God's Church - Thomas H. Low

God's Church

Thomas H. Low

I want to call the attention of the readers of the [Gospel] Trumpet to a few thoughts that God has shown me while reading 1 Corinthians 12. "But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him." I have been asked, "How will you proceed without a church?" etc. Now I want to show that I have not come out of the church, God's church, at all.

God has a visible, organized church in the world, and only one, and it is independent of all human organizations, of the present day, which men call churches,--"our church,"—does not imply leaving God's church at all. God's church, we see from the above scripture, is always organized by the Holy Spirit: but no two human churches are organized alike, here is there confusion, because men have undertaken to do God's work.

They undertook to build a tower to heaven 4,000 years ago, and God confounded them, just as He has all of the "high places" of this great sect Babel.

But why has God reserved to Himself the prerogative of organizing His church? "He hath se the members, (not some of them only, but) everyone of them, in the body as it hath pleased Him, that there should be no schisms in the body." Here you have the reason, plainly stated. God so intensely desired the unity of His church, that He would not allow men to attempt its organization, lest they create schisms in the body. But in utter disregard to God's holy word, men have gone organizing churches, as they call them; but the result is only the creation of partition walls; bringing in "damnable heresies," sects, or "divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine we have received."

Oh God, can men be so blind as to still build up and hold up these accursed walls.

Now read verse 27. "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." Some think that their sect is right and none other is; while many tell us that all of them are right, all branches of the body of Christ.

Now beloved, in all good conscience before God, and with charity for all men, let us test these things by the word of God. If you are right give us "thus saith the Lord," but if we, who you call, "come outers" really belong to, and represent the only church that God recognizes in heaven or earth, […?...] reject the truth.

We are members of the body into which the Holy Spirit set us; which the Bible calls "the church of God." Now I ask, what branch, or human organization, can you say God set you into by His Spirit? None, not one; none of you dare make that claim.

Again, read verses 25, 26. "That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." Where is the sect whose members "have the same care one for another." It is only the real body of Christ, the true and holy Church of God, that has such a vital union, that, if "one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." No human organization contains this measure of pure love and sympathy.

But how does God set the members in the body? Christ says, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved."—John 10:9 "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." The moment a person is converted to God, he is in the church of God, and though he were a thousand miles away from every human sect, he is recognized before the courts of heaven, as a full member of God's church. This is God's way of taking in members; and any so-called church, that has a different door than Christ; a different way of taking in members than by regeneration, and adoption of the Spirit, is fraud, and a cheat, yea, a rival of Christ's body.

Men are put out of the church by the same power that takes them in. "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh away."—John 15:2 The instant a soul commits sin in his heart, he is out of the church; his "sin hath separated between him and his God." No need of church trials, with all their partiality, to throw men out of the church. The Lord attends to that business Himself; and He will not screen a man in his sin, because he has plenty of money to give the preacher and the church. O, I do praise God for the simplicity and beauty of the gospel of Christ.

Let our prayers be, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." Amen.