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Uh, shall we begin by reading one Corinthians chapter five? One Corinthians chapter five. It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles, that one of you hath his father's wife. And ye are puffed up, and did not rather mourn that he that had done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him that hath so wrought this thing. In the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ. Wherefore let us keep the feast not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators, not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters, for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I write unto you not to keep company if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner. With such a one know not to eat. For what have I to do with judging them that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within, whereas them that are without, God judges? Put away the wicked man from among yourselves. Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or know ye not that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know you not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? If then ye have to judge things pertaining to this life, do you set them to judge who have no, are of no account in the church? I say this to move you to shame. Is it so that there cannot be found among you one wise man who shall be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers. Now God himself lead us in our, uh, our thinking. I want to push ahead this morning in this session, uh, with, uh, our study of one Corinthians and Allied Scripture, looking at, uh, New Testament principle and practice. For all I know, some of you may be screaming inside, uh, feeling that this is largely irrelevant. That this is, uh, perhaps the counsel of perfection. This is idealism. Uh, this was what happened in a remote past, but now in the realities of this modern world, with centuries of development between the New Testament and us, it is no longer practical. And the councils of the New Testament are no longer capable of being put into practice. And therefore, it is largely irrelevant to spend time considering these principles and the practice of the New Testament. It is, of course, the fact that there has been a colossal amount of development in the church, nowhere more so than in the topic that I want to raise this morning, the topic of church government and And discipline. discipline. But then it seems to me that our views will, on this matter, will of course partly be colored by how we regard Holy Scripture. Whether we regard these particular scriptures as nothing more or little more than museum pieces that we may read and say, well, how interesting, is that how they did it? Well, so. But now, of course, we do it somehow else, but, uh, how interesting they did it that way. Whether we regard Holy Scripture as binding and authoritative. Hence my emphasis on Friday night to try a- a- a- and develop the, uh, the thesis that it is not merely the individual, uh, things that, uh, uh, Paul corrects that are so important, but more important, the kind of consideration he brings to bear on the topic. It is, of course, my contention, as you have already seen, that the kind of contention that he brings to bear, the consideration he brings to bear upon each difficulty, are not merely matters of expediency, but of fundamental principle that in their nature, in its nature, uh, must be permanent. Then, of course, we oughtn't perhaps altogether to overlook the present climate of opinion and resurgence of interest in Christendom at large in these matters pertaining to the church. Nowadays, over in Ireland, we have far more opportunity for witness to the Lord and to the gospel in the stricter sense of that term among Roman Catholics than perhaps have been possible for centuries. I find myself monastery crawling these days. Hmm. And it is very interesting to hear it at all levels. With the priests, the religious nuns and monks and canons and what have you in the Roman Catholic Church, this widespread resurgence of interest in what the New Testament has to say about the church. A year ago, I was sitting in a convent, uh, it was an assumptionist convent, talking to the nun who, uh, is their theologian, quite a high-powered theologian. Uh, hadn't it been for illness, she would have been out in the Far East lecturing their bishops and whatnot. And she was telling me how dreadfully tired they were because they were working some seven hours a day. I said, on uh, whatever for? Uh, well, she said, you see, we're changing the rules of our order. These rules grew up, you know, in the Middle Ages, eh, people thought then that these disciplines were good to develop a holy life, but it's come to be, she said, that people think that holiness is just by keeping the rules, and of course that's all nonsense. Uh, holiness is not keeping rules, it's being led by the Holy Spirit. And here she was expounding to me as though I were some pagan who'd never heard these things. Uh, she said, you know, we must, we must get back to the New Testament. Oh, no, I see. She said, you see, things have changed, but we must get back to the principle of the New Testament, to the simplicity of the New Testament. You see, she said, the New Testament, uh, likens the church to a body with all the members functioning. We try to do that, she says. We hold retreats and and and um, we aim to have a a a nun and a monk and a layman all taking part, you see. Because it's not just one man doing it, it's it's all the members of the body. We've got to get back to this being led by the Holy Spirit and all the members of the body functioning. I said, oh, say, will that lead to a diminution of the power of the priest? I'm afraid it will, she said, but we can't help that. And you've probably read or seen, uh, the book by Cardinal, oh, what is his name? I, I, I never heard it pronounced, so I don't know how to pronounce it. Uh, SUENENS. Uh, Co-responsibility in the Church, in which the learned cardinal is arguing that, uh, in this modern climate where authority is challenged at every level, we must have a another look at the institutions that have grown up in Christendom and see, uh, what things are permanent, how far it does reflect the basic principles of the New Testament that Christ designed for his church, and how much has been added by way of expediency down the ages that we must now have the courage, if need be, necessary, to, to throw out. And if there is this, uh, resurgence of interest in the New Testament among such an extreme right-wing body as the Roman Catholic Church, perhaps we evangelicals, if we are that, oughtn't to lag behind them in this