Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1436
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, September 29, 1878
“That you may know how you ought to beha ve yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and basement of the Truth.” 1 Timothy 3:15.
PAUL’S design in this Epistle was to instruct young Timothy how he should behave himself in the Church of God, so as to discharge his office as minister, evangelist and pastor with honor to himself and profit to the people. He reminds him that the Church is the house of God and in God’s own house a man ought to be upon his best behavior, for it is no light thing to draw near unto the Lord. A poor man who is called to visit a prince or king will anxiously enquire how he ought to act. We, poor creatures that we are, when we are admitted into the Church which is the house of God, should enquire what conduct will be decorous and comely in those who are admitted into the Presence of the great King and permitted to dwell within His palace gates.
Especially should each of us endeavor to behave himself aright in the house of God if we know that we are looked up to and imitated. All who teach the young, all who are parents, all who are persons of age and experience, all who occupy influential positions and especially all deacons, elders and preachers should pray the Lord that they may know how they may behave themselves in the house of God, lest inadvertently their misbehavior should be injurious to the weaker sort. Such need to learn how they should behave to their brethren, to the Elder Brother and to the great Father of all. We need to learn the ways of the house, the customs of the palace.
Part of the objective of the sermon this morning will be that those of us who are in the house of God may learn how we should behave in it—but special prominence will be given to steadfastness in the faith which makes a man not only a dweller in the Church but a pillar of it. I am not going to trouble you, this morning, with the various interpretations which have been given to the passage before us. It has been a sort of Plain of Esdraelon, where battles have been fought from time immemorial. Many suggestions have been made as to its interpretation, so as to avoid the sense given in our version because that sense has been perverted into a defense of the Romish church. It seems to me, however, looking at it as carefully as I am able to do, that our translation is about the best possible one and I feel sure that it has in it the mind
of God.
Probably the sense would never have been disputed if it had not been for the controversies which have arisen in which this verse has been misused and misrepresented. I am rather suspicious of interpretations which arise out of controversies. What have we to do with giving either a Protestant or a Catholic sense to Scripture? Is it not our duty to give the true sense, be it what it may? There can never be any justification for twisting Scripture in order to wrench it out of an enemy’s hand. Nor is there any need in this case, even if it were allowable! In vain has the Romish church tried to gather from this verse that she is the great source of truth, for the passage can never apply to her, since she has utterly gone aside from the Truth of God and is described by the Apostle in the verses which follow the text as departing from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, forbidding to marry and so forth.
Popery or no popery, let us take the Word of God in its natural and evident meaning, and we shall be instructed thereby. May God the Holy Spirit enable us to understand His own word.
I. First, I shall at some length expound the text, and then try to enforce the lesson from it. In expounding it, I see three things to note, and the first is THE GLORIOUS NAME OF THE CHURCH—“The Church of the living God.” First, it is called the Church. What is a church? It is an assembly—and a Christian Church is an assembly of faithful men—of men who know the Truth of God, believe it, acknowledge it boldly and adhere to it.
The Greek word signifies an assembly summoned out of the whole population to exercise the right of citizenship. An ecclesia, or church, is not a mob, nor a disorderly gathering rushing together without end or purpose, but a regular
assembly of persons called out by Grace and gathered together by the Holy Spirit. Those persons make up the assembly of the living God! In order to be a Christian Church, there must be a selection and a calling out—and that calling must come from God who alone can call effectually. Touching all the members of this select assembly there is an eternal purpose which is the original reason of their being called—and to each of them there is an effectual calling whereby they actually gather into the Church.
Then, also, there is a hedging and fencing about of this Church, by which it is maintained as a separate body, distinct from all the rest of mankind. The command which calls them away from the world is very clear—“Come out from among them and be you separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” The Church is not a number of unregenerate people coming together entirely of their own notion to defend such-and-such dogmas. Such persons may form a club, but they cannot make a Church! There must be a coming together of renewed men, in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit—and these must meet for purposes which God Himself ordains—and be joined together after His own fashion.