1 Timothy 3:15 But if I tarry long, that you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God… I am to treat of the Church as the promoter of soul-life among men who are already really regenerate. Let us proceed, then, to inquire whether or not the Church sustains a developing and perfecting relation to the soul-life of its own numbers. I take the ground that it does sustain such a relation, and I argue this — I. FROM THE GENERAL DRIFT OF DIVINE REVELATION AS TO THE INFLUENTIAL POSITION WHICH THE CHURCH SUSTAINS IN THE GREAT REDEMPTIVE ECONOMY. One of the grandest facts in the history of man is, that God has never taken one discoverable step, nor put forth one visible act, for his redemption, but through the Church. This is true both of the primary and completed history of redemption. Not a priest was consecrated, not an altar was built, not a victim was appointed, not a bard touched his lyre, not a prophet raised his voice, and not a hope was cherished in the primary dispensation under the law, but through the Church. When the elaborated principles and purposes of redemption were fully enunciated in the finished acts of the gospel, still God spoke and acted by the Church. His disciples were living scions of the same goodly fellowship. Not a miracle did Christ work, not a truth did He utter, not a pang did He endure, but for His Church. And His servants were as their Master in this matter. Every journey which they made, every insult which they received, every book which they penned, and every martyrdom which they welcomed, was for the Church. From all this, it is clear that the Church is not a matter of trivial import in the world, but is one of the great moral forces in the universe. She is no less than the subservient apparatus of redeeming love, the scaffolding which men and angels mount to pry into the secret architecture, and steal a thought from this stupendous temple. So that the Church is not the arbitrary mandate of the servant, but is the authoritative institution of the Lord. She was to form a sort of centre in Jehovah's boundless empire, the palace of the great King, from which He should sway the sceptre of moral administration in mercy and in peace. II. FROM THE INTIMATE RELATIONS WHICH EXIST BETWEEN HER AND "CHRIST OUR LIFE." One of the most difficult points in this discussion will be to define, with anything like clearness and comprehensiveness, the specific union which binds Christ and His Church together. Happily our text introduces us into the central idea of this unity by the use of the one word "living" — "The Church of the living God." This fearful appellation of the Deity is used very seldom in the Scriptures, and never but upon occasions and subjects of very great importance. For instance, we find it in the deep soul-struggle of David when he cries, "My soul thirsteth for God, the living God," indicating the most intense longings of an immortal soul after its original life-sources. Again, it is used in the supernatural revelation of Christ's Divinity, made to Peter: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." She is called the "Church of the living God." Now, we never read of the Church as the "Church of the most high God," although we read of the "servants of the most high God." We never read of the Church of the everlasting God, although we read of the "commandment of the everlasting God." We never read of the Church of the holy God, although we read that the "Lord our God is holy": nor of the Church of the mighty God, although we read of Christ, that "His name shall be called the Mighty God." But when the inspired pen comes to give us the intricacies of His relations to the Church this mystical language is invoked. She is coupled with Him either as the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, or as Mount Zion, the city of the living God. Herein we discover the nice distinction which the Holy Spirit uses in gospel definition. The Church is united to Christ, not as a dead bride, "for He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." She is allied to Him, not as to a God of the imagination, but as to the Fountain of all vitality. She possesses Him, not as the personated ideal life of God, but as the God of life — "the living God." Here, then, life throbs after life. To be sure, God is the cause of all causes, the life of all lives, the prolific original of every existence. He is not only the Universal Life, but the "living God" universal. In Him all lives "live and move and have their being," from leviathan that lashes the ocean into fury, to the insect that imperceptibly wheels in the eddies of the air. But in the Church there is an embodiment of every attribute and perfection of "the living God," which forms an inherent indwelling, and not a mere relation of influence. The life of His inferior creatures gives expression to His government, but the Church gives expression to His personality, to all His moral nature, and you can see it nowhere else as you find it there. God dwells in the midst of His Church in tangible reality. The Church can say, as no other body of men can say, "We are made partakers of the Divine nature." The life of the Church has been her most glorious characteristic; for it is a remarkable fact that, outside of the Church, no great moral forces have yet been discovered in the elevation and salvation of the race. III. FROM THE GENERAL TENOR OF SCRIPTURAL THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION, WHICH TREATS OF THE CHURCH AS THE CHURCH. IV. FROM THE HISTORICAL LIFE-DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CHURCH ITSELF. Real soul-life has always been found in the Church, and it has not been found out of it. God has always largely wrought out the life of the Church by the Church. Men never look elsewhere for light but to the sun. Men never look for soul-life but to the Church. Sometimes that life has been extremely feeble in the Church. The reason is, that, like all other sorts of life, it has always dissolved itself in a succession of classified manifestations. You always find it in the same place and under the same conditions. You always find flower-life in the rosebud, and forest life in the forests. You always find sympathetic life in the heart, and intellectual life in the brain. Where, then, will you look for soul-life but in the Church? Where will you look for this overmastering impulse but where the living God has planted it? Life of His planting is deep seated in that palpitating soul-nature which is so nearly allied to His own essence. You can only see it in its developments. But where it exists there will inevitably be "first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." The Divine life will develop itself in its fecundity of blessings. A living Deity must have a living temple. Yet no device of man can fabricate this life; every spark of the fire and every form of the flame is from "the living God." Man's appendages may enfeeble it, mystic observances may out-dazzle it, but it burns divinest in its own radiance. These are my arguments in support of the proposition that the Church sustains a developing and perfecting relation to the soul-life of its own members. Soul-life in the Church is capable of enkindling the same life in others. The newly-awakened power of this fellow ship out-weighs all other feelings, and subordinates them to itself. It betokens a coincidence of motive, sentiment, and principle, which enhances the life of the whole body, and blends the common force of the community into the tenderest relationships. Their organic life is a sacred trust, and "the living God" claims its use. They are the leaven, and in a silent, secret process of fermentation they are, by the forces of their continued operations, to diffuse the moisture through every particle of the mass. And yet no one must lose himself in the aggregate — no one must invite insignificance. The most self-depreciating member can stamp the impress of his moral life on every other living soul of the fellowship. (T. Armitage, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. |
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