What is Christendom?

Then what is Christendom?

It is, in result, the human imitation of the church, a creation by man of the vast profession around us today, which has been moulded and defined by certain Christian doctrines and practices which are distinctive in themselves from other religious or heathen observances. Hence we have Christendom and Heathendom.

Christendom is a generic term used to cover the whole profession of which the true church is but a part, an “imperium in imperio”; it is like the shell which contains the kernel, the field in which the crop of wheat exists. It is, administratively, the kingdom of heaven, as in Matthew 13.

The collapse of Christendom does not mean that of the church. By the former we understand the moral sphere of the profession of Christianity, formed by the administration of Christian rites and sacraments; by the latter the work of God in the hearts of men by His Word and Spirit—the body of Christ, of which every true believer is a member, and united by the Holy Ghost to Him, the Head on high. This is clearly a divine work and wholly indestructible, one against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. It was “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world”; and, though gradually formed on earth during the period of Christ’s session at the right hand of God, it will give glory to God through the eternal ages, as we learn from the first three chapters of the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is, par excellence, the work of God, created in Christ Jesus, the result and fruit of the indwelling Spirit, who is both the seal and the earnest of the final and indefectible result in heavenly glory. For such a work to God be all the praise. It is the outcome of “the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is the church of God—His assembly, and composed of such as we, whose origin and history could not have been worse, for we were dead in trespasses and sins, having no hope and without God in the world. But then, God, who is rich in mercy, loved us while in that condition, and devised a way through the blood of Christ to bring us nigh in Him, and to place us in the relation of children, so that we have “access by one Spirit to the Father.”

We had better begin by defining our terms. What is meant by Christendom, and how does Christendom differ from Christianity?

Christendom stands for those parts of the world where Christianity is the professed religion in contrast to heathen lands. In that profession there is a mixture of good and evil. In it is found much reality alongside of a vast amount of insincere profession with no reality behind it. The Word of God may be ministered in all its purity on the one hand, and that same Word of God neutralized on the other by traditions, superstitions, ritualistic practices, and doctrines far removed from the Word of God.

352 There are a few general remarks I would make in conclusion to clear up the whole question. It is not the existence of a visible church which is denied by the evangelical world. Everyone knows there is such a thing; that there is a Christendom, which, as a religion in the world, can be contrasted with heathens, Jews, and Mohammedans. But evangelicals do not see the responsibility of the visible church, and that there ought to be, as there was, a maintenance of corporate unity as a testimony for the glory of Christ. They do not see that Christians were bound to maintain unity and godliness. They do, consequently, content themselves with individual salvation, the individuals being members of the invisible body of Christ.

The Present Phase of the Kingdom: transition (In mystery). A transitional and parenthetical stage of the Kingdom, during which the visible presence of the King is absent; while certain results are produced by the present preaching of the Gospel of the grace of God to all, whereby believers are gathered out from the world, to come under the spiritual rule of Christ in the church; and nominal Christians by mixing with the true form what is commonly known as Christendom, which represents — as a whole — the present phase of the kingdom of heaven.

Now I believe that there is a very real danger of thinking that Christianity and Christendom are one and the same thing. Christendom as a profession is a conception of the minds of men; it is a system maintained in the power of the will of man; it eventuates in man daring to usurp God's place, and in relation to its responsible history the end will be that the Lord will are it out of His mouth (Rev. 3:16). On the other hand, Christianity is a Divine conception; it springs from the heart of the blessed God; the power in which it is maintained is that of the Holy Spirit of God, whose normal function is to glorify Christ, He who is the centre of all the thoughts of God; and it eventuates in the formation of a vessel which, throughout the world-to-come and into eternity itself, will be morally worthy to bear the glory of God. As having been brought livingly into this realm we have our part in that wonderful vessel, the church. It is the complement of Christ, competent to share administration with Him in the Kingdom, and to be by His side as His bride, the object of His affections, throughout the eternal day. This is the blessedness of what God in wondrous love has brought us into!

From this onward we shall find that the vision is as to things upon earth, such as men's senses will he able to recognize when they take place and to read according to the prophets. For they are the subjects of divine interest on earth, until the judgment of the whore, etc. (Satan's wife and city); for Christ had been supplanted in what was nominally His holy habitation and espoused, and Satan, world, and flesh are openly to be judged in the corrupted thing. Then shall come the manifested presence of the Lamb in courts above, when the espoused, having first become bride, becomes the Lamb's wife. For Christendom is not Christianity. This was the religion of Christ and of His anointing power. Christendom is man's corruption of Christianity, such as there was previous to the Reformation. How far are we escaped from it, is a solemn question.

We read often of “the faith” in the New Testament: it was delivered once and for all by God to the saints, with unimpeachable witness, needing neither repetition nor continuation. The inspired writings abundantly show this. We have spoken above of “CHRISTENDOM,” not indeed as rightly representing “the faith” which is true and real, but as that great sphere which is marked by the outward profession of our Lord Jesus Christ, and yet is permeated by the world-system that has to be overcome. Here again the words of the Son of God come for our encouragement—“Be of good cheer! I have overcome the world!”

The term "Christendom" seems a contraction of the words, "Christ's kingdom" — the precise equivalent to the expression made use of in the parable. The nominally Christian portion of the population of the earth, seems clearly that which the parable describes. The world's population, as a whole, enters not into the question here. Those only who "had taken the lamp" are spoken of. None but "virgins" — professed attendants on the Lord's return — are included. The condition and destiny of the earth's inhabitants form the subject of a hundred other scriptures. This scripture treats only of "the kingdom of heaven"; and that not of the kingdom formally established, but merely of its state whilst its sovereign is in banishment therefrom — rejected out of the earth. There are those who own their rejected and absent sovereign — some in reality, others in profession only. These constitute his kingdom now. But the kingdom formally set up — the kingdom of the thousand years — when, leaving the Father's throne, the Son of man shall ascend his own peculiar one, and glorify his saints together with himself, subduing to himself the nations of the universal earth, this kingdom is a distinct, and certainly a yet future one. This kingdom — the one only entirely real one — must assuredly come after the mixed and slumbering condition of affairs set forth in the parable before us. Before the state that the parable describes, it did not come. During the period therein depicted it cannot come. In an age beyond the period of this parable, therefore, it will surely yet transpire.

Thus Christianity is characteristically heavenly. He who is essentially its life and exemplar is Christ, as we know Him, risen and enthroned at the right hand of God; and the Holy Ghost is come down, since Christ was glorified, to be the power and guide of the Christian and the church here below. It was the business of the Christian individually and corporately to maintain this for their testimony both as truth and in practice. Not only have they not maintained it, but they have allowed themselves to become Judaized. What the apostle Paul fought against so energetically during his ministry has taken place, and there has been a most painful compound of heavenly truth with earthly rule, practice, and hope. The consequence is that conglomerate which we commonly now call "Christendom," consisting of Greek church and Roman, Oriental and Protestant bodies of every description, national or dissenting. Where is the witness to the one body animated by the one Spirit? These various and opposed communities may have different measures of light, but in none exhibit an approach to an adequate testimony, either of the Spirit's presence and power, or of the word of God, in subjection to the Lord Jesus. They really testify to the actual state of ruin which pervades the house of God, though doubtless to His infinite patience and grace.