Let those who feel that they must continue this remembrance of the

Lord's death do so as unto the Lord, we have no right to judge them, but let

them also acknowledge that we too, who no longer partake of a typical feast

which is vitally connected with the new covenant and so with Israel's

restoration and kingdom, and closely linked with the parousia phase of the

Lord's coming, let them acknowledge that we too when we eat not, to the Lord

`eat not' and are `fully persuaded in our own mind' (Rom. 14:3 -6).

We have already seen, in the sevenfold unity of the Spirit, that the

apostle has likewise decided for us whether we observe the baptism of John,

of Peter and of Paul during the Acts, of the Spirit in His manifest gifts, or

of that silent, unseen, yet vital union with the risen Christ, which after

all is the meaning underlying all the varied baptisms of other dispensations,

and which alone gives the typical ordinance its value and power.  (See

This ministry moreover was directed to `the saints' and was a work of

`edifying the Body of Christ' rather than world -wide evangelization.  The

gospel for the unsaved is still the gospel as revealed in Romans.  The

epistle to the Ephesians assumes that the reader has reached the inner

teachings of Romans 5 to 8.

The readjusting of the saints had a twofold goal:

Unto a work of ministry.

Unto a building up of the Body of Christ.

Work is valueless apart from dispensational truth.  Labour expended

upon the Body of Christ with undispensational Scriptures does not build up

but destroys.  The scattered and divided state of the church today is largely

the result of the attempt to combine dispensations that differ.  The reader

may be engaged in `a work of ministry', but it is worth while to stop and

consider its relation to the various phases of God's purpose.  Some of God's

children are engaged in phases of kingdom truth.  They sometimes condemn us

because we see something different.  We do not condemn them however, but

readily admit that there are other circles of ministry still open today than

that of the One Body.  The failure is most manifest when one, who professedly

belongs to the One Body, for reasons of `usefulness' and through the claims

of others, descends to an unwholesome blend of Body, Bride, and Kingdom,

which cannot but produce a hybrid following.  What is true of the particular

case of ministry is true in a wider sense, as the parallel of Colossians 1:10

`That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being

fruitful in every good work'.

Instead of looking upon dispensational truth as a phase of things that

can be taken up as a kind of hobby or left as the case may be, we should look

upon it as lying at the base and root of all our actions, doctrine and

ministry.  See the booklet The Key of Knowledge.

The goal of this readjustment and ministry is the building up of the

Body of Christ.  Do we appreciate the emphatic place that Scripture gives to

that ministry which `builds up'?  In Ephesians 4:16 we find it as the great

goal of joint service:

`Unto the edifying (building up) of itself in love'.