§ 115. The Christian Church takes shape through the coming together of regenerate individuals to form a system of mutual interaction and co-operation.
-
In the light of the practice of the Protestant Church for the strengthening of its fellowship, whether by the reception of the instructed youth of the community and by mission work, or in the transfer of individual members from other Christian communions, our proposition certainly gives right expression to the prevailing sentiment and practical methods. The practical methods are always determined with reference to regeneration; in each case, naturally, in accordance with the manner in which this conception is understood; and thus (though in most cases one cannot as yet be certain on the point) the prevailing assumption is that regeneration has come about. At least the freer a community is within its own sphere, the more strictly will it insist that those about whose regeneration there are good reasons for misgiving are not to be received as members. This would not be necessary, and indeed would be inexpedient, if those received were only being introduced into a communion where preparatory grace was at work. Now with regeneration there is always imparted a strong will for the Kingdom of God. It must therefore be a conviction common both to receivers and received, that all exert the same kind of activity; and since, belonging to the same locality, they have the same sphere of influence, every such act raises the problem afresh of ordering this common activity aright. That at the same time a mutual influence is provided for, is due not only to the fact that in each there remains much of the world, against which the common activity of the rest must be brought to bear; but also to the fact that, as none credits himself with a complete and perfect apprehension of Christ, each individual regards that of others as complementary to his own; and so a mutual and reciprocal presentation results. From this everything must be derivable that can be represented as an element in the life of the Church.
-
It seems harder, certainly, to apply all this to the original emergence of the fellowship emanating from Christ. But if we recur to the fact that already, when the activity of Christ began, there was a fellowship of those who waited for the fulfilment of their Messianic hopes, while we certainly do not assert that this was the Christian Church before Christ, yet it was a religious fellowship; there was an interchange of kindred impulses of the spirit and community in all things relating thereto. Now when several of its members came to recognize Christ, they felt no reason to dissolve their fellowship. But as it had now gained a relation to Christ which could not but create a mutual influence among them in the sense explained, they came at the same time to exercise a combined influence upon their fellow-members who had not yet attained to the recognition of Christ. These latter thus formed the outer circle, receiving from the first the preparatory operations of grace, in contrast to the inner circle from which these operations proceeded all the more forcibly that they were exactly adapted to the situation. This combined influence, however, remained subordinate and fragmentary as long as a common susceptibility to the influence of Christ was the predominant factor in their association. In this respect we may say that although a number of regenerate persons were there, yet as long as Christ’s personal activity lasted, the Church remained unconstituted, merely latent in the association of these individuals with Him.
§ 116. The origin of the Church becomes clear through the two doctrines of Election and Communication of the Holy Spirit. 1. Were it not for the connexion already established, it might perhaps seem strange to find these two conceptions thus put side by side, for they do not sound as if they were at all related; and as regards their meaning, the idea of election does not seem any more closely bound up with the communication of the Holy Spirit than with, say, conversion or justification. Now, however, it cannot surprise us. The first conception has to do with what, as was argued, in the origin of the Church, is matter of the divine government of the world, namely, the fact that those who are to form the Church must be separated out from the world. This, then, is how we view the origin of the Church, when we look backwards to the region from which its members come. The second conception has to do with what, in the individual, is the basis of the continuity of the Church’s co-operation and interaction. Now since this constitutes the very essence of the Christian Church, this conception gives the view of the Church’s origin which looks forward to the common life so arising. This common life can attain and keep true vital unity, like that of a coherent or so-called moral personality, only through the identity of that which stirs and strives in each and every individual. Through this principle, therefore, communicated to individuals as elect, the whole life and work of the Church must be explicable.
