The Church Epistles

by E.W. Bullinger

Foreword (by
P. Wade)

Introduction

Importance
of Their Order

Their
Inter-Relation

Importance of Their Order

It is a serious blow to Inspiration when the importance of one part of
Scripture is exalted above another. To do this is to reduce the Bible to
the position of any other book, and practically to deny that the whole is
made up of "the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth."
This is done in
the present day when, according to the new Ritschlian School, The
Teaching of Jesus is exalted above the Teachings of the Holy Spirit by
Paul, as though there were a rivalry between the two.

The words of Christ, and the words of Paul are equal in weight and
importance, inasmuch as both are recorded and given to us by the same Holy
Spirit; and are therefore equal in authority. That authority is Divine:
and no difference can be made between them without jeopardising the very
essence of Inspiration.
That there is a difference is clear. But this
difference arises from failing to rightly divide the word of Truth as to
the various Dispensations of which it treats.
What He said on earth is
necessarily of the highest importance to us dispensationally as showing
how, through His rejection by His people Israel, "the salvation of God has
been sent to the Gentiles" (Acts 28:28). But that teaching was given to
special persons under special circumstances, and it must be interpreted
and applied accordingly. It was not designed as a compendium of
instruction for the Church of God, for the Church was not then being
formed, and, as a matter of fact, the churches to whom the epistles were
addressed did not at that time possess the four Gospels as we have them.
On the contrary Christ expressly said, "I have yet many things to say unto
you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is
come, He will guide you into all truth (R.V., 'all the truth'): for He
shall not speak of (or from) Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that
shall He speak; and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me:
for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that
the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I that He shall take of Mine, and
shall show it unto you" (John 16:12-15).
May we not ask How, When, and
Where this promise and prophecy was fulfilled? Does this promise refer to
us only as individuals, and to a subjective personal communication of the
Holy Spirit to each individually? or, Are we to look for some formal and
special realisation of the Lord's words? 1
What
is meant by "all truth," or as the Revised Version has it, "all the
truth," into which the Holy Spirit was to guide the Church? Where are "the
things of Christ" which He was to show unto us? Does it mean that the Holy
Spirit shows one truth to one person and another to another person, and
these are so different that those who receive them proceed to quarrel as
to which is the truth? It cannot be!
Where are we to look then for this
specially promised teaching and guidance?
Surely, when we take these
words of Christ, in connection with His last seven-times repeated
injunction from the glory, we are to look for some specific fulfilment of
such a definite promise as this.
All those parts of the promise, "He
shall guide... He shall speak... He shall show you..." etc., are very
precise, and must surely have a specific performance in some definite
teaching of the Spirit specially addressed to "the churches" as such, and
not merely to the experiences of individuals.
Where are we then to look
for this, if not in the epistles addressed to churches, as such, by the
Holy Spirit?

How many churches were so addressed? How many
Bible students are there who can say at once how many there are? We have
not yet found one who could do so! What a solemn comment this fact is as
to the universal disregard for the Lord's last injunction!
Seven
churches were addressed as such by the Holy Spirit, seven being the number
of spiritual perfection. (There were nine epistles altogether so
addressed, two being addressed to the Church at Corinth, and two to "the
Church of the Thessalonians'. And nine is the square [or
completeness] of Divine perfection: three times three (3 x
3.)
Is it not remarkable that the Holy Spirit addressed seven churches
and no more: exactly the same in number as the Lord Himself addressed
later from the glory?
The seven epistles of the Holy Spirit by Paul had
already been written and read, and neglected and practically forsaken,
when Christ sent His own seven to those seven churches in Revelation
chapters two and three. This is evident when we compare Acts 19:10 with II
Timothy 1:15. Some would tell us to go back to the first three centuries
to find primitive Christianity in its purity. But these Scriptures show
that we cannot even go back to the first century. The only successors the
Apostle knew of were likened to "grievous wolves" (Acts 20:29).
The
seven churches to which the Holy Spirit addressed His epistles by Paul are
Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and
Thessalonians. (The other epistles are "General" (John), or are addressed
to "Hebrews," or "to the Twelve Tribes" (James), or to "the Dispersion"
(Peter), or to individuals (Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and II John.)
In
these epistles we have the perfect embodiment of the Spirit's teaching for
the churches. These contain the "all truth," into which the Spirit of
Truth was to "guide" us. Where are we to look for this "all truth," if not
here? These contain the things which Christ could not speak on earth, for
the time for such teaching was not then. These contain the "things of
Christ" which the Spirit was to receive and show unto us. Where else are
we to look for the fulfilment of the Spirit's mission as the great
Teacher, if not here?
Not only is the number of these epistles
perfect, but their order is perfect also.
The order in which
they come to us is no more to be questioned than their
contents.

