commission, unforfeitable by whatever
failure! Before apostles had left the earth, the house of God had become as a
"great house," and it was necessary to separate from vessels to dishonor in it.
He who bade His apostle instruct another to "follow righteousness, faith, love,
peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart," cou!d not possibly
tell us to listen to men, as His ministers, who are alien from all this, and
have His commission in spite of all. And thus, notably, in the second epistle
to Timothy, in which this is said, there is no longer, as in the first, any
talk of elders, or of ordained men. It is "faithful men" who are wanted, not
for ordination, but for the deposit of the truth committed to Timothy: "The
things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou
to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."
Thus
God’s holy Word vindicates itself to the heart and conscience ever. The
effort to attach His sanction to a Romish priesthood, or a Protestant
hierarchy, fails alike upon the same ground; for as to this they are upon the
same ground. Alas, Nicolaitanism is no past thing, no obscure doctrine of past
ages, but a widespread and gigantic system of error, fruitful in evil results.
Error is long-lived, though mortal. Reverence it not for its gray hairs, and
"follow not with a multitude to do evil." With cause does the Lord say in this
case, "which thing I hate." If He does, shall we be afraid to have fellowship
with Him? That there are good men entangled in it, all must admit. There are
godly men and true ministers ignorantly wearing the livery of men. May God
deliver them; may they cast aside their fetters and be free! May they rise up
to the true dignity of their calling, responsible to God, and walking before
Him alone!
On the other hand, beloved brethren, it is of immense
importance that all His people, however diverse their places in the body of
Christ may be, should realize that they are all as really ministers as they are
all priests. We need to recognize that every Christian has spiritual duties
flowing from spiritual relationship to every other Christian. It is the
privilege of each one to contribute his share to the common treasury of gift
with which Christ has endowed His Church. Nay, he who does not contribute is
actually holding back what is his debt to the whole family of God. No possessor
of one talent is entitled to wrap it in a napkin upon that account: it would be
mere unfaithfulness and unbelief.
"It is more blessed to give than to
receive." Brethren in Christ, when shall we awake to the reality of our
Lord’s words there? Ours is a never-failing spring of perpetual joy and
blessing, which if we but come to when we thirst, out of our bellies shall flow
rivers of living water. The spring is not limited by the vessel which receives
it: it is divine, and yet ours fully - fully as can be! Oh, to know more this
abundance, and the responsibility of the possession of it, in a dry and weary
scene like this! Oh, to know better the infinite grace which has taken us up as
channels of its outflow among men! When shall we rise up to the sense of our
common dignity? to the sweet reality of fellowship with Him who "came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister?" Oh for unofficial ministry, the overflowing
of full hearts into empty ones, so many as there are around us! How we should
rejoice, in a scene of want and misery and sin, to find perpetual opportunity
to show the competency of Christ’s fulness to meet and minister to every
form of it!
Official ministry is practical independence of the Spirit
of God. It is to decide that such a vessel shall overflow, though at the time,
it may be, practically empty; and, on the other hand, that such another shall
not overflow, however full it may be. It proposes, in the face of Him who has
come down in Christ’s absence to be the Guardian of His people, to provide
for order and for edification, not by spiritual power, but by legislation. It
would provide for failure on the part of Christ’s sheep to hear His voice,
by making it, as far as possible, unnecessary for them to do so. It thus
sanctions and perpetuates unpirituality, instead of condemning or avoiding it.
It is quite true that in God’s mode of action the failure in
man's part may become more evident externally: for He cares little for a
correct outside when the heart is nevertheless not right with Him, and He knows
well that ability to maintain a correct outside may in fact prevent a truthful
judgment of what is our real condition before Him. Men would have upbraided
Peter with his attempt to walk upon those waves which made his little faith so
manifest. The Lord would only rebuke the littleness of the faith which made him
fail. And man still, and ever, would propose the boat as the remedy for
failure, instead of the strength of the Lord’s support which He wade Peter
prove. Yet, after all, the boat confessedly may fail; winds and waves may
overthrow it; but "the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters,
yea, than the mighty waves of the sea." Through these many centuries of failure
have we proved Him untrustworthy? Beloved, is it your honest conviction that it
is absolutely safe to trust the living God? Then let us make no provision for
His failure, however much we may have to own that we have failed I Let us act
as if we really trusted Him.