interest. Now, as I say, um, uh, this passage introduces us to the question of church discipline. First of all, the level of individual church at Corinth, then we may take leave, perhaps, to consider it in a wider context. So, to come back to my general thesis once more, will you observe that what Paul says about church discipline isn't just a matter of expediency of the moment? It does concern the matter of people's salvation. Did you notice what were the overriding concerns as he talked about the disciplining of this unfortunate man who had fallen? He said that these things must be done to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. And anything that affects our salvation cannot be left, can it, merely as a matter of expediency. It is, I suggest to you, a false dichotomy to think that salvation is sort of the evangelical side of our activity in that little compartment there. After that, well, of course, now we, we go our own way. Church principles are, uh, practice are merely a ma- o- of a smooth organizational running. That is not so. The way we run our churches and what we do is an integral part of people's salvation. And in so solemn a matter as this, the disciplining of a man that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. This surely, at least I would want to contend, i- i- i- i- i- is a matter of the utmost importance, and therefore this, if nothing else, obliges us to look at our church practice, uh, lest our practices, uh, conflict with the interests of people's salvation. Now. Now, the excommunication of this man at Corinth, with a view to his salvation, his restitution to the church, according to my reading of two Corinthians, uh, but his uh uh eventual salvation, um, raises a very basic matter. And you'll hear Paul speak of this at the end of the chapter when he says, now it is our responsibility, and then with great apostolic tact he says, in fact, it's your responsibility. A matter of, of no small significance. He is not just acting as a one-man band, is he? When it comes to disciplining this man, he wants the whole church at Corinth to do it. You do it. To say. I shall be there, at least in spirit I shall be there, the power of the Lord Jesus there, but the function is not, uh, so to speak, an apostolic function, the apostle does it. You do it. This, uh, church at Corinth, this group of Christians at Corinth, they have their direct responsibility for government in their church. Matthew says now, it's our job, or your job rather, to judge those that are within as distinct from those that are without. So in these days, there was a within the church and there was a without the church, which was all plain, forward, and straight, simple when the church was all young and fresh, a minority, a very small minority group in the middle of a city that was, uh, for the rest, quite pagan. But now, uh, if you think about this vexed matter of church government, church, uh, uh, uh, uh, dealing with the offenders and so forth and so on, you will remember that as, uh, uh, the, uh, uh, centuries passed by, great changes came over Christendom. Notable, notably at that great crisis when old Constantine gave up his paganism, did he, and became a Christian. And there ceased to be a within and without when it came to matters of church government. And the church, with its spiritual power, joined with the civil power, and the church and the magistrate became merely two a- aspects of the same thing. I needn't tell you, who are better historians than I am, the tremendous implications o- of this for subsequent centuries, uh, both politically and ecclesiastically. The concept that now, in a given community, because the civil magistrates were Christian, that the whole community was Christian. And that government in the church was not merely a spiritual matter, but a matter that concerned the civil magistrate. Everybody had got to be in the church. If not, he was being disloyal to the civil power. And people like Augustine quoted, uh, the words of our Lord in the parable of the Great Supper, did they not? If sinners wouldn't be converted by fair means... Well, no, that's not right, because he thought they were all fair means. But if they wouldn't be converted by gentle means, then they had to be brought into the church by other means, that's all. Compel them to come in, said Augustine, quoting the word- our Lord's words of the servants who were told to go out into the highways and the byways and compel the people to come into the great sun. Compel them to come in. And Divines argued that if people were so impenetrably wicked that they wouldn't get converted anyway and come into the church, then they must be be compelled to come into the church. And being compelled to come into the church, they would, it was hoped, gradually see sense and uh, uh, grow up into salvation somehow, but into the church they must come. They must have their infants baptized. They must be Christians. All that sorry history of persecution in the Middle Ages stemmed largely from this, didn't it? And And when when the reformers came along, you'll remember the, uh, disagreements that, uh, those dear and godly men had among themselves as whether they should perpetuate this system or not. And Luther, as others of the reformers, in the end struggling, uh, one cannot be but sympathetic with their difficulties, struggling against the mass might of Rome encased in her, uh, the armor of her civil power, felt the only possible way to survive was likewise to embrace the same principle and have the church and state one, and the gospel supported by the civil power. So that the reformers fell likewise to persecuting people who took a different view. To be an anabaptist, when Luther was in power, was a terrible crime. They'd as like bind you and cast you into the bottom of the lake, give you a taste of your baptism all over again, so to speak, as they would do anything. Because it was held that the whole of Christianity would crumble. The whole of God's interests would, uh, be broken up and shattered if people were allowed their individual conscience, and the magistrate was not, uh, given power to coerce people into conforming to the doctrines of the church. I don't suppose we in this modern age would like ourselves as Christians to be associated with all the terrible bondage and the degradation to human dignity that resulted from that view of the church. Discrimination on the basis of faith enforced by the civil magistrate. This This is is, to say the least, an ex- uh, an exceedingly important question. And your answer, uh, to the question whether it should or should not be done will in some part, I suppose, uh, turn on whether you think the church is nothing more than Judaism, nothing different