What is collective salvation?

Indeed, every circle of counselled blessing awaits the complete salvation of those who are out-called in this day of grace, as we read, “That they without us should not be made perfect” (Heb. 11:40). We say complete salvation, for, though the true believer is saved by grace, and is being daily saved as he abides in Christ, he is nevertheless awaiting the redemption of his body (Rom. 8:33). This will be glorified at the coming again of the Saviour and in this sense we understand the Scripture, “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (13:11). Our salvation will then be complete indeed, and the assembly will be for ever with the Lord—glorified together with Him. In Revelation 21 she is seen as the heavenly city, with which not only Israel has immediate connection (v. 12), but all the nations shall walk by its light (v. 24), for the glory of God shines from it, and so all the earth shall then be filled with His glory. Great indeed is God’s salvation.

Meanwhile, the gospel of God’s grace, which is truly sent to all, and which is His power to salvation to everyone that believes (Rom. 1:16), reaches men and women as individuals, and that in view of their being brought into the assembly—to walk with those who are the out-called—the out-called now from the nations, the out-called soon from earth to heaven (like Enoch of old) at the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is important, therefore, for us to understand the present character of the salvation which is brought to us in the gospel. Unlike the national character which will yet come to Israel, it is individual and personal today, even though it has the assembly, the collective, in view, now as we have pointed out, as well as the glory to come.

The gospel of God's grace is going out into all the world, and this work is carried on in different nationalities, different countries, people with different tastes, dispositions, and environment; and instead of leaving them where they are, to continue to be part of that nation, or association, or order of things, they are brought out from all that. in their identification with the death of Christ and they form one body; that is where the unity of the Spirit begins. We now look out over all the world and think of multitudes, who like ourselves have come as poor sinners to the Lord Jesus Christ; we have put our confidence in Him, owning Him as our Lord, and we find ourselves not saved individuals only, but baptised by one Spirit into one body. It is a tremendous thought that here on earth and scattered all over the earth amongst the nations, are individuals whom it has pleased God to bless in order to make them a vessel in which He may display collectively the life of Christ. It is grace indeed on God's part that He not only saves us as individuals and sets us to individual service, but He has formed this one body and it is energised by the Spirit of God. There is one Spirit. It is not that in England we have one Spirit and in Ireland they should have another, or in Germany another. There is one Spirit and one hope of your calling. There are efforts to divide even the church into separate societies or groups as though a certain class had one calling, and a certain other class another calling different from the first. There is one hope of our calling. God is gathering out of the nations a people for His Name and they form this one body.

What then are we to learn from this double presentation in type of the offering of Christ? Why the bullock and the goat? The New Testament enables us to answer this very simply. Christ was to die "for that nation" — Israel — "and not for that nation only, but that he should gather together in one, the children of God that were scattered abroad." Thus two distinct objects meet in the death of Christ. First, we see His people — then rejecting Him. Yet He died for them. But who were the children of God that were to be gathered together? This is going on now. It is not merely saving souls, but gathering together God's children. The saved are gathered together in one. Hence, every Christian owns as a brother (and, according to the epistles, as a member of Christ) a believer from the ends of the earth; the truth of which relationship makes it so offensive to hear people talk of this church and that, forgetting that, if scripture should decide, there is but one. Whether in John's writings, or in Paul's, we find always of course the same substantial truth, the unity of those now gathered by the Spirit of God. Indeed the word of God by no apostles allows the splitting up of this unity into various distinctive bodies or sects. Not that there may not be ever so many meetings, even in one city, as in Jerusalem or Rome; but there was maintained the testimony to unity not only in each place but all over the world.

We do not of course hear of this unity in the type, but when the antitype appears. But we might see that Christ's work goes on beyond "the people" to those whom the priestly house represents now brought into blessing, as the people will be by-and-by through the death of Christ. While Israel are still the rejecters of Christ and therefore themselves rejected of God, God is gathering together in one His children who formerly had been scattered. Instead of being hidden among Jews and Gentiles, and mixed up with them, they are now called out to form a distinct company. "And, being let go, they went to their own company." (Acts 4:23.) Instinctively believers had begun to act on the truth. So again, if they went to another place, they found children of God gathered together as such, and companied with them. This had never been the case before. Where they went, the preaching of the apostles, etc., was used to gather them. What brought them together? The power and presence of the Spirit who gave them the knowledge that Christ had died for this very purpose. How wise, full, and precise is scripture. We little know its worth.

It is the desire of our hearts, and as we believe God's will under this dispensation, that all the children of God should be gathered together as such, and, consequently, as not of the world. The Lord hath given Himself "not for that (the Jewish) nation only, but that he should gather together in one the children of God which are scattered abroad." This gathering together in one was then the immediate object on earth of Christ's death. The salvation of the elect was as certain before His advent, though accomplished by it, as afterwards. The Jewish dispensation which preceded His coming into the world had for its object, not to gather the church upon earth, but to exhibit the government of God by means of an elect nation. At this time the Lord's purpose is to gather as well as to save, to realise unity, not merely in the heavens, where the purposes of God shall surely be accomplished, but here upon earth, by one Spirit sent down from heaven. By one Spirit we are all baptised into one body. This is undeniably the truth concerning the church as it is set before us in the word. Men may go about proving that hypocrites and evil men had crept into the church, but there no resisting the inference that there was a church into which they had crept. The gathering together of all the children of God in one body is plainly according to the mind of God in the word.

