That a sinner, at all times since the fall, is saved in the same way, no Christian can doubt for a moment. But salvation is not the church, nor the church salvation. If it be said, must not a man belong to the church of God now to be saved? I say, Surely. That is, if he is saved he does belong to it, because this is God's divine order; but what saves him is Christ, not the church. Christ saved a Jew who was saved; but be belonged to Israel as the order of God at that time, not to the church; and the Jewish church, as men speak, is an utterly unscriptural idea. So far as an individual was saved, he was always saved by Christ; but this did not constitute the assembly.
There was a Jewish nation, and to it the man, called by grace as a Jew, belonged by birth, and was bound to adhere. Now he is not; because in the church there is neither Jew nor Greek. A man was a Jew by birth, and a Jew in orderly fellowship when circumcised. The church, even in its outward profession, stands by faith—is never composed of natural branches. The Jews were natural branches. They did not, in their divinely ordained place as Jews, stand by faith. A Jewish church is an unscriptural fallacy. Christ gave Himself for the nation, but not for that nation only, but to gather together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad. This formed the church; the church or assembly is the gathering together of “such as should be saved.” This was never done in Judaism. The unity was a national unity, and no other. They were a holy people in their calling. When Christianity was founded, the Lord added to the church such as should be saved. He never did this before. That was the church, God's assembly in the world. If, before that, a Jew came to believe, he was added to nothing; he was a godly Jew, instead of an ungodly one; he belonged to what he belonged before. There was nothing to be added to.
“By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.” But the baptism of the Holy Ghost is positively asserted to be after Christ's ascension; in a word, on the day of Pentecost. The church invisible is no scriptural nor tangible idea. It is an invention, particularly of Augustine, to conciliate the awful iniquity of the professing church with the truth and godliness necessary to the true Christian. “A city set on a hill cannot be hid.” “Ye are the light of the world.” What is the value of an invisible light? a church under a bushel? There is no community in the invisible church. That the church is become invisible I admit fully; but I admit it as the fruit of man's sin.
But this has no application to Judaism. There the nation—the children of Jacob—were the public visible body, and meant by God to be so; and individual saints were never otherwise gathered: in Christianity they were. He gave Himself to gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad. If they were gathered before as a church, an assembly, how could He gather what was scattered abroad Christ gave Himself to gather together the children of God which were scattered. They were children of God, but were not a church, an assembly. They were scattered, and Christ came to introduce another state of things. If they were a church gathered before, how did Christ come to gather the scattered? If it means that He was to save in one body, at the end of time, all the redeemed, they were never scattered. But the nation here is contrasted with the scattered children of God, and Christ came to change this state of things—to gather the scattered children of God; that is, to found the church or assembly. Therefore He says, “On this rock” —the confession that He was the Son of the living God— “I will build my church.” Had He been doing it before, when it was not and could not be confessed that Jesus was the Son of the living God? Both Christ and the apostles speak of the church and the gathering the children of God as a distinct and newly introduced thing.
All the reasoning relative to a Jewish church comes from Judaizing Christianity, or rests on the utterly fallacious idea, that because men are saved in the same way, therefore they form a visible community, and even the same community. Why so? Men could be saved without forming a community. Individuality is quite as important as community—nay, more so, in divine things. Conscience and faith are both individual; sonship is individual. The Jews were a community, but not of saved persons, but a national community of the sons of Jacob. The church is a community, but not in any way of the same kind, be it profession or reality; it stands by faith. Individual salvation does not affirm the existence of a community, and there may be a religious community which does not imply salvation. The Jewish nation was such. The whole theory, on which the idea of a church in all ages and dispensations rests, is utterly false.
Facts fail equally. Up to the time of the Jewish nation, there was no community of persons making a credible profession. Abel offers his sacrifice in faith, but there is no community of those who make a credible profession; nor in Enoch, nor in the case of Noah. It is all a dream, the idea of a visible community before the flood. When I turn to the time after it, I find Job alone, and no visible community whatever; and of Abraham it is carefully stated, “I called Abraham alone, and blessed him” (Isa. 51:22Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. (Isaiah 51:2)): the point there urged being that he was alone, and that numbers were not necessary for blessing. When I come to the first religious community, I find it founded on a wholly different principle than a credible profession of faith. A man was of it by birth before he could make any profession. He was of it ipso facto, and could not be anything else: only his parents were bound to circumcise him the eighth day. The principle on which the visible church stands is faith. (Rom. 11) The principle on which Judaism stood was birthright, though not such as to destroy God's sovereign rights.
If scripture be true, though salvation was always the same, the church, or community, or unity of the body of believers, never existed till Pentecost. Nor did its Head, in that condition in which He could be its Head, i.e., the exalted Man, who had accomplished redemption. When thus exalted, God gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, the fullness of Him who filleth all in all. (Eph. 1:20-2320Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 21Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: 22And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. (Ephesians 1:20‑23).) He has made of twain one new man builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. (Eph. 2:14-2214For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 16And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 17And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. 18For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. 19Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 20And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:14‑22).) God dwelt in the nation of Israel in the temple of old. He does dwell, through the Spirit, in a habitation formed as a new man from Jew and Gentile by faith, and that only is the church: a mystery which, from the beginning of the world, had been hid in God, to the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. (Eph. 3) The heavenly powers, at any rate, could not see it, visible or invisible. It was (Rom. 16) kept secret since the world began—was not made known nor revealed to the sons of men before. Men were not builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. It was a mystery, bidden from ages and from generations—did not exist in fact. It is founded on the breaking done the middle wall of partition, and having one new man; the old thing was founded on strictly maintaining the middle wall of partition, and having only the old man. If scripture has any meaning, the church did not exist till Pentecost, when Christ had been exalted as Head over all to the right hand of God, and sent down the Holy Ghost to gather into one body on the ground of faith. All men are saved alike, but all men are not assembled alike. Now church means assembly. Let the reader take notice of the double character of the church: the body of Christ on the one hand; the habitation of God on the other. The confusion of these two has been the foundation of Popery and Puseyism, which attribute the privileges of the one to those who have part in the other.