from Judaism, and is to meant to proceed on the same principles as Judaism. You remember now what happened in Old Testament days, of course. Uh, if I may use the term church, it's a little bit inappropriate, but if I may use the term church, church and state were one and were meant to be one. Deuteronomy says, uh, that, uh, the Israelites living in city A over here, if they heard that in city B there was a heretic, and he was teaching the people idolatry and drawing the people away after false gods, they were to rise up as one man, and they would go to that city and deal with him, no uncertain manner. And the kings and the sovereigns were responsible, were they not? And you'll see instances of this in the great revivals that happened in Israel, where it was the king leading the people and binding themselves into a covenant with God that they were to be the Lord's people. And if Jezebel, that unfortunate soul, uh, uh, introduced prophets of Baal into the land, you slaughtered them at the edge of the sword if you were an Elijah. So say. Now, is the church meant to do that? Is the church on the same footing as Israel? Are you to think that since Augustine, uh, since Constantine, i- i- if not before, everybody in a country, so to speak, is Christian? They're one and the same thing, church and state are one? The question is raised, of course, very early on in the Acts of the Apostles, in chapter twelve of the Acts. Remember chapter twelve? there's a story of Herod's antics. Herod didn't like the Christians. So i- it says that about that time Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the church, and he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. And that was bad enough, for Herod was a straight old pagan. But now the next verse is pathetic in my, in my estimation. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. Those were the days of unleavened bread. When he had taken him, he put him in prison and delivered him to the four quaternions of soldiers to guard him, intending after Passover, after the Passover, to bring him forth to the people. It pleased the Jews. Here was Judaism finding itself unable to cope with this new movement rising amongst it, this powerful new movement of Christians with their gospel that was beginning to triumph. Despairing of other methods, they were glad at heart when old pagan Herod used his civil power to begin to try and s- and and stop the Christians. There's a little bit of pathos, isn't there, in the remark by the historian that he put him in prison at the time of unleavened bread, and uh, he was about to bring him out after Passover. Passover? Passover. Do you remember what Passover was all about? The insistent cry of God to Pharaoh through Moses was, let my people go that they may worship me. No, says Pharaoh, let them stay here and worship. No, said God through Moses, I want my people to be utterly free to worship God as they, as their conscience directs. And And Israel Israel. owed its beginning and its whole setup to God's intervention to secure them freedom from the civil power of pagan magistrates to worship God according to their own conscience. Within Israel, yes, as the people of God, they had right to judge according to the methods that God laid them down in those days. They had right to judge those that were in Israel, but to import a pagan, and, uh, such a one as Herod, to try and squash and make these Christians conform, this was a sad forgetting of their own basic principle of Passover. Now, you who think otherwise must forgive me when I say this. Believe me, I say it without any rancor, as far as I know, without any rancor of party spirit. But if you would talk like this to my Roman Catholic friends, they would want to maintain, of course, that Constantine and the whole setup, they were all Christians. And it was only Christian magistrates using the sword, you see. Were they Christians? Has there ever been such a thing as a Christian country? Well, of course, according to the Roman Catholic, uh, view, yes, because all the parents were forced to have all the babies baptized, and once the baby was baptized, it was a Christian. Well, if you can make people Christians that way, you can have a whole country ba- uh, Christian fairly quickly. But it is no small issue, is it? And if there is no such thing as the regeneration of infants through baptism, then what you are doing by making people join the church in that method is simply importing unregenerate people in the church. This is a very, very big matter, and I ask you to notice that it comes back once more to our whole concept of the gospel. This This isn't isn't some little matter about which we perhaps are free to make up our own minds. It comes right down fundamental to what it means to be a Christian. Whether the church is a group of regenerate people, or whether it was meant to be a mixture all the way along. Let me come, therefore, just to complete this part of my remarks, to observe that even in, uh, Roman Catholic Church, so my friends therein tell me, there is developing a, a, a, a, a, a quite a sizable conscience on these matters. I spent two days just the other, uh, month, uh, lecturing students in a white fra- in a white father's college. It was good stuff. I had my model of the tabernacle there. And wow, you have to be careful whose corns you tread on, don't you? From first to last, if you start talking about the, the, the great copper altar in the court, you know, the great question of sacrifice, and the priests, uh, in Israel stood daily offering the same sacrifice, and then you... And then you read Hebrews about our great priest who offered one sacrifice or sin forever and sat down, full stop. Well, you have to be very tactful, or perhaps you don't. I don't know. Sitting with the principal at breakfast the next morning, we felt we were discussing Charles Davis and so forth and so on. And he said, you know the reason why Charles Davis had to get out of church was he was so conservative. Oh, he said, that's a new slant on things. Yes, he said, yes, you see. He- he interpreted it all so literally, uh, that it became a tremendous prison house to him, and the only way he could cope with that was to get out. He said, if only he'd been a bit more liberal, he wouldn't have found it such a prison house, and he could have kept in. Hmm, he said yes. Um, well, he said, you know, of course, all this business about the Pope, infallibility of the Pope. You see, he took it literally. How on earth else you should have taken literally according to Council of Trent and all the other councils, who knows, but still. He said, but um, that was an old feudal idea. Ooh. The church, uh, de- developed these, uh, structures, he said, you know, in