“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matt. xvi. 18.
Too many persons at this day,—in spite of what they see before them, in spite of what they read in history,—too many persons forget, or deny, or do not know, that Christ has set up a kingdom in the world. In spite of the prophecies, in spite of the Gospels and Epistles, in spite of their eyes and their ears,—whether it be their sin or their misfortune, so it is,—they do not obey Him in that way in which it is His will that He should be obeyed. They do not obey Him in His Kingdom; they think to be His people, without being His subjects. They determine to serve Him in their own way; and though He has formed His chosen into one body, they think to separate from that body, yet to remain in the number of the chosen.
Far different is the doctrine suggested to us by the text. In St. Peter, who is there made the rock on which the Church is founded, we see, as in a type, its unity, stability, and permanence. It is set up in one name, not in many, to show that it is one; and that name is Peter, to show that it will last, or, as the Divine Speaker proceeds, that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” In like manner, St. Paul calls it “the pillar and ground of the truth.” [1 Tim. iii. 15.]
This is a subject especially brought before us at this time of year 1, and it may be well now to enlarge upon it.
Now that all Christians are, in some sense or other, one, in our Lord’s eyes, is plain, from various parts of the New Testament. In His mediatorial prayer for them to the Almighty Father, before His passion, He expressed His purpose that they should be one. St. Paul, in like manner, writing to the Corinthians, says, “As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ … Now ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular.” To the Ephesians, he says, “There is one Body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” [John xvii. 23. 1 Cor. xii. 12. Eph. iv. 4-6.]
And, further, it is to this one Body, regarded as one, that the special privileges of the Gospel are given. It is not that this man receives the blessing, and that man, but one and all, the whole body, as one man, one new spiritual man, with one accord, seeks and gains it. The Holy Church throughout the world, “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife,” is one, not many, and the elect souls are all elected in her, not in isolation. For instance; “He is our peace who hath made both [Jews and Gentiles] one, … to make in Himself of twain one new man.” In the same Epistle, it is said, that all nations are “fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and fellow-partakers of His promise in Christ;” and that we must “one and all come,” or converge, “in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;” that as “the husband is the head of the wife,” so “Christ is the Head of the Church,” having “loved it and given Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.” [Eph. ii. 14; iii. 6; iv. 13; v. 23-26.] These are a few out of many passages which connect Gospel privileges with the circumstance or condition of unity in those who receive them; the image of Christ and token of their acceptance being stamped upon them then, at that moment, when they are considered as one; so that henceforth the whole multitude, no longer viewed as mere individual men, become portions or members of the indivisible Body of Christ Mystical, so knit together in Him by Divine Grace, that all have what He has, and each has what all have.
The same great truth is taught us in such texts as speak of all Christians forming one spiritual building, of which the Jewish Temple was the type. They are temples one by one, simply as being portions of that one Temple which is the Church. “Ye are built up,” says St. Peter, “a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” Hence the word “edification,” which properly means this building up of all Christians in one, has come to stand for individual improvement; for it is by being incorporated into the one Body, that we have the promise of life; by becoming members of Christ, we have the gift of His Spirit.
Further, that unity is the condition of our receiving the privileges of the Gospel is confirmed by the mode in which the Prophets describe the Christian Church; that is, instead of addressing individuals as independent and separate from each other, they view the whole as of one body; viz. that one elect, holy, and highly-favoured Mother, of which individuals are but the children favoured through her as a channel. “Lift up thine eyes, and behold,” says the inspired announcement; “all these gather themselves together, and come to thee.” “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires … All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children.”