There are two streams of representation about this matter in the Pauline
Epistles, the one with which I have already been dealing, which does not
so often appear, and the other which is the habitual form of the
representation, according to which the Christian community, as a whole,
is a temple, and building up is a work to be done reciprocally and in
common. We have that representation with special frequency and detail in
the Epistle to the Ephesians, where perhaps we may not be fanciful in
supposing that the great prominence given to it, and to the idea of the
Church as the temple of God, may have been in some degree due to the
existence, in that city, of one of the seven wonders of the world, the
Temple of Diana of the Ephesians.
But, be that as it may, what I want to point out is that united building
is inseparable from the individual building up of which I have been
speaking.
Now, it is often very hard for good, conscientious people to determine
how much of their efforts ought to be given to the perfecting of their
own characters in any department, and how much ought to be given to
trying to benefit and help other people. I wish you to notice that one
of the most powerful ways of building up myself is to do my very best to
build up others. Some, like men in my position, for instance, and others
whose office requires them to spend a great deal of time and energy in
the service of their fellows, are tempted to devote themselves too much
to building up character in other people, and to neglect their own. It
is a temptation that we need to fight against, and which can only be
overcome by much solitary meditation. Some of us, on the other hand, may
be tempted, for the sake of our own perfecting, intellectual
cultivation, or improvement in other ways, to minimise the extent to
which we are responsible for helping and blessing other people. But let
us remember that the two things cannot be separated; and that there is
nothing that will make a man more like Christ, which is the end of all
our building, than casting himself into the service of his fellows with
self-oblivion.
Peter said, 'Master! let us make here three tabernacles.' Ay! But there
was a demoniac boy down below, and the disciples could not cast out the
demon. The Apostle did not know what he said when he preferred building
up himself, by communion with God and His glorified servants, to
hurrying down into the valley, where there were devils to fight and
broken hearts to heal. Build up yourselves, by all means; if you do you
will have to build up your brethren. 'The edifying of the body of
Christ' is a plain duty which no Christian man can neglect without
leaving a tremendous gap in the structure which he ought to rear.
The building resulting from united edification is represented in
Scripture, not as the agglomeration of a number of little shrines, the
individuals, but as one great temple. That temple grows in two respects,
both of which carry with them imperative duties to us Christian people.
It grows by the addition of new stones. And so every Christian is bound
to seek to gather into the fold those that are wandering far away, and
to lay some stone upon that sure foundation. It grows, also, by the
closer approximation of all the members one to another, and the
individual increase of each in Christlike characteristics. And we are
bound to help one another therein, and to labour earnestly for the
advancement of our brethren, and for the unity of God's Church. Apart
from such efforts our individual edifying of ourselves will become
isolated, the results one-sided, and we ourselves shall lose much of
what is essential to the rearing in ourselves of a holy character. 'What
God hath joined together let not man put asunder.' Neither seek to build
up yourselves apart from the community, nor seek to build up the
community apart from yourselves.
III. Lastly, the Apostle, in his writings, sets forth another aspect of
this general thought, viz., divine edification.
When he spoke to the elders of the church of Ephesus he said that Christ
was able 'to build them up.' When he wrote to the Corinthians he said,
'Ye are _God's_ building.' To the Ephesians he wrote, 'Ye are built for
an habitation of God _through the Spirit_.' And so high above all our
individual and all our united effort he carries up our thoughts to the
divine Master-builder, by whose work alone a Paul, when he lays the
foundation, and an Apollos, when he builds thereupon, are of any use at
all.
Thus, dear brethren, we have to base all our efforts on this deeper
truth, that it is God who builds us into a temple meet for Himself, and
then comes to dwell in the temple that He has built.
So let us keep our hearts and minds expectant of, and open for, that
Spirit's influences. Let us be sure that we are using all the power that
God does give us. His work does not supersede mine. My work is to avail
myself of His. The two thoughts are not contradictory. They correspond
to, and fill out, each other, though warring schools of one-eyed
theologians and teachers have set them in antagonism. 'Work _out_ . . .
for it is God that worketh _in_.' That is the true reconciliation. 'Ye
are God's building; build up yourselves in your most holy faith.'
If God is the builder, then boundless, indomitable hope should be ours.
No man can look at his own character, after all his efforts to mend it,
without being smitten by a sense of despair, if he has only his own
resources to fall back upon. Our experience is like that of the monkish
builders, according to many an old legend, who found every morning that
yesterday's work had been pulled down in the darkness by demon hands.
There is no man whose character is anything more than a torso, an
incomplete attempt to build up the structure that was in his mind--like
the ruins of half-finished palaces and temples which travellers came
across sometimes in lands now desolate, reared by a forgotten race who
were swept away by some unknown calamity, and have left the stones
half-lifted to their courses, half-hewed in their quarries, and the
building gaunt and incomplete. But men will never have to say about any
of God's architecture, He 'began to build and was not able to finish.'
As the old prophecy has it, 'His hands have laid the foundation of the
house, His hands shall also finish it.' Therefore, we are entitled to
cherish endless hope and quiet confidence that we, even we, shall be
reared up into an habitation of God through the Spirit.
What are you building? 'Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone.'
Let every man take heed _what_ and _how_ and _that_ he buildeth thereon.