those feudal days when men's idea of society was feudal, with the overlord telling the serfs what to do. Of course, he said, we've got to modify that now, haven't we? And, uh, he said, you see, well, some of us get blamed, he said, because on television and things, we we don't all say what we, uh, what we think, and people say, why don't you come clear? He said, but you might upset a lot of people if you say exactly what you think. So we confine ourselves to affirming what we can affirm for the moment, and we hope that in the next, uh, twenty or so years, uh, things will change. I do remember sitting in Trinity College in Dublin, uh, talking to or being talked to by, uh, a German student, one of Hans Küng's, uh, crowd. He lashed out so strongly against Irish Roman Catholicism that I, as an Englishman, found myself sticking up for the Irish. You might judge thereby how bad it was. Oh, he said, it's nothing but superstition. All this business of lights at the Mass, all this business of baptismal regeneration, just give us twenty years, we shan't have it in the church. Couldn't help thinking perhaps he's a bit optimistic. But it did seem to me there was some truth in it, that this sort of superstructure of government, church government, which you'll find in its fullest expression in Roman Catholicism, was very much a product of that kind of feudal thinking. It is not anything like anything that you will find anywhere in the New Testament. One final word before we proceed then to more detailed stuff. One final word on this matter of church discipline. Here in this chapter, the Corinthians are solemnly charged before God and the Lord Jesus. To discipline this man and put him out of the church. Now, that gives rise to a matter, uh, that, uh, came up, I think, on Friday. Some people have held that it wasn't ours, and it isn't ours, to exercise such discipline, that any such attempt to discipline is the height of priggishness, self-conceit, and pharisaism. That our Lord never intended the church to be just a body of Christian people. He himself said it was going to be like a field full of wheat and tares. Excuse me, I keep quoting Roman Catholics, but I, I, I live among them and work among them, and you know their argument, don't you? You can have a priest, he may be an utter rotter. I've had them telling me this in detail. You can have an utter rotter. But you see, because he's a priest official in the church, then he's the representative of God. And the argument goes like this. If you were coming up in your e-tai jag, uh, to a, a, a crossing, a road crossing, you know, and a policeman stood there and put his hand up and said, stop. And you said, well, I know that chap. Beats his wife, lives with other women, horribly immoral man he is, gets drunk. Oh, I'm taking notice of him. Well, of course, you wouldn't, you wouldn't argue so foolishly. You would say, yes, well, I know that chap is a perfect rotter, but then he represents the Queen. I respect the Queen, therefore I bow to him. And they would sad say, at least that's how they argued to me, to see you can have a priest who's out of rotter, that he represents Christ, really? That the church is really meant to be a field of wheat plus tares? Now, that cannot be, else there is a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, an outright contradiction between that cha- passage of Matthew thirteen and this present passage, one Corinthians five. In Matthew thirteen, certainly, as the parable goes, the servants came and said, would you root, would you that we root them out? And the, uh, Lord's reply was, oh, certainly not. Don't you try and root up these tares, lest in rooting up the tares, you root up the wheat. But there, of course, the servants being talked to were not elders in the church, they were angels. And the matter at hand was not a question of excommunication, uh, from the church, but the question of the final judgment. The tears that did get eventually rooted out, they were rooted out, uh, a- a- and done up into bundles, and I'm afraid they were put into the lake of fire. That is none of our responsibility, uh, to say, uh, to root people up and put them in the lake of fire. No, no. But it is altogether a different situation here. This man being put out is regarded as a believer, isn't he? At least he's called a brother. And the whole object of the exercise for this man that has so grievously fallen is that, uh, he may be so disciplined. They're being brought to repentance and restored. Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. I would want to submit to you anyway, I'd be interested to hear what you think on the matter, that there is no contradiction between this chapter, uh one Corinthians five, and Matthew chapter thirteen, the parable of the tares and wheat. Uh, they are talking about two completely different things. Now, the question o- of church government and discipline raises, uh, the more detailed matter of the offices of the church. Now, I'd like to turn now, uh, um, uh, to the first the broad question of government in the church, and then the, uh, more restricted matter of government of the local church. Uh, Paul says in this chapter five that the Corinthians are to do the judging. He pictures the whole church being gathered together, himself there in spirit, power of the Lord Jesus there, and that church acting. It's their job. As far as I'm aware, you will never read anywhere in the New Testament of one church being asked to interfere in the affairs of another church. Consider what this means in terms of individual freedom and responsibility. You may think I'm a narrow-minded, with axes to grind galore. But of course, what is at stake in this matter is freedom, spiritual freedom. Let me recur to, first of all, to this in the context of the spread of the gospel. What was our Lord's intention for the spread of the gospel? How was it to be controlled? There came the critical moment when it was the Lord's will that the gospel should go out to the Gentiles. And of course, the Luke the historian spends a long time talking about it. Now, there were in the church, as uh the si- the sequel showed, there were in the church uh very strong feelings about the matter, that you shouldn't go and eat with Gentiles. So what? Peter got an urge, did he? To go. So they called all the apostles together, and they said, brethren, may we go? No, no, no, no, no. Peter got hungry one lunchtime. And went up on the housetop to eat, had a vision. The Lord said, go, and mercifully, without consulting James, he went. For had he consulted James, he mightn't have been there yet. Uh, you may think this is, I say, an axe to grind. I hold it exceedingly important for the spread of the gospel, the freedom