And, reader, remember, this was a type. A type of what? A type of something that has been in existence for over eighteen centuries; is in existence still; and shall be in existence until the moment that our Lord Christ rises from His present position and descends into the air. In one word, a type of the Church of God in the world. How important to recognize this fact! How sadly it has been lost sight of! how little understood, even now! And yet every Christian is solemnly responsible to recognize, and practically to confess it. There is no escaping it. Is it true that there is something in this world at this very moment answering to the camp in the desert? Yes, verily; there is, in very truth, the Church in the wilderness. There is an assembly passing through this world, just as the literal Israel passed through the literal desert. And moreover, the world is morally and spiritually to that Church what the desert was literally and practically to Israel of old. Israel found no springs in the desert; and the Church of God should find no springs in the world. If she does, she proves false to her Lord. Israel was not of the desert, but passing through it; and the Church of God is not of the world, but passing through it.
If this be thoroughly entered into by the reader, it will show him the place of complete separation which belongs to the Church of God as a whole, and to each individual member thereof. The Church, _in God’s view of her_, is as thoroughly marked off from this present world as the camp of Israel was marked off from the surrounding desert. There is as little in common between the Church and the world as there was between Israel and the sand of the desert. The most brilliant attractions and bewitching fascinations of the world are to the Church of God what the serpents and scorpions and the ten thousand other dangers of the wilderness were to Israel.
Such is the divine idea of the Church; and it is with this idea that we are now occupied. Alas! alas! how different it is with that which calls itself the Church! But we want the reader to dwell, for the present, on the true thing; we want him to place himself, by faith, at God’s stand-point, and view the Church from thence. It is only by so doing that he can have any thing like a true idea of what the Church is, or of his own personal responsibility with respect to it. God _has_ a Church in the world. There _is_ a body now on the earth, indwelt by God the Spirit, and united to Christ the Head. This Church—this body—is composed of all those who truly believe on the Son of God, and who are united by the grand fact of the presence of the Holy Ghost.
And be it observed, this is not a matter of opinion—a certain thing which we may take up or lay down at pleasure. It is a divine fact; it is a grand truth, whether we will hear or whether we will forbear. The Church is an existing thing, and we, if believers, are members thereof. We cannot avoid this: we cannot ignore it. We are actually in the relationship—baptized into it by the Holy Ghost. It is as real and as positive a thing as the birth of a child into a family. The birth has taken place, the relationship is formed, and we have only to recognize it, and walk in the sense of it from day to day. The very moment in which a soul is born again—born from above, and sealed by the Holy Ghost, he is incorporated into the body of Christ. He can no longer view himself as a solitary individual, an independent person, an isolated atom; he is a member of a body, just as the hand or the foot is a member of the human body. He is a member of _the_ Church of God, and cannot, properly and truly, be a member of any thing else. How could my arm be a member of any other body? And on the same principle, we may ask, How could a member of the body of Christ be a member of any other body?
What a glorious truth is this respecting the Church of God—the antitype of the camp in the desert—“the congregation in the wilderness!” What a fact to be governed by! There _is_ such a thing as the Church of God amid all the ruin and the wreck, the strife and the discord, the confusion and division, the sects and parties. This, surely, is a most precious truth. But not only is it most precious, it is also most practical and formative. We are as bound to recognize, by faith, this Church in the world, as the Israelite was bound to recognize, by sight, the camp in the desert. There _was_ one camp—one congregation, and the true Israelite belonged thereto; there _is_ one Church—one body, and the true Christian belongs to it.