But what is that order? Is it chronological? No!
Man is fond of arranging them according to the times when he thinks they
were written, but God has not so arranged them. Indeed, He seems to have
specially disposed of that for all time, and to have forbidden all
attempts to arrange them thus, by placing the Epistles to the
Thessalonians last of all, though they were written first.
The
question, therefore, is settled for us at the outset, and so decisively as
to bid us look for some other reason for the order in which the Holy
Spirit has presented them for our learning.
In all the hundreds of
Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, the order of these seven epistles
addressed to churches is exactly the same.
We have examined the five
most ancient in existence, viz., the Codex Vaticanus (Cent. IV.),
the Codex Sinaiticus (Cent. IV.), the Codex Alexandrinus (Cent. V.), the
Codex Ephraemi (Cent. V.), and the Codex Bezae (Cent. V. or VI.).
The
general order of the books of the New Testament takes the form of groups,
viz., (1) the Four Gospels, (2) the Acts, (3) the General Epistles,
(4) the Pauline Epistles, and (5) the Apocalypse.
But while the order
of these five groups varies in some of the MSS.: and the Pauline Epistles
vary in their position with respect to the other four groups: and while
the Pauline Epistles themselves vary in their order (e.g., Hebrews
in some cases following Thessalonians), yet the order of these seven
addressed to churches never varies.
And, further, though the
four Gospels vary in their order (even in the five most ancient MSS.),
these seven epistles are never given in any other order than that
in which they have come down to us, and are given in our English
Bibles.
That order therefore must present to us the line of study
marked out for the churches by the Holy Spirit: a complete course which
shall begin and finish the education of the Christian: a curriculum which
contains everything necessary for the Christian's standing and his walk:
the "all truth" into which the Spirit guides him. If he is ignorant of
this, he must necessarily err, and be an easy prey for every new teacher
who may rise up. He has no foundation on which he may securely rest: no
anchorage on which he may depend. He is at the mercy of every "wind of
doctrine" against which he has no protection. He will be carried away by
any new "views" or teaching that may be put forth from time to time, for
he has no standard by which to try them!
How can it be otherwise, if a
Christian does not give earnest heed to what has been specially written
for his instruction? Every word of Scripture is for him and for his
learning, but every word is not about him. But these epistles are
all about him and about the special position in which he finds himself
placed with reference to the Jew and the Gentile; the old creation and the
new; the flesh and the spirit, and all the various phenomena which he
finds in his experience.

But now let us seek, in connection
with the order in which these seven epistles come to us, for their
division into three and four: for such division there must
be.
We find it in the fact that three of these epistles stand out
distinct from all the others as being treatises rather than
epistles; and as containing so much more doctrinal matter as
compared with that which is epistolary. This will be clearly seen
when we come later on to notice the structure, which exhibits the contents
of each.
These three epistles are Romans, Ephesians, and
Thessalonians. And the four are placed between these three in two
pairs, each pair containing respectively "Reproof" and "Correction" in
contrast to the other which contain "Doctrine and "Instruction" (according
to II Timothy 3 :16):

A. | Romans (Doctrine and Instruction).

B. | Corinthians (Reproof).

C. | Galatians
(Correction).

A. | Ephesians (Doctrine and Instruction).

B. | Phillipians (Reproof).

C. | Colossians
(Correction).

A. Thessalonians (Doctrine
and Instruction). 2

We must leave the inter-relation of these epistles for our next
chapter, and then having looked at them as a whole, and in relation and
contrast to each other, we propose to consider each of them in the light
of the whole, and in detail, as that detail is suggested and brought out
by the special relation of each to the whole.
One fact, however, we may
notice here, and that is the reason why Thessalonians, which was
written before all the others, is put last of all. We may be certain that
the order is perfect, and that the reason is divine. Is it not
this?
The Epistles to "the Church of the Thessalonians" are the
epistles in which the special revelation is given concerning the coming
again of the Lord Jesus. If we have "ears to hear," this fact speaks to
us, and it says: --(Listen!)
It is useless to teach Christians the
truths connected with the Lord's coming, until they have learned the
truths in the other epistles!
Until they know and understand what God
has made them to be in Christ, and what He has made Christ to be unto
them, they have no place for the truths concerning His return from
heaven!
Until they have learnt what is taught concerning their
standing and their walk, they will be occupied with themselves, and
have no use for the truths connected with the Lord's coming again!
How
important, then, that we should set ourselves to give heed to "what the
Spirit saith unto the churches," and thank God for the opened ear, while
we pray that, the eyes of our understanding being enlightened, we may see
what has been thus written and given and sent to us for our learning.

Footnotes:

(1) If this guidance is
not individual, neither can it be collective, or find its fulfilment in
the Church of God as a whole. A mistaken view of these words has led mere
ecclesiastics to see in these words the figment called "the inspiration of
the Church" (see an article in The Expository Times, for Oct.,
1898, in which this is affirmed). The difficulty with regard to the Church
of Rome is at once raised, and is evaded by maintaining that "moral
inspiration" must precede and be the foundation of the "doctrinal
inspiration," and this "moral inspiration" is seen "in all that greater
care for the poor, in all that wider sympathy for suffering, all that
deeper horror of bloodshed, in all that greater purity of life, in all
that profounder sense of sin, in all that true love of simple, unaffected
goodness, etc., etc.
And this is the popular theology of the present
day substituted for Christianity by which "the Christian faith" (instead
of being the revelation of the Holy Spirit in these seven epistles) has
for its striking feature the "power of assimilating itself to the
advancing knowledge of the human race"!

(2) There is a further
and different division of the seven into four and three. One
within the other. We believe that the one we have given above is the true
on and the one for our instruction. But there is another more technical,
which interlaces it and enhances its perfection.
Four of the seven
churches were in what became the Western half of the Roman Empire
(now called Europe); and three were in what became the Eastern half
(now called Asia).
And each one answers to the other, West to West and
East to East, as follows:
West
Romans
Corinthians West
Galatians
East
East Ephesians
Philippians
West
Colossians East
West
Thessalonians

Continue with Their
Inter-Relation