(Editor's Note: This article is similar to the first part of "The Holy Spirit and Reality" in Volume 36 of The Collected Works. We have included this chapter in this volume because it contains some additional utterance.)
Scripture Reading: John 4:23; 16:13; 3:5; 6:51-54; Matt. 26:26-29; 16:18-19; 18:17-18; Acts 13:2-4; Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Cor. 10:16-17; 11:24-25; Col. 2:11-12
Christianity is not a combination of externalities. It is "the truth," that is, the reality. So much that is merely external has become associated with Christianity that it is difficult to discern what truly is of God today. Let us consider this vital question: What is of God? What is reality?
The Word of God tells us that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of reality, and that He will lead us into all reality. Anything which can separate us from the leading of the Spirit is not reality. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit. Outside the sphere of the Spirit, which is the sphere of God, there is no reality. Only that which is spiritual is real, and spiritual things can only subsist in the realm of the Spirit. If something is separated from the Spirit, it is dead. If we are to be brought into any spiritual reality, it can only be through our dependence on the Spirit of reality. Whatever we can arrive at by thought and study, by the seeing of the eyes and the hearing of the ears, is outside the realm of eternal verity; it is not the truth. In this light, let us briefly examine baptism, the Lord's supper, and the church. There are three different viewpoints regarding these: the materialistic viewpoint, the intellectual viewpoint, and the spiritual viewpoint. In other words, we might refer to these viewpoints as Romish, Reformist, and Christian.
The materialist fixes his gaze on the water and insists that without material water there is no new birth. This begets the Romish doctrine of baptismal regeneration.
The materialist notes the word, "This is My body" (Matt. 26:26), and looking at the material bread, he insists that a change must take place in the bread so that it may be truly called Christ's body, because the Word is true. The result is the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation.
The materialist sees the outward form of the church and sees in the Word that there is only one church. The result is the Romish doctrine of the one true church.
The intellectual man is puzzled by the seeming inconsistency between the Word of God and so-called Christianity, so he brings his mind to bear on the problems that arise.
He says there is the true and the false, the real and the unreal, the outward ceremony and the inward reality. However, God makes no such distinctions in His Word.
The reformist says, "This represents the Lord's body; it is a symbol of His body." But the Word of God speaks of nothing concerning representation or symbolism; it speaks of literal fact. It says, "This is My body."
The reformist solves the inconsistency that he observes by using his interpretation of true and false, real and unreal. Or he says, "There is a church within the church."
The Word does not say that a person's immersion symbolizes his receiving life, but that he actually does receive life. Note the bold declarations that Paul makes about baptism: "Or are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? We have been buried therefore with Him through baptism into His death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we might walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:3-4). Accord- ing to Paul, baptism is not merely an external rite, an intellectual doctrine, or a representation of eternal reality; for him it is the reality. He does not say that a person's immersion in water typifies his burial with Christ; he says that his immersion is his burial. "We have been buried therefore with Him through baptism into His death." In writing to the Colossians, Paul is no less bold than in writing to the Romans. He says, "Buried together with Him in baptism, in which also you were raised together with Him" (2:12). With Paul there was no such thing as a baptism that did not involve death with Christ, or a baptism that did not involve resurrection with Christ. With him there was no thought that a Christian could experience baptism on a certain date and at a later date enter into the experience of death and resurrection with Christ. No, baptism into Christ is death with Christ, and baptism into Christ is resurrection with Christ. Baptism does not symbolize death; it is death. It does not symbolize resurrection; it is resurrection. Paul knew the reality of burial with the Lord; he was not occupied with baptism either as a doctrine or as a type but only as a reality. When God opens our eyes to see the reality of baptism as Paul saw it, then we, like him, will not see things from an intellectual or a materialistic viewpoint, but only from God's viewpoint. There will cease to be the doctrine of baptism, and there will cease to be the type of baptism; there will only be baptism. It will be so real to us that there will be no place left for that which is unreal. There will be no such thing as an outward form and inward experience; there will simply be baptism, and baptism will be so real that talking of baptism in any terms other than its reality will be mere infant's babble. You say, "Baptism does not regenerate." I say, "Where can you find a baptism that does not regenerate?" You say, "What Romish heresy!" I say, "We may speak the words Rome speaks, but we are seeing what Rome never saw."