But this is ours, as well as theirs, for the Lord drew out of Israel those who believed on Him, and He is drawing out from amongst the Gentiles those who believe in Him, and they are made one—sharers of a common salvation.

This took place, through the power of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven on the day of Pentecost. The fact of its existence is declared in Acts 2. "All that believed were together, and had all things in common … And the number of them was about three thousand … And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." He thus added the saved remnant of Israel to the christian assembly. The union and unity of the saved ones were accomplished as a fact by the presence of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven. They formed one body upon earth, a visible body, owned of God, to which all whom He called to the knowledge of Jesus joined themselves.

With Israel God did not leave them on the further side of the Red Sea, redeemed indeed, delivered from the power of Pharaoh—type of Satan, and freed from the thraldom of Egypt—type of the world; but He gave them a gathering centre round Himself, as dwelling in the holiest of all in the tabernacle. They were not only redeemed as individuals, but compacted into a nation with God as their Centre and Protector. In this lay their safety. Had they been left as individuals they would have been in a sorry plight.

Witness the case of Achan, in Joshua 7. There, one man sinned; and, so far as the narrative informs us, the whole congregation was ignorant of the fact; and yet we read that "the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing." And again, "Israel has sinned." How could this be? Simply because the nation was one, and God dwelt among them. This, plainly, was the ground of a double responsibility, namely, a responsibility to God, and a responsibility to the whole assembly and to each member in particular. It was utterly impossible for any one member of the congregation to shake off this high and holy responsibility. A person living at Dan might feel disposed to question how his conduct could affect a man living at Beersheba; yet such was the fact, and the ground of this fact lay in the eternal truth of Israel's indissoluble unity and Jehovah's dwelling in the midst of His redeemed assembly. (See Exodus 15:2, and the many passages which speak of God's dwelling in the midst of Israel.)

We do not attempt even to quote the numerous Scriptures which speak of God's presence in the congregation of Israel — His dwelling in their midst. But we would call the attention of the reader to the all-important fact that those Scriptures begin with Exodus 15. It was when Israel stood, as a fully redeemed people, on Canaan's side of the Red Sea that they were able to say, "The Lord is my strength and my song, and He is become my salvation: He is my God, and I will prepare Him an habitation." Redemption formed the ground of God's dwelling among His people, and His presence in their midst secured their perfect unity. Hence no one member of the congregation could view himself as an isolated independent atom. Each one was called to view himself as part of a whole, and to view his conduct in reference to all those who, like himself, formed part of that whole.

The reader will remark that 1 Chronicles 16 is just the development of the spirit breathed in the above quotation. It is the hiding of self and the setting forth the character and ways of God. In short, it is a song of praise, which one has only to read to be refreshed thereby. I would only direct attention to the last verse, in which we will find the four great characteristics of the people of God fully set forth. "Save us, O God of our salvation, and gather us together, and deliver us from the heathen, that we may give thanks to Thy holy name, and glory in Thy praise." The Church of God is a saved company. Salvation is the basis of everything. We cannot answer to any of the other characteristics in this copious verse, until we know ourselves as saved by the grace of God, through the death and resurrection of Christ.

In the power of this salvation the Church is gathered by the energy of the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven. The true effect of the Spirit's operation will be to lead into fellowship all who submit to His leading. His order is not isolation, but blessed association and unity in the truth. But if there be ignorance as to salvation, our gathering together will not be to the glory of God, but rather for the promotion of our own spiritual interests, as it is termed. Men frequently associate on religious grounds without the assurance of being perfectly saved by the precious blood of Christ. This is not the Spirit's mode of gathering, for He gathers to Christ on the glorious ground of what He has accomplished. Confessing Christ, as the Son of the living God, is the rock on which the Church is built. It is not agreement in religious views that constitutes church-fellowship, but the possession of a common life, in union with the Head in Heaven.

The blessings preached in the gospel are in the possession of those who believe; they have righteousness, salvation, the Spirit—living water and eternal life; but they have all these blessings through Christ; and they have them not for others. Each individual has these blessings for himself, and in an individual way. Each soul is justified, saved, receives the Holy Spirit, as an individual, and by individual faith in Christ. It may come into the mind of someone who reads this, that the Lord is said to have added to the Church such as should be saved (Acts 2:7); but all that that tells us is, that the remnant of Israel that were to be saved from perishing with the apostate nation, upon which the wrath of God was about to fall, were added to the Church; that is to say, they were not saved as Jews, but were placed amongst the only company upon earth that was now acknowledged by God as in relationship with Him. But the eternal salvation of the soul did not lie in the fact that they had been baptised and had come amongst Christians; and this they knew, for the word that had reached them left no uncertainty in their minds on that matter. Peter says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” There is a sense in which baptism saves a Jew. Peter says in his first epistle (v. 21), “Baptism doth also now save us.” But this salvation does not of necessity carry with it the eternal salvation of the soul. The wrath of God in a governmental way had fallen upon the Jewish nation for their rejection of Christ, and if a Jew got baptised, this separated him from the nation, and he escaped the wrath. But it could not be said in any way that baptism saves a Gentile; did it do this we would not find Paul thanking God that he baptised so few, and saying that Christ had not sent him to baptise, but to preach the gospel (1 Cor. 1). Again, baptism, which is said to save, is much more a separating than a uniting ordinance. By it a Jew broke with the apostate nation that had crucified the Son of God. But I need not dwell upon this.