The two conceptions, however, have this in common, that they do not fit the situation in which the effective power of the new life was not as yet communicated to others, but existed solely in Christ; except in the sense in which it may be said also of Christ that He was elect, and that He possessed the Holy Spirit. Really, however, this is to assume the antithesis between the outer circle, which is the area of the preparatory operations of grace, and the inner circle from which these operations proceed. For those who are drawn within the first circle by the preaching of the gospel are not usually, in the language of the Bible or of the Church, termed ‘elect,’ unless it is as a result of the arrangements of the divine government of the world that they are thus differentiated from the rest. They are termed ‘called,’ and the other term is left for those who through regeneration are brought into the inner circle. Similarly, of this inner circle the Holy Spirit is the bond by means of which the influences exerted by individuals upon those in the outer circle form a unity, and their mutual interaction becomes, as it were, an organic system. As to the ‘called,’ however, we do not regard the Holy Spirit as having yet been communicated to them, or dwelling in and moving them.
-
Now, as regards the term ‘election’ as applied first of all to the individual, the real problem is the same. All men for us are in the state of common sinfulness, in which everything is common guilt. All thus are absolutely equal: none has any advantage in reference to the new life communicated by Christ. All are first drawn within the circle of preparatory grace; but, for one thing, the differences between them which thus arise are not attributable to themselves; and for another, there is favour shown already in the fact that some are called and others are not. Hence for this discussion we can take both together, election and the calling that precedes and relates to it. Thus everywhere, in the light of the partial success and partial failure of preaching, we can see a preference of some to others introduced by the divine government of the world without any ground for it in the persons themselves; and this can be followed out, in large things and small, not only in this sphere but also in others, which, however, lie beyond the scope of our present subject. If we conceive the incarnation of Christ as the beginning of the regeneration of the whole human race, then the erection of a permanent place for the preaching of the Gospel amongst a people through the instrumentality of the firstfruits from its own midst is the beginning of that people’s regeneration. Such a nation, then, has an advantage over those among whom the voice of preaching has had no effect. But we cannot ascribe this to a difference in merit in nations any more than in individuals. In the case of individuals the same thing happens, whether they have come in from outside or have been born within the outer circle of the fellowship. Now we certainly ascribe this to a divine ordinance, as the Redeemer Himself did;1 it is equally our part to acquiesce in it, for otherwise we should be (and that, too, in our moral consciousness) in contradiction to our God-consciousness. But we have no reason for doing so except that we rest in the will of God; about which all that we can say is, that it was not determined by the merits of anyone, so that the issue cannot be regarded in the one event as reward or in the other as punishment. For our feelings, as in the conception of election, everything else remains wholly undefined.
-
After what has been said, the expression ‘Holy Spirit’ must be understood to mean the vital unity of the Christian fellowship as a moral personality; and this, since everything strictly legal has already been excluded, we might denote by the phrase, its common spirit. Accordingly, it should not really be necessary again to give the explicit assurance that by the phrase we mean to describe exactly what even in Scripture is called the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, and in our Church doctrine is also presented as the third Person in the Godhead. That we have not here to deal with this last point is at once evident from our arrangement of this whole treatise.
But in the Christian Church, as individual influences no longer proceed directly from Christ, something divine must exist. This something we call accordingly the Being of God in it, and it is this which continues within the Church the communication of the perfection and blessedness of Christ. All this, already indicated in a preliminary way, will be more precisely expounded later. Already it is apparent that the communication of the sinless perfection and blessedness which, as an absolute and continuous willing of the Kingdom of God, is the innermost impulse of the individual, must also be the common spirit of the whole, or there could be no common spirit at all. Were there any other than this, that impulse would be subordinate to it and thus to what is less perfect than itself; in every corporate life all that is personal must be subordinated to the common spirit. On the other hand, if there were no common spirit, the Christian Church would be no true common or corporate life; yet this is what it has professed to be from the beginning as regards the divine Spirit dwelling in it, and this is how it has been accepted in the self-consciousness of every effective member. This will for the Kingdom of God is the vital unity of the whole, and its common spirit in each individual; in virtue of its inwardness, it is in the whole an absolutely powerful God-consciousness, and thus the being of God therein, but conditioned by the being of God in Christ.
← Second Aspect, Second Section. The Constitution of the World in Relation to · Contents · Election →
Footnotes
-
John 6¹⁴. ↩