Our Lord's own words regarding the bread and the wine leave no room for the Romish theory of transubstantiation or for the Reformist theory of symbolism. Concerning the bread He said, "This is My body," and of the wine He said, "This is My blood." When He referred to it as His blood, He also referred to it as the fruit of the vine. At the same time it is His blood and it is the fruit of the vine. No transubstantiation has taken place. This fruit of the vine is His blood. The one is the other. There is not the type and the anti-type, the representation and the real; there is only the real. But we need anointed eyes to see. We can only be brought into the reality of the Lord's supper by the Spirit of reality. Paul quoted our Lord, who said, "This cup is the new covenant established in My blood" (1 Cor. 11:25). It is the cup of wine, but it is still the blood. Paul also said, "Seeing that there is one bread, we who are many are one Body" (10:17). It is readily admitted that "we" refers to literal persons. How then can the "one bread" be figurative? Literal and figurative language cannot be combined in one phrase. "We who are many" is literal; "one bread" is also literal. "We who are many" is a fact; "one bread" is no less of a fact. For those who have touched spiritual reality in the Lord's table, there is no thought of type or doctrine as we behold the bread and wine. We see only the broken body and the shed blood. For those who have seen the ultimate, the doctrine is the reality and the type is the reality. There is only the reality.
Today many Christians become quite apprehensive at the very mention of the word church. Whenever the subject is brought up, great precautions are taken to clear the ground lest any confusion arise in the minds of the hearers. Care is taken to differentiate between the true church and the false church. But in the Lord's Word and in the Lord's thought there is no such distinction; the Lord added no footnote to the Scriptures when He spoke of the church. He did not seek to safeguard the spiritual reality by differentiating between a true and a false, between a real and an unreal, nor did He differentiate between the local and the universal. In the Word of God there is only "the church."
How nervous we are about the church! How reluctant we are to trust the church! We say, "What if the church should make a mistake? What if the church should come to the wrong conclusion?" However, the Lord made no provision for failure of any kind in the church. In His thought no such contingency could arise. We think of the church in Corinth as a church that was far below the standard, but to that church Paul wrote, "You were washed...you were sanctified...you were justified" (1 Cor. 6:11). Whenever Paul mentions the church in his Epistles, he speaks of the church as altogether perfect, and he inserts no modifying clauses to avoid misperception. John does likewise. In Revelation 2 and 3 our eyes detect many failures and mistakes in the churches; but John does not distinguish between the churches that are right and the churches that are wrong. He writes of the seven churches as being seven golden lampstands, lampstands all of gold.
Paul saw the church as eternally perfect. He only saw the ultimate reality. He did not see Demas and Alexander the coppersmith and many other false brothers constituting a false church which should be distinguished from the real. Paul knew nothing of a real church and a false church; he knew only the church. Those who, like Paul, see the church, the Body of Christ, see spiritual reality and only that reality. To them there is no church except "the church."
We say, "From God's point of view the church should be this or be that." No, the church is this or is that. The church is what, from God's point of view, it should be. Once we see this eternal reality, we will cease to differentiate between what the church is positionally and what it is actually. Once there is such a seeing, we will not say, when we meet only a few persons or just one person standing on the church ground, "Oh, there are only a few persons here," or "There is only one person here." We will cease to be distressed at the few believers in Acts 13 who made such important decisions. We will cease to think, "There was an inadequate representation of the church there; important decisions should be arrived at by a unanimous vote of the church!" No, we will be satisfied that they saw the spiritual reality and were not bothered by technicalities. When we have seen the reality of the church as those in Acts 13 saw it, we will recognize the church when we meet it. This will be true even with a tiny group of believers who are standing on the church ground experimentally. Although they have no special standing and are not specially appointed representatives of the church, they are the church nevertheless.
When Ananias went to Saul, he went by himself, and he alone laid hands on Saul. "Out of order!" you exclaim. "Quite contrary to the principles of the Body!" "Independent action!" Not at all! Ananias was on clear Body ground; the whole Body moved when he moved. If you have come into the eternal reality of the church, you yourself can speak and act as the whole church. A movement on the part of one member of the Body who is in the spiritual good of the Body is a movement of the entire Body of Christ. The life of such a one transcends all externalities and transcends all doctrine.
The implications of this are tremendous. We have no business viewing things from the materialistic viewpoint or from the intellectual viewpoint, but only from God's viewpoint. God knows only "the church," and when we permit the Spirit of reality to lead us into the spiritual reality of the church, we will only see the church that God sees. A person who cannot afford to wear pearls will buy a string of paste beads and think of them as being imitation pearls. But a person who can afford to wear pearls does not think of the paste beads as imitation pearls. To her there are not real pearls and false pearls; there are only pearls; the paste beads have no more connection with pearls than any other beads. The only pearls she recognizes as pearls are real pearls.