of the gospel. There was a living Christ directing operations immediately with Peter, and off Peter goes. Doesn't despise his brethren at Jerusalem that were the apostles, other apostles. Uh, when he came back, he was called onto the carpet, and all, uh, honor to Peter, he went and stood on the carpet and gave account of himself to his brethren. There wasn't any horrid spirit, uh, of isolation, but there was this tremendous principle of Christ's immediacy of control and direction for the spread of the gospel. You take the next big issue, uh, then the Acts of the Apostles deals with it in the same context. Uh, people got scattered from Jerusalem, uh, because of the persecution that arose about Stephen, and also went toddling down the road, hither and thither and whatnot. And first of all, they spoke the gospel to none but Jews. It sounds incredible in our ears that anybody could ever think that the gospel was only just for Jews, doesn't it? Uh, and the astounding, uh, uh, uh, difference that came, it sounds curious, doesn't it? One day somebody got an idea, why not preach it to Gentiles as well? Wow, it was absolutely revolutionary. Fancy that, preaching the gospel to a Gentile. Um, so they preached gospel to Gentiles, and lo and behold, a lot of Gentiles got saved. And what then? Well, they began to meet together in Antioch, and a church was formed. And the old apostles at Jerusalem had nothing to do with it. As I pointed out on Saturday, the words are exceedingly important in the Acts because this is a responsible history, is it not? And at this critical juncture in church history, when now you had a church outside Judea, in Antioch, that had been formed not by the apostles in Jerusalem, and had this remarkable feature that it was a church now compounded of Jew and Gentile. A condition that didn't exist in Jerusalem. What would Jerusalem do? This was a vast new development in the church. And when they came down, it is, uh, uh, said, and I- I commend you, uh, FJA Hort on this particular, a- a- and on this whole area of, um, uh, uh, study of church history, the famous FJA, you know, um, a very fair study indeed of the New Testament evidence. Points out in this very particular, they came down, did Barnabas, he wasn't even a first rate apostle, was he? He didn't send down first rate apostles with big guns to say, look here, you will maintain loyalty to the see of Peter or something like that. Uh, they they sank down, Barnabas it was who came, and when he saw the grace tain to Theu, when he saw the grace, the grace that was of God is the operative word. God had done it. I recognized this thing in Antioch as a spontaneous work of God, and they had the grace and wisdom to say, now, brethren, the main thing you must do is what? Cleave to us at Jerusalem and accept our jurisdiction? They said, you cleave to the Lord, brethren. In their wisdom, confident that if those men cleave to the Lord, as they in Jerusalem were attempting to cleave to the Lord. The result would be the right kind of unity of spirit, preserving that freedom that is so essential for the spontaneous progress of the gospel. Now, forgive me if I make this point very bluntly, won't you? You fellows and girls that are starting out in life and you want to serve the Lord. Think twice before you accept of our system of government that has no authority in the New Testament, and you surrender any of your freedom. As I read this, these great massive bits of machinery that men have invented, they haven't always been helpful towards the spontaneous spread of the gospel, have they? The Lord wants to have direct control over you. And may I interject this here, of course you may scalp me afterwards, uh, uh, or or Mr. Nye sitting over there may scalp me. Um, uh, I am not brought here to to to put Roseford Hall's viewpoint. They may disagree with me for all I know. Nor am I now at the moment even giving you the viewpoint of the church of which I am a member, that is a certain church in Apsley Street in Belfast. Nor am I asking you to join any group of churches. What I'm saying is that for the spread of the gospel's sake, you preserve your freedom of direct responsibility to the Lord Jesus. Here, oh, you'll say Council of Jerusalem. Don't read FJA Hort. Yeah. In his very persuasive passages, pointing out, uh, what was really involved in that Council of Jerusalem and the, uh, grace and tact with which the, uh, people of that church wrote, uh, their letter when they sent it round. Uh, as Hort puts it, relying on moral authority, not official authority. But I, I commend it too, he puts it better than I could. He also calls our attention, perhaps we ought to look at it in this matter, uh, to the, the famous passage in Galatians chapter two. Um, Galatians chapter two. verse six. Now from those who were reputed to be somewhat, whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me. God accepteth not men's persons. They, I say, who were of repute, imparted nothing to me. Contrariwise, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the gospel of the circumcision, for he that wrought for Peter unto the apostleship of the circumcision wrought for me also unto the Gentiles. And when they perceived the grace that was given unto me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the Gentiles and they after the circumcision. Only they would that we should remember the poor, which very thing I was also zealous to do. Now, they are exceedingly strong words. Particularly that phrase, whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me. Wow, he's talking of apostles. What do you conceive to have been the relations on the, uh, between the twelve apostles? Was old Peter in charge? With the final word? Oh no. Paul is very careful to explain here in Galatians that when he went up to Jerusalem, he didn't go up there because he was summoned, I come here. Sort of a heresy trial held at headquarters. Hanks Coon and Shitty Beaks and all the rest of them coming up, come here. No, no. He went up, he said, by revelation, because God told him this would be a good thing to do. And when he went up, he said, made no difference to me who they were. He makes it very clear that had those good men in Jerusalem differed from him over this matter of the gospel and whether people ought to be circumcised or not circumcised, he wouldn't have taken a heap of notice of it. There could have sat there an angel from heaven, he said, but if he'd have thought anything else, I would not have listened to him. That's strong language, isn't it? Paul will fight for his own independence as an apostle. Oh yes, he has more sense than to say, I don't care what they believe. When people came down to Antioch, of all places, you know this, you know