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Outside the Camp
The consideration of the history of Stephen and the early assemblies brings before us the further great fact that Christianity sets our feet in a path which demands, at every step, the exercise of faith. In this respect Christianity is in direct contrast to Judaism. The Jewish system was designedly of a national and earthly order.
Everything in that system — the temple with the costly stones, the priests with their beautiful robes, the singers with their instruments, the altars with their sacrifices — appealed to sight and sense. Its laws and precepts regulated every detail of the present natural life, but it was silent as to heaven, the life to come and things unseen.
That there existed great men of faith in connection with that system is beyond question, but the system itself demanded obedience from the natural man rather than faith from one born again. In Christianity, while of necessity it will greatly influence the life here, we are at once brought into relation with heaven and the unseen, and above all, with Divine Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Here at once faith is a necessity since only by faith can we know the Father, see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, or realize the presence of the Holy Spirit on earth.
Yet if we look at Christendom today, we are at once faced with the solemn fact that it has turned back to a Jewish order of things, marked by everything that appeals to sight and sense, with very little that calls for the exercise of faith. In result the great distinguishing truths of Christianity are entirely lost. Christ in the glory as the risen and exalted Head of the Church is set aside by human appointed heads, and the presence of the Holy Spirit on earth is almost entirely ignored.
If, however, Christ in the glory and the Holy Spirit on earth are ignored, it must inevitably lead to the loss of all true understanding of that great mystery — Christ and the Church — and of the heavenly calling and the purpose of God, with the result that true Christians will not rise beyond preaching the gospel to meet the need of man, while the great mass of mere professors prepare the way for the great apostasy.