ques. 37. – Would you kindly take notice of the pamphlet I send you, and say if you find in it anything contrary to the Scriptures ?

ans. – The pamphlet you send us – "The Greatest Thing I Know " – has this in it, which is most attractive to the Christian heart, that the author has found what the Church, the Body of Christ, is. He has learned its special calling and relation to Christ; the difference between the Kingdom and the Church; between the ministry of the Twelve and that of Paul ; between earthly and heavenly things. It is therefore no wonder he should call it "The greatest thing I know," and expatiate upon it, for there is heavenly delight in learning our membership in the Body of Christ – that which is "the fulness," or complement, "of Him that filleth all in all." It is surely the heights of God's grace. Along with this, of course, he has learned the New Creation, and our place in it; justification in a risen Christ; our being dead and risen with Him, and thus our unchanging and unchangeable place before God in Him.

It is wonderful delight to the soul to enter into this revelation of God's rich grace, especially if we have been ranch entangled in the legalism of the Christianity which now of a long time prevails, and which is little else than a baptized Judaism, offering an eternal and heavenly portion to man on the same terms as the Law offered a temporal and earthly one to Israel.

It is refreshing to see that the author has seen the distinct character of Paul's ministry, in whom alone we find the full revelation of what Christianity is; who is indeed the minister of the present dispensation- oar special apostle. Would God His people were willing to learn these precious and wonderful things, and thus a heavenly character be formed in them, and a heavenly path trod by them, through this present evil world.

It seems difficult for man, however, to keep the balance of truth, as other things in this pamphlet show:For, having seen the heavenly character of Paul's ministry, and the Church as the great central part of it, he proceeds to set aside the Kingdom altogether during the present time. The parables of Matt. 13, and others, which present the Kingdom in its present form, during the absence of the King have no place at all under this kind of teaching. Baptism of water is by it set aside, and the responsibilities which attend its sphere. Because the Gospels and the Acts, and other books of the Bible, do not reveal the Church, they are not for us therefore. Our place as disciples is nullified; our place as members of the body is the only one; we are not even sheep in the flock of which Christ is the Shepherd; the body of Christ did not even begin at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came ; it only began some time during the course of Pauls ministry-when the truth of the Church had been revealed. This, and more, is on the lines of a doctrine of our day, That we have nothing until we realize we have it:I have no lungs, no nerves, no stomach, till I know I have them; I am not born till I realize I am; and so, in this pamphlet, the Jewish and Gentile sheep of John 10 "did not become of the body of Christ only as their individuals accepted the teaching of Paul." What a one-sided teaching!. What legalism is again introduced if I am to reach such relationship by the progress of my soul! It is no more grace, but acquirement.

It is evidently certain that the Jerusalem saints had not the least idea that they were being formed into a body where the Jew has no superiority over the Gentiles ; but just as evidently were they, nevertheless, "all baptized by one Spirit into one body," even as a multitude of believers now, who, if they knew in their souls their membership in that body, would rejoice, and cease to be sectarian.

In his application of the wrath of God in Rom. 5 :9, we hope we only find a false application, and not a denial, of everlasting punishment. It is hard to conceive how the wrath of the great tribulation can be made that from which we are justified by the blood of Christ, unless it is to deny the eternal wrath.

We have never heard of justification by the blood of Christ from temporal judgment, save at the lips of deniers of eternal punishment.

May the Lord keep His beloved people from error, so abounding in our day; keep them from one-sidedness; from losing the flood of light which dispensational truth gives us; and also from dispensationalism which dries up the soul. Excesses are never truth, but always lead to error.