What does 1 Timothy 3:15 mean when it says that the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth?

Then again, the church is "the pillar and ground [or, base] of the truth." Pillars had a two-fold use. They were largely used as supports, but they were also commonly erected not to support anything but to bear an inscription as a memorial. The reference here is, we believe, to the latter use. God intends that the truth shall not only be stated in the inspired words of Scripture but also exemplified in the lives of His people. The church is to be like a pillar reared up on its base on which the truth is inscribed for all to see, and that in a living way for the church is "the church of the living God."

Further, the assembly is characterized as "pillar" and as "groundwork," or support, of the truth. Christ is the truth, and so is the written word, as well as the Spirit. They all are the truth, either objectively, or in power. But the assembly is the pillar on which the truth is inscribed and upheld before the world which believes not in Christ, receives not the word, and neither sees nor knows the Holy Spirit. The truth is not in faithless Judaism; nor is it in Mohammedan imposture; if possible yet less in the abominable vanities of heathendom. The church is the responsible witness and support of the truth on the earth. There only might men see the truth (compare 2 Cor. 3:2-3), if they could not read a letter of the scriptures. Alas! how great the ruin of the pillar, if we judge the privilege and the responsibility of the church by the word as it bears on its actual state. He who so weighs before God all the failure will never take things lightly, but will search the same word in order to find how grace provides for the path of the faithful in such circumstances; so that one may neither acquiesce in evil nor give way to unbelieving despair, but may judge oneself as well as the departure of Christendom in order to do God's will in faith.

That which introduces "the mystery of godliness" is well worth considering. The apostle had spoken of the church in a practical manner. He is not unfolding its heavenly relationship nor entering into particulars as to the presence of the Holy Ghost dwelling there; but he speaks of it as the "house of God." And it is the only house of God that is now recognised on earth. The church is the assembly of a living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. The church is never called the truth: Christ is the truth; but the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. The church is that assembly which has the truth, as it were, inscribed upon it, and presents it on a firm basis as well as in a distinct manner. The church, at any rate, is responsible to present the truth of God stably and impressively before man. The world has not got the truth — on the contrary is under the power of error; and error as to God is of all things deadly for the soul. The heathen never had the truth. Even the Jews, although they had the law, could not be truly said to have the truth, which goes altogether beyond the law. For this is the expression on God's part of man's duty to God as well as to his neighbour. The truth is the revelation of what God is, and of what man is, as indeed of every other subject-matter of which it speaks. It is not like the law a claim of what ought to be, but a declaration of what is.

The first epistle to Timothy furnishes us with some precious thoughts in a short sentence: "The house," it is said (chap. 3:15), "of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." Here we stand on ground more connected with the practical character of the Church upon earth. It is the house of God — it is there that truth is found and nowhere else; there alone is it maintained in the world. Let us understand this declaration. The Church does not create the truth, but has been created by it. It adds to it neither authority nor weight. The truth is of God before it is received by the Church; but the latter possesses it. It exists because it possesses the truth, and it alone possesses it. Where, besides in the Church, is the truth found? Nowhere. The supposition that the truth is anywhere else would be the denial of the truthfulness and ways of God. The truth can be nothing but what God has said; it is the truth, independently of all church authority; of any but that of God, who is the source of it. But where the truth is, supposing a body to be constituted by its means, there is the Church; and the Church which possesses it, and subsists by possessing it, thereby manifests it to the world. The authority of the Church cannot make that which it teaches to be truth. Truth alone does not constitute the Church; that is, the meaning of the word 'Church' embraces other ideas. A single man holding the truth is not the Church; but the assembly of God is distinguished by the possession of the truth. An assembly which has not the truth, as the condition of its existence, is not the assembly of God. The passage under consideration, and the importance of this point must be my excuse for this little digression, which is but indirectly connected with the subject of the Church.

The Assembly is then "the pillar and ground of the truth "what is that? A pillar is what supports and holds up a thing. And how is the Church to be the pillar — does the Church teach? Never in Scripture.

The Church is taught. Who teaches then? The Spirit teaches through gifts, through servants of the Lord whom He uses as the gifts of Christ to His Body, the Church; but you never find that the Church teaches. The Assembly, as "the pillar and ground of the truth," is to maintain and uphold the truth by its confession and testimony, to contend for it against all gainsayers, because she has it. When Christ was on earth He was the truth, and now, though hidden in God, He is still the truth; but the Assembly knows Christ, and is the maintainer of the truth on earth where Christ is not. The Assembly is not the truth, the Spirit of God is that. She maintains the truth on earth. She is God's witness to present the truth to men. When she is removed by-and-by, at the Lord's coming, the truth will have disappeared from the earth, and men will believe a lie (see 2 Thess. 2:11-12). The Assembly, as set up by God on the earth, is the pillar and ground of the truth, and what does not present and maintain the truth is not God's Assembly. Everything connected with Christ and His glory is of vital interest and deepest importance to the Assembly. What she maintains before the world is essentially connected with the Person of Christ, the living centre of all truth. Hence she will give up nothing of the truth.