where it was, don't you, this, uh, this church at Antioch, and said that the apostles in Jerusalem taught a different gospel from Paul and Barnabas. Paul went up to Jerusalem, not to be told what he could preach and what he was to preach, but to get a public statement from all the apostles and elders at Jerusalem that they in Jerusalem taught exactly the same as Paul taught elsewhere. It would have been a tragic thing if the i- idea had been allowed, of course, to become fixed that Paul and Peter taught different things. Peace be to Morton's computer, even in this late age. Paul and Peter taught exactly the same. But not to be tiresome, not too tiresome, I am some tiresome, of course, but not to be too tiresome. I point out to you, uh, what, uh, uh, this, uh, lecture on church history in Galatians is doing and what it's all about. The matter of the relations between the apostles, Paul's independence, you say, is this a matter where it doesn't really, if you, it's a matter of expediency? Oh, no, no, no. This whole chapter of church history is here in the epistle to the Galatians because Paul is fighting for the very fundamental of the gospel. It's not an irrelevancy to the gospel. If you want to keep clear the glorious sovereign freedom of the gospel and the truth of the gospel, one of these days you'll have to fight tooth and nail too for Paul's independence. I will remember, let me tell you a story. There was a good man in Belfast, uh, who was much attracted to becoming a monk in the, uh, higher regions of the Church of Ireland. And, uh, his friends who work in the same architect's office as he thought it would be a good thing if he came and ha- ha- had a little natter with me. So he came one afternoon, and we talked about this and that and other things, and set the ball rolling, I said, um, well, now tell me, um, uh, what would you say that you're resting your hope of salvation on? Well, she said, my baptism. Oh yes, I said, very good. Yes, she said, I, what I mean is I don't agree with you evangelicals at all, preaching to people they've got to have this personal experience, emotional experience, this subjective something in the dark, and he said, I put my faith in the objective thing, we'll say my baptism. I said, very good. So we got nattering, and uh, presently he felt you're observing that there really oughtn't to be all these differences between Christians, and I said, no. I said, of course, I, I, I can't help saying, excuse me for giving you this dig in the ribs, but I, I can't help saying that, um, I would find it very difficult to be a Roman Catholic if for the church that you're so enamored with, he'd been holding forth on the glories of the Cistercians, you'll see, uh, the Trappist monks around our part of the world. Yeah, I said, the church that you are seem to be so enamored with curses me. No, no, he said, no, no, yes, it does. It says that if you are sure of salvation, that this is terrible pride and worthy to be anathema. Well, he said you shouldn't be sure anyway. I said, how not? Well, he said, you know, nothing that defiles can enter into heaven. And you see, uh, we're all so, uh, defiled, aren't we? None of us could be sure. He said, that's why perhaps after death we must still go through long ages of cleansing. We should not get into heaven with anything defiled in us. Well, I said, I see. So what's to do? Well, he said, you see, you have to strive. I said, I begin to get the impression that, after all, you're not trusting your baptism or chance. It much depends on your striving, doesn't it? That, I nearly said, was the curse of this baptism thing of infants. We can talk to people like this and Roman Catholics. Yes, they're justified by faith, of course they are justified by faith. But what they're talking about is this baptismal regeneration stuff. They haven't been justified, what will I dare please to call their first justification, hereafter, of course, it depends on their efforts to keep them right, and they hope one day to get it. Obviously, it does depend, of course, on our behavior. So we read, um, um, Romans four. Uh, it was wicked of me. I couldn't help feeling just slightly amused. It is, uh, amazing, isn't it, to get people reading Romans four. Now to him that worketh not, what about him? Oh, he's no good at all. Oh, but half a minute. To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to righteousness. Oh. He said, well, you know, I didn't know that was there anyway. But, uh, um, he said, there you are. You see, that's the trouble you get into when you all start trying to interpret the Bible. He said, you, you see, there is a fundamental mistake with you Protestants, thinking that just anybody can interpret the Bible. Do you see? The mistake is that the church gave us the Bible, and the church must be allowed to interpret it. So, you see, there are many other theologians that would interpret that differently. I would like to hear what a Roman Catholic priest who would interpret that passage in Romans four. you see. I said, you know, well, hmm. Of course, that is a serious thing if I can't interpret this, you know, come straight to this. I said, by the way, tell me, look, suppose I had been in Arabia when, when, when, when Paul was in Arabia, and I got concerned about my soul, and I'd gone off to Paul, and I said, look here, Paul, how can a man be right with God? And Paul had told me by word of mouth, what here he's written down in Romans chapter four. Should I have been able to s- to listen to him and say, oh yes, well now that is superbly wonderful. Now here am I, I need to be saved, I'm going to trust Christ like you say. Could I do that? Or should I have to go up to Jerusalem and say, hi, you who gave us the Bible? Um, is Paul right? What does Paul mean? We said you'd have to go up to Jerusalem and ask the church. I said, no, you wouldn't. I said, because, you know, Paul says that he didn't get his gospel from the church. Oh, he did. The church gave us the Bible. The church gave us the gospel. I said, half a minute not yet. No, he didn't. I said, do you know what it says in Galatians two? Well, he didn't, of course. Uh, I, uh, Galatians chapter one, Paul, an apostle, he wasn't from men. Now, very naughty. And I said, he says he wasn't, he wasn't apostle from men. Of course, his authority didn't come ultimately from men. I said, but I, I suppose you will think it came through men, didn't it? It came through those apostles at Jerusalem who were apostles before Paul was. His authority came from God, but through the church at Jerusalem. Yes, of course it did, he said. I said, no, it didn't, because, uh, he says not from men, neither through men. But when he persisted in saying that it was the church gave us the