What is the church militant?

But God sometimes allows the persecuting wickedness of man to rise to a head, in order to expose him and to shew what is in his heart; and it is therefore no matter for surprise that Christians, who know not this fact, begin to question in their minds, complaining that the path is so rough, and the hand of the oppressor so heavy upon him. Yet we are not left in this scene to complain of difficulties, or to shrink and turn back because of the wrath of man. We have a Master to serve, and a foe to resist; and it is only when we are strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, that the service can be rendered, or the resistance effectually made. How nobly this has been done in former days, these pages are intended to illustrate; but it must ever be borne in mind, if we would rightly understand God's dealings with His people, that christian warfare is unlike all other warfare, and that part of its resistance is to suffer. Our weapons, too, are not carnal, but spiritual; for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places (Eph. 6). A Christian using carnal weapons is an anomaly, a contradiction, and cannot know what manner of spirit he is of. He can never have traced, with true spiritual intelligence, the wondrous pathway of his Lord, or have understood the meaning of those words, "My kingdom is not of this world, else would my servants fight." The church militant is the church suffering, and directly carnal weapons are taken up she has really ceased to fight.

The church is always regarded as a real and subsisting body, because wherever the Holy Ghost is, there is the church. The Holy Ghost was sent down, and it is His personal presence that forms the church. That is the reason why those saints who depart to be with Christ are not directly spoken of as the church. Of course, individually they are members of the church, but the scriptures which speak of the church contemplate its existence as the body of Christ on earth. Ordinarily men talk of the church visible and invisible, militant and triumphant, and think that if Christians depart to be with Christ, there more particularly, and in the truest season, is the church. Yet the word of God never so speaks, but predicates the church of such as are called even here below, and are baptized by one Spirit into one body. No doubt, when all are gathered together as a fact in heaven, it will be the church, and is so spoken of in Eph. 5:27, and perhaps a few more texts. But in general in scripture, where the church is spoken of, it means the actual assembly of God on the earth at any given time. The Holy Ghost was there; and wherever the Holy Ghost dwells, He knits and joins the body into one. This is a weighty truth, and involves the most important consequences.

Zipporah typifies the bride in the adversity of the wilderness — the church militant; as Asenath, Joseph's wife, typifies the church triumphant in the future glory. Asenath is a kind of additional lustre to her husband; but Zipporah is much the reverse — a hindrance and a discredit to him, a source of danger and sorrow; besides which she is murmuring and ungrateful, continually misunderstanding him — took him at first to be an Egyptian!§ When we hear of a king Cophetua wedding a beggar maid, or a Duke Chandos rescuing the wife of a groom from his blows and subsequently marrying her, and other instances of that kind of event embodied in the myth of Cinderella, we first think of the romantic side of the transaction, and admire the chivalrous devotion that has been shown; but reflection compels us to admit that the inconveniences of such mésalliances are enormous and continuous. Though love smiles at them, prudence recognises them: they are not to be ignored. But there is nothing that a just and wise man like Moses could do under the circumstances, except maintain patience and silence. He should have foreseen, and did foresee, all that at the beginning; it was part of the sacrifice he had to make. Then there is this to be said in regard to Zipporah, — that when she met the Hebrew ruler, his glories were obscured; he was a homeless outcast; and it was then she received him in love and faith. We may be sure he never forgot this. Now all that is manifestly typical of the church. — Zipporah means "little bird;" whether by design or not, the name suggests the same blending of contrary thoughts, — pathetic suggestions of weakness and waywardness; yet also of a nature belonging to the heavenly places; and of affection and divine care. [§ Ex. 2:19. See also Ex. 4:24-26.]

There is no position that we can take, however right it may be, that will free us from the dangers of Satan's snares. We have no sooner escaped them in one direction, than we realize that we have come nearer to them in another direction. The Church truly is militant. To have learned our proper, God-given place in the ranks is a very different thing from withdrawing from the battle. In fact, Satan specially attacks those who are walking with God, God permits us to learn spiritual warfare so that every spiritual sense will be forced into activity, that we may “by reason of use, have our senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Heb. 5:14) and also to make us learn thereby, the value of what is our own, as men realize the value of what they are in danger of losing.