The House of God is not a building that we can enter and leave, but consists of God’s people on the earth. That House is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. The pillar is for proclamation: the ground or base of the truth is the maintenance of the truth practically. We have the whole truth of God in the Scriptures. How far do we proclaim it, how far do we uphold it in practice? Alas! We must look at the Church as a whole and failure is written upon everything. We are naturally apt to look on the little section of Christians we walk with as being the whole and applying everything to ourselves, and often with much complacency that the facts of Church history do not warrant. Our only right attitude is one of brokenness in a day of ruin. Thank God, truth does not alter, but unless we behave ourselves in the House of God, the pillar of testimony will be defective, and instead of holding all the truth of God in true balance we may err as to the ground of the truth, for we repeat it is here the House of God that is the ground of the truth, believers in association with each other.

We are told that the house of God is “the assembly of the living God”. It is no longer a building of material stones, as in the Old Testament days, but a company of living stones — believers. It is formed of all believers living on earth at any given moment. No local assembly is ever called the house of God.

Further, it is the assembly of the living God. The God who dwells in the midst of His people is not like the dead idols that men worship, that can neither see nor hear. That our God is living is a truth of blessed but solemn import, but one we can easily forget. Later the Apostle can tell us that we can “both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God” (1 Timothy 4:10). The living God is a God that delights to support and bless His people; nevertheless, if the holiness that becomes His house is not maintained, God may make manifest that He is the living God in solemn governmental dealings as with Ananias and Sapphira, who experienced the truth of the words, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

Moreover, we learn that the house of God is the pillar and base of the truth. The “pillar” presents the thought of witness; the “base” is that which supports. The house of God is not said to be the truth, but the “pillar” or witness of the truth. Christ on earth was “the truth” (John 14:6); and again we read, “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). However much the assembly may have failed in its responsibilities, the fact remains that, as established of God upon earth, it is the witness and support of the truth. God has no other witness on the earth. In a day of ruin it may be only a feeble few who will maintain the truth, while the great professing mass, failing to be a witness, will be spued out of the mouth of Christ.

'Now,' says Paul, 'It is the pillar and ground of the truth'. This is one of the features that belong to the church of the living God, it is to uphold and maintain the truth. Pilate said cynically to the Lord Jesus, "What is truth?" (John 18:38). It was not a thing that governed those Roman politicians, instead they were governed by compromise, everything that promoted the power of Rome was permissible, and if it meant denying and trampling truth underfoot then that was all right. What is truth? All that is seen personally in Christ is truth, all that flows out from Him for the teaching of the church today, and every jot and tittle of the New Testament that we have is for the direction and encouragement of those who belong to the church. The church is also the custodian of the truth, the church, not the Church of England, or the Church of Scotland, or the Roman Catholic Church, or the Methodist Church, or the 'brethren' Church, or any other kind of church, the church, composed of every true believer is the custodian of the truth.

Then the apostle sums up these regulations, and says, "These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God," (may we, too, profit by his words, beloved brethren!) "which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." The church is the guardian of the truth, its sole responsible witness on the earth. The church owes all in the grace of our Lord Jesus to the truth. It may not be competent to define the truth: inspired men have done so. At the same time it is bound to hold forth God's word as the truth, and to allow nothing inconsistent with it in the doctrine or ways of the assembly. For we are called to be a manifestation of the truth before the world, even of that which goes beyond that of which the church is the embodiment. The acts done should always be an expression of the truth. It is a most important duty, therefore, and one requiring continual watchfulness. God alone can vouchsafe or keep it good.

Unitedly the saints form "the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). The assembly is here viewed in its universal character, composed of all saints on earth at any given time. God dwells in His house in order that what He is might be known in this world, so that the assembly is spoken of as the pillar and the support of the truth. In God's house that Solomon built there were two pillars, "Jachin" meaning He will establish, and "Boaz" meaning in Him is strength, and they bore witness to the will and power of God.

The church as the pillar testifies to what God is, His will and His power being manifested in the lives of His people. As the "ground" of the truth, the saints in their lives supported the testimony that was preached and ministered by the servants of God. It is not enough that the servants who preach the word should be the practical expression of what they preach; all saints have the privilege of supporting God's testimony by lives that are honouring to Him.