gospel, I had to read him at length that chapter two. They who were at Jerusalem, whatever they were, they added nothing to me, nothing. They didn't give me a thing. But he said they did. I said he didn't. He said they did. I said he didn't. I said, do you happen to know what all this business about church history is doing here in Galatians? Why does Paul trouble to write a whole chapter of church history? No, he didn't know. I said, well, if you read the context, of course, the whole matter of church history is concerned with this very matter we began talking about, with how a man can be right with God. Is it by faith? Is it by works? And Paul is insisting that you can come to Paul direct. You don't have to go through the church. You can come to Paul direct. Believe what he says and be saved. Oh, uh, you will observe, aren't you, that this matter of the relation of the apostles on the apostolic bench, if there ever was one, and the whole question of the government of the church is not just an arbitrary matter where we can do what we think is expedient. It comes right down to the vitals of a gospel. With freedom Christ made you free. Stand fast as you love the gospel. Be not entangled in any yokes of bondage. And now finally at the, uh, uh, uh, uh, local level then. If even the apostles are that in that sense independent. You'll see. And the churches that they founded, therefore, were in that same sense independent. At least even if you hold the view that Jerusalem was meant to be their headquarters in some sense. You will be hard put to it to prove, won't you, that when Jerusalem got sacked, you'll be hard put to it to prove that, uh, what city it was that God appointed after that to be the headquarters. And you will have a very big practical problem, won't you, actually, in asking obedience to something that's not in scripture. On what grounds will you ask obedience? Um, how did they go on then i- i- i- i- in the, uh, individual churches? First of all, let's come to the matter of the church, what you may please call the church's offices. Priest. What is a priest? The Roman Catholic Church, of course, as all other churches by force of scripture, admit that in the New Testament all believers are priests. One Peter chapter two, ye are a holy priesthood. Those lovely words in Revelation chapter one and again in Revelation chapter five, thou hast loosed us from our sins and thou hast made us a kingdom priests. All believers priests. In the sense of sacrificing priests. That is, we have spiritual sacrifices to offer, material sacrifices to offer to do good and communicate, forget not, with such sacrifices God is well pleased. But as you know, in Christendom, the idea of a priest grew up in another sense, priest as contrasted with the people that are not priests, priests as distinct from laity, is a real sacrificing priest who at the altar offers a literal sacrifice. The body of Christ is offered to God. Own glory is in this, that uh, priests are real sacrificing priests. They're not these hollow sham things, uh, to be found in other church. They're real sacrificing priests, Ron will tell you. An actual sacrifice to offer on that altar. They are really priests in the sense of the Greek word hieros, hierets, a priest. I didn't stress it that it's, it's a, it's a blasphemy, isn't it? I witnessed many masses, of course, but um... when recently I was in that aforesaid White Father's College, uh, at one stage in the uh two-day conference on teaching the Bible in schools, they had a concelebrated mass, which was then this great new venture, concelebrated masses. They asked if I would like to attend or observe. I said I would prefer to observe. So they put me up in a loft looking through a glass window to see this, to see this great thing, a conciliabrated mass. Well, I've seen it before. That was those young chaps with whom I had been spending the hours and studying scripture, to see him dressed up in his robes, and there he stood, and the body of students came up one by one. He got his little wafer, held it up in front, and said, behold the Lamb of God, and put it in their mouths. Felt visibly sick. This is no little matter. Whether the, the bread and the wine are the actual body of Christ, so that you could refer to it as the Lamb of God and fall down and worship it. It holds millions enchained. Excuse my fit being a little melodramatic, Moncho, but it holds millions enchained, and to be among them and feel the darkness. This does make one's spirit boil a bit. It is a terrible blasphemy. Uh, but they who, uh, in Protestant circles use the term priest, particularly in evangelical circles, will point out to you that priest i- i- i- i- in this sense is not the word in the New Testament at all. If I use the word priest of a minister of a church, for instance, they will say, no, it's not the the the word going back to the Greek Heros, a sacrificing priest at all. It is but a a a corruption of the Greek word presbuteros. Well, uh, linguistically, of course, I suppose that is so. Uh, the, the Greek term presbuteros in the New Testament, uh, literally meaning an elder. Uh, was taken over into, say, Anglo-Saxon, other languages, and by use being Anglicized and ve- eventually coming right down to the pronunciation priest. Just like presently we shall see the word bishop in many, uh, modern European languages is, uh, a corrupt form of the Greek, uh, word episkopos. Well, granted that. But if that is what you mean by priest, uh, uh, uh, in fact something, uh, a New Testament elder, then of course we come down to the sheer plain fact of Holy Writ that, uh, in, uh, the churches of the New Testament, there were many priests, there were many elders. Philippians, uh, for instance, chapter one, uh, uh, or, or, or, or, or perhaps, um, I unquote that just at this moment because that's jumping the gun. Uh, Acts chapter twenty. We better start off with Acts chapter twenty, Verse seventeen. and from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders. The elders. Presbuterus, you say, right? The elders of the church. And where reference is made to them in the New Testament, you will constantly find that each church has a group of elders, not just one man. They are also called bishops. Would you look, um, um, in chapter twenty, verse twenty eight? Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, if you want, bishops, overseers. Want to know what it means? Read FJA Hort. I mean this particular verse. So Holy Ghost has set you as bishops. And so for the church at Philippi, uh, Paul writes to the church with the bishops. Overseas. Along with them, there were other officers. One Timothy chapter three mentions both bishops, these elders in the local church at Ephesus, and the deacons, whose service, as their name implies, they are servants, aren't they, but holding official public positions in the church. Likewise, there appear to be many of them in each church. Elders, bishops, and deacons in each church. The monarchical principle, uh, our diocesan bishop, of course, is a later development. And I find it in the New Testament. Uh, people think that it is shadowed, and here perhaps is a moot point, it is foreshadowed in the status of Titus and Timothy. You may remember that, uh, Paul writing to Titus says, look here, Titus, I left you in Crete that you should appoint elders in the churches. And Timothy was in Ephesus to regulate matters, and he's told what to do with elders and things. And, uh, some say, there you are, you see, here we have it, Paul the Apostle, uh, Titus and Timothy, uh, embryonic diocesan bishops in control of local elders. Well, that may come up in the discussion. Uh, uh, let me not say too much about that now. Um, eh, uh, I would want to maintain that they are not embryonic bishops at all, that they are part of Paul's evangelical team, doing his job for him in his essence. They were embryonic bishops. They'd have been obliged to tell the people to whom they ministered, uh, what they were to do when they left about their successors, wouldn't they? That's a moot point. Finally, and for the moment, I want to deal, uh, with the maintenance of the government and ministry of the church. And for that, perhaps I'll ask you to look at one Corinthians chapter eight. You will allow me, perhaps, my special status, to pass by the sections in one Corinthians that deal with w- with marriage. And to come finally to chapter nine. In chapter nine, am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord, Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? And so forth and so on. Have we not right to eat and drink? Verse four and five, have we no right to lead about a wife? And so forth and so on. If you read that passage, you will find that Paul is here talking about maintenance of the servants of the church. Now, if you take not merely this chapter, but the whole of the New Testament, you will find what appears to be a contradiction, at least a talking in two directions. In this passage, Paul fights to the last inch for the right of an apostle to be maintained by the church, he and his wife, and quotes Old Testament, uh, principle and lays it down as a matter of the lordship of Christ. The Lord has ordained it, you see. And similarly, one uh Timothy chapter five, the elders that rule well, let them be counted worthy of double honor, and he proceeds to quote the same Old Testament principle, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that, uh, treadeth out the corn. And the labor is worthy of his hire. So here is Paul holding forth strongly as he writes to the churches that, uh, apostles and elders have a right to be maintained. When you read other passages, you will at first sight, uh, uh, uh, find them to be speaking the, the exact opposite, apparently, and you'll be left to resolve the tension between these passages. The key to that tension, perhaps, you will find here in chapter uh nine. He said, I got the right, but I don't use it. And for certain good and sundry reasons, I don't use it. And those reasons you will find, uh, put out in that address to the elders of Ephesus, with which remarks now I close. When Paul got the elders at Ephesus together, he counseled them about this and about that as their duty as bishops and elders in that church. And then he gave a tremendous appeal to them. Uh, uh, verse, um, thirty two: Now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified. I coveted no man silver or gold or apparel. Ye yourselves know that these hands ministered unto my necessities and to them that were with me. In all things I gave you an example. Please notice he's talking to bishops, aren't you? And elders. In all things I gave you an example, how that so laboring, that is with your own hands. That's so laboring, ye ought to help the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said it is more blessed to give than to receive. There is a tension, yes, between these passages. Paul says that the apostles, elders sometimes, not always, but sometimes if they rule well, if they rule well, have particular loads, they, uh, have a right to be maintained. That's normally what he tells the believers in the church. But you get Paul with the elders themselves, and he'll say, gentlemen, do you know the happier way? The more blessed way is to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, it's blessed, more blessed to give than to receive. You work with your own hands, and remember it's a part of your duty as an elder to do like I did, work with your hands so that you can give to the poor. There is no sense of some great authoritative figure lauding it over other people, telling them what to do spiritually, and then they have to keep him. It's part of your ministry as an elder to give to the poor, and and if so be, to work to get it so that you can give it. And what is more, he says you ought. You ought. Now, somewhere along the line, different people are going to resolve that tension different ways. Obviously. Genius of the New Testament, perhaps, isn't it, that in things like this, it doesn't come down, uh, uh, finally and say, well, now you and you and you, you'll be this and you and you they'll be that. It leads it to your, uh, normal spiritual judgment. But of course, this is an exceedingly important matter. The question of finance and maintenance as it concerns the spread of the gospel and the running of the churches is an exceedingly important thing. And, uh, we do need to face the issue clearly, don't we? Particularly at the beginning of our lives, what are we going to do? Paul would tell you if he were here this morning as an elder, as an apostle talking to potential elders. Paul will tell you, gentlemen, you ought to do really like I do work. And to remember the Lord words of the Lord Jesus, it is more blessed to give than receive. I'm almost sorry to have gone on so long, uh, but uh, the time for coffee ready? I've just checked the coffee's now ready, and if we try and get back here by ten to twelve, we can have the extra time for. I think that would be the best. Shall we just then give thanks for the... Father, we pray now that during this break we may be able to assimilate what we've heard and construct questions and contributions to make, so that the following hour may be used to the maximum benefit. We thank thee for our fellowship together and for those who've prepared the refreshment for us. We thank thee now for it through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.