Does it not suppose, as being given to disciples (who were first called Christians at Antioch), that the guests at it are a people who have been separated unto Himself in heaven (John 17:19) from out of the world, as not of it even as He was not of it (v. 15)? His death stands between them and the world and worldliness as the Red Sea divided between Israel in the wilderness and Egypt, the house of bondage and land of captivity. He who dwells in them now is the spring and regulator of their life here below, as the flesh once was. And now, instead of being deluded by Satan and led down to destruction by him, body, soul, and spirit, they know and have been owned by Jesus, the mighty conqueror of Satan as His own, and they have found in Him, risen from death and the grave and glorified, an object of joy and rejoicing. They sing His victory and enter with joy into His having triumphed gloriously and anticipate the songs of His triumph and the rejoicings of that day. One man has been found who has done nothing amiss; and He has won, by His lowly and perfect obedience unto God, a place from God, a place and glory which He has opened unto them. His complete self-surrender when here below, "Lo! I come to do thy will, O God" (the whole of that will, and nothing but it); and the beauty of His ways and thoughts and the marvellous moral display He has made of His Father and God have laid hold of their hearts and (forgetting all that is behind and looking forward to meet Him), they live to Him and Him alone. Dust of this earth they think not to collect as their portion; the old selfishness of flesh they have judged; Satan they resist, knowing that he will soon be bruised under their feet. The supper is a feast in the wilderness pilgrimage of life. in the entering into the land and amid the wars thereof — but they at it are the church militant and are fighting, through grace, the good fight of faith. Many a fall and many a wound they each may have had, and yet they can sing "In all things more than conquerors through him that loved us." Is it not so, beloved? The church is the house of God, the body of Christ, and serves as exhibited down here, for the nursery, the schoolroom, the guardroom, the hospital of God's own heavenly people. But it is only for those who on credible testimony can be received at first as already His. And here, observe, that (in Scripture) the seeker and the inquirer were not as such called Christians. The saved were those who could take their places in the company that owned the apostle's doctrine and fellowship (Acts 2:42); and they were of one heart and of one soul (Acts 4:32) through the presence and power of the Spirit.

Faith answers: "A child of God is a member of Christ, and is of the Church militant. All such we receive, because Christ has received them; they are permanently members of His body, though they know it not. If any such come, who are walking as the Word enjoins, receive them." If they come on that ground, all their own practical inconsistency rests with themselves. If I accepted them on the statement to "occasional communion," I make myself guilty as sanctioning that which the Word does not. It is one's duty, however, to them in love to explain to them, that all who are at the table are equally included under the doctrine and discipline of the written Word. This, I have found, has deterred many. But discipline is of the Lord and the Father, and many shirk owning themselves subject to it.

With regard to this armour for the church militant, whose soldiers are you? — God's? — And what for? Pleasure? or conflict? And how far are your hearts interested in the conflict? Are you only taking it because "no cross, no crown?" or has it taken hold of your hearts as the spring of your souls?

We are told that the church triumphant and the church on earth are all one, we being "the outer court;" both worship Christ presenting His offering in heaven actually, and on earth in the Eucharist. Of this last we have spoken. But all is error. There is no church triumphant. That all departed Christians, whose spirits are now with Christ, will finally make one body is quite true; and that when absent from the body they are present with the Lord, so that to depart and be with Christ is far better, this too it is most blessed to know. It has made death to be a gain. But there is no church triumphant. For this we must wait till the resurrection. The saints in their complete state, that is, conformed to the image of Christ, bearing the image of the heavenly, are not yet ascended or glorified. Their spirits, happy with the Lord, await the day of glory which Christ Himself, though glorified, is awaiting. For, as we read, David is not yet ascended into heaven. And however confused and contradictory the ideas of the early doctors may have been, (and on this point they were confusion itself,) still early liturgies and all early teaching recognized this; for they prayed for the departed — what afterwards, under Jewish traditions, became purgatory.

What subsequently was turned into the saints praying for us was at first the church on earth praying for the saints; and this was so distinctly the case, that Epiphanius makes it the proper difference of the person of Christ, that, whereas even the Virgin Mary was prayed for, Christ was not. That all sorts of contradictions may be found in the fathers as to it, I freely admit; but what I state is notoriously true, and known to everyone who has a very slight knowledge of church history. You may find, even as a distinct privilege of saints, that they had at once the beatific vision; but a triumphant church was contradicted by the early doctrine of prayers for the dead: that is certain. Nor is the notion of a triumphant church scriptural, nor is Christ on His own throne now, but on the Father's throne, sitting at the right hand of God till His enemies be made His footstool. The distinction I have referred to of saints who do see God on high is wholly unscriptural. The whole church is composed of saints, and none are glorified. The praying for them may be a superstition, but it proves that the early church held what contradicts a triumphant one, worshipping in heaven, while we do on point of sacrifice contradictory to the Epistle to the earth.

The contrast between the opening and the close of this epistle is striking. It is to my mind like one of those brilliant suns, which, on a dark, lowering day, suddenly pours forth its brightness, and the eye follows the broad beam of glory it casts, until it lights at last on some field, of which it brings out all the colouring in bright relief. Thus to me does the glory of the beginning of Ephesians shine down upon the place of conflict in which the church militant is seen in the last chapter. In grace, not in nature, we see that there is a necessary connection between the light above and the church below.

Never can we take this position, much less keep in it, unless we see where Christ has set us. This sixth of Ephesians is not a call to fight our way in, but a call to the church militant to "stand" in the fixed position Christ has set her in.