What is the Gathering of Christ Church?

It was around the Person of a living Christ, then, that God's people were gathered in the first century and around whom they all should gather today. It is not around a doctrine, however true; or around an ordinance, however important; or around a wonderful preacher, be he ever so godly; but around a living, divine Person that the Church is to gather. It is not said "To which coming," but "To whom coming." We do not come to a thing, to an organization, or to a human leader, but to a divine Person, our Lord and Savior.

Two things we must bear in mind. The Church or Assembly of God has been called out of the world by the gospel, it is His ecclesia—His called out ones—But the called out ones are to be gathered together, they are not left as so many units to tread a solitary pilgrim way to heaven. They are to be gathered together, Christ the centre of the gathering and the Holy Ghost the power of it.

Here, then, the Church is seen in actual existence. "All that believed were together" (v. 44). We thus see the fulfilment of that word spoken by Caiaphas concerning Christ when he said, "He should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." It has been truly said, "There were indeed children of God before this moment, but they were scattered abroad, they were isolated. Christ by His death was to gather them together, not merely to save them, so that they might be together in Heaven (since they were children of God, that was already done), but He was to gather them together in one." This was something entirely new upon the earth. It was no new thing for children of God to exist on the earth. It was no new thing that such were journeying on to Heaven. That was true in Enoch's day, and Job's day, and throughout the days of old, however dimly it was known. But that the children of God should be gathered together in one was an entirely new thing. And this is the truth that the people of God are still so slow to apprehend. We think of ourselves as isolated saints, as if we lived before the cross. Being saved, we are apt to think that it is left to us, according to the best of our ability, to choose what "church" we shall join or whether we shall join any at all. But in this thought we fail to see that already, if we have come to the Lord, He has added us to the Church, and thus there can be no question of remaining in isolation on the one hand, or of joining a church on the other. The very thought of joining "a" church betrays ignorance of the truth of "the" Church.

333 Take the word: it includes an assembly such as at Ephesus. Take the thing; and the assembly in the wilderness, and God's assembly formed consequent on Christ's death, are founded on principles diametrically opposed and destructive one of another. And the definition ("A church comprehended a society of the people of God") is as vague and incorrect as may be. A church is an assembly: what is the meaning of "comprehending a society"? An assembly means an assembly; if not actually assembled, it may be used in a general way for those who habitually assemble, but then it is the society. When we speak of the Church in its Christian sense (and that only is what we are occupied with), it is God's assembly founded on the death of Christ, assembled by the power of the Holy Ghost, and dwelt in by Him. Christ gave Himself not for that nation only, but to gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad. This is the general idea, for it is only stated here in general.

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.

The first essential is, that Christ alone should be the centre of gathering. The Lord himself teaches us this when He says, "Where two or three are gathered together in (unto 'eis') My name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). I must point out that the Lord does not say He is in the midst of every gathering of His professed people. He is only in the midst of those gathered unto His name. Unto His name! Not unto His name and something else besides, like some truth, doctrine or form of ecclesiastical government, but unto His name alone, outside of and apart from every human system and arrangement, gathered round about and unto the Person of a risen and glorified Lord! It was not possible to be thus gathered until after the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, for it is the Holy Spirit who gathers and He gathers only to a risen Christ.

We may then take the "name" to be expressive of the person of Christ-Himself, indeed, in all the truth of His person, as the risen and glorified One at the right hand of God. It is clear therefore that Christ is the only object that draws us together, and our centre when gathered; for the Holy Ghost will never gather believers to anything but Christ. If anything is added — whether it be a particular doctrine, or a particular form of church government — it is not simply the name of Christ, and the gathering is not according to His mind. If, for example, I agreed to meet with certain other believers of like views, we could not be gathered alone to the name of Christ, for something has been added or excluded; but if I am gathered with those who acknowledge that Christ Himself is the only attraction, with those who own His authority as Lord, who bow to His word, and regulate everything by it when assembled, then the gathering would be to His name. And only then; for where man's authority, man's traditions, or man's regulations are recognized, whatever the individual piety of those who recognize them, the meeting cannot be of this character.

Thus believers gathered together in the first days of the Church and so they must gather today if they would act as members of the Church of the living God and obey and please their Lord and Head. Any other ground of gathering together, such as coming together as Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Pentecostals, Fundamentalists, etc., is a denial in practice of the truth of the one Body of Christ and recognizing other bodies instead.

We may then take the "name" to be expressive of the person of Christ-Himself, indeed, in all the truth of His person, as the risen and glorified One at the right hand of God. It is clear therefore that Christ is the only object that draws us together, and our centre when gathered; for the Holy Ghost will never gather believers to anything but Christ. If anything is added — whether it be a particular doctrine, or a particular form of church government — it is not simply the name of Christ, and the gathering is not according to His mind. If, for example, I agreed to meet with certain other believers of like views, we could not be gathered alone to the name of Christ, for something has been added or excluded; but if I am gathered with those who acknowledge that Christ Himself is the only attraction, with those who own His authority as Lord, who bow to His word, and regulate everything by it when assembled, then the gathering would be to His name. And only then; for where man's authority, man's traditions, or man's regulations are recognized, whatever the individual piety of those who recognize them, the meeting cannot be of this character.

Many today gather together unto a Doctrine, such as baptism; others gather together unto a great leader, as Luther or Wesley; others to a Form of Worship or Church Government; or to a National Church. Such gatherings have no right to claim they are gathered together unto Christ, and Christ alone.