 |  |
"mysteries of the kingdom", and so should we. Personally, we have given up trying to
place the outside church, feeling that our time is better employed in dealing with positive
and present truth. We must avoid Peter's attitude, "Lord, what shall this man do?"
(John 21: 21). We agree with you that there is no Scriptural warrant to look for a
collective corporate testimony to the truth of the mystery, but that it remains largely a
matter of individual faith and love, with or without fellowship.
(B).--"Referring to Phil. 3: 11 exanastasis ek ton nekron, will this
apply to the one body? If it only applies to the apostle Paul and those like
him, where does the unity of the body come in?"
The difficulty lies in confusing "hope" with "prize". All the redeemed whatever their
calling, will receive "life", but all will not "reign in life". We might repeat your question
and say:--
"If some only will receive the award of the inheritance where does the unity of the
body come in?" (Col. 3: 24).
Ephesians is an exposition of "the hope of the calling"; Philippians is for those who
seek to go on unto perfection, and expounds "the prize of the high calling". Even the
human body itself is a unity of inequalities. Some members are far more precious or
useful than others, yet all are needed to make the complete whole. Moreover we are not
sure that the title the "body" is to be carried forward into the day of glory, it expresses the
present relationship both of one to another and all to the Lord, but we believe when all is
complete and in glory it will then be the "fullness", but that is another feature.
You raise another question also as to whether Paul himself believed that he was a
member of the body, and whether he did not have a difficulty in adjusting his mind to the
new teaching. His noble attitude to all past advantages when compared with "the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ" (Phil. 3: 8) leaves no room for doubt, and the
intense personal conviction that what he had received was a revelation could not live side
by side with doubts and fears on the very same question.
You also ask why whether your expression "nothing the flesh could lay hold on" is
justified when differentiating between the kingdom and the body. It is not. Before ever
the church was called into being the Lord Himself said "the flesh profiteth nothing".
Christendom, not the kingdom or the church, is the fleshly misinterpretation of spiritual
things. There is nothing for the flesh to lay hold on in baptism or the Lord's supper as
Scripturally taught. The church founded at Pentecost, at Antioch, or at Ephesus, are alike
in one sense, they are not fleshly.
Your question as to what gospel may be preached to-day is answered, more fully than
is possible here, in our pamphlet entitled, "Roman Stones for the Ephesian Temple".