GOD'S PROMISES STABLE IN CHRIST FOR HIS GLORY IN BELIEVERS
GOD’S PROMISES STABLE IN CHRIST FOR HIS GLORY IN BELIEVERS
The passage which I have read is a remarkable one, and arises out of a charge which apparently had been made against the apostle Paul, from which he vindicates himself. I think it is evident that the charge of lightness, and want of steadfastness of purpose, had been brought against the apostle by the Corinthians, or, at all events, by some amongst them. The general state of an assembly is one thing, but there may be influences at work in an assembly, as at Corinth, sufficient to cause anxiety in regard to the assembly. They had taken occasion at Corinth of the apostle not having come at the time he intended, to bring against him this charge of want of fixity of purpose. The passage which I read is short, but the way in which the apostle deals with the matter is remarkable, and brings before us the fact that the apostle’s ways were governed by the testimony committed to him. And so he vindicates himself by bringing before their minds this testimony and its proof of the stability of God’s promises. A person is influenced by his knowledge of God; the knowledge which he enjoys of God, and the assurance of the firmness and stability of what is of God, is that by which he is affected, and his ways take their character from this.
Now that comes out in the passage before us. The apostle might have spent chapters in attempting to vindicate himself otherwise, but all the vindication on which he ventures in regard to himself is contained in two or three verses. If the apostle’s ways were not in accordance with the knowledge he had of God, he was not worth much. And so it is in regard of us.
[p. 86] There are two parts in the passage. The first three verses, that is eighteen to twenty, speak of what may be described as God’s side, and the succeeding verses, that is twenty-one and twenty-two, of our side. The apostle begins by saying: “As God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay”. Whatever there might have appeared to be in the apostle’s ways, there had been no uncertainty about his word — that is evident. “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God by us”. Evidently, the passage so far speaks of things on the divine side, that is, of the confirmation and establishment of every promise of God in Christ, with a special object, that is, “for glory to God by us”. That is one side. Then you get our side. It adds: “Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts”. The passage describes the way in which God has wrought in order that His glory might come out in us. In speaking of glory to God by us, I do not think that the apostle refers to the future, but to the present. God has contemplated that at the present moment there should be glory to Himself by us, and I believe that just in proportion as our souls are in the full light of the Son of God, and of what God has brought to pass in Him, so there will be glory to God by us. That is what God intended in the church down here. It is difficult to take these things in, in the present day, on account of the state of the professing church. Everything is so marred, so poor and weak, that it is hard to enter into the divine thought, and for the reason that you do not see the representation of that in which God’s glory was to be expressed.
By way of introduction, I want to bring before you the distinction between the testimony of Peter and that [p. 87] of Paul. The testimony of Peter was to an exalted Christ. That was the great power of Peter’s testimony. On the other hand, the great subject of Paul’s testimony was that Jesus is the Son of God. I think you have to appreciate the difference between these two witnesses in order to enter into the force of the passage we have before us. Peter and John had known Christ after the flesh, as Messiah born into this world according to promise, the Seed of Abraham and the Seed of David, the Prophet like unto Moses. I do not say but that they had more light; but when they came into the place of testimony in the power of the Holy Spirit, the burden of their testimony was that Christ was exalted. He had suffered at the hands of men, He had been crucified and put to death, but it had been by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. But now God had highly exalted Him, and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit was the occasion and confirmation of the apostles’ word. I think everybody will recall the burden of their testimony: “Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear”. The thought was of Christ having gone to the right hand of God. If you take this up in connection with the Psalms, you will see the force of it in a moment. In Psalm 2 we have the Messiah born into the world, the Son of God begotten in time, and in Psalm 110 David’s Lord is exalted to the right hand of God. “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool”. You get the history of Christ in the Psalms, and Peter and John took up the testimony according to them. They witnessed what they knew. They had been associated with the Lord down here, and were witnesses to His death and resurrection; and now the Holy Spirit had come down as the proof of His being exalted to the right hand of God, and that was the burden of their testimony. “God hath made that same [p. 88] Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”.
Paul’s testimony is somewhat different. The point of it is that Christ is the Son of God. This brings before us, not that He had gone to God, but that He came from God. Paul was the first to bring that out. You get it amplified in the writings of John, but it had no part in the public testimony of Peter and John, so far as that is recorded. It waited for a special instrument to be raised up, and that was Paul. The very thought of the Son of God was of One who came from God. In confirmation of what I have said, I quote a passage in Galatians: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law”. We have here the thought of the sending forth. Now, if the Son of God comes forth, the point of His coming is to make God known to us. And further, in grace the Son of God came into the place and estate in which man was in regard of God. He was made sin, and became a curse; entering, too, into death. The purpose of it was that He might bring into death the light of God. He actually anticipated, so to say, everything which is upon man, and brought into death the full light of God. And the result of that is, that instead of our having to enter into all that which is upon us in its terrible reality, the revelation of God is light and life to our souls. That is what we see has come to pass in the Son of God. He brought the light of God into the place of our distance. I could not give you a greater proof of the grace of God. I think it is of all moment to see that the full light of God has come out in the death of Christ. It did not come out fully in the life of Christ. I quite admit that God was manifested in the flesh. There was abundant testimony in all the ways and words of Christ down here of who He was and who had sent Him; but it is in the death of Christ that you get the full revelation of God to us in regard of that which lay on us. God took occasion of man’s place under death and the curse of a broken law to make Himself known to us in the fulness of His love. The Lord speaks of this in John 3: 14 - 16. You see there that the object of the Son of man being lifted up was to make room for the full light of God to come out in love. “God so loved the world”. It is in the death of Christ that we learn really the nature of God. “God is love”, and “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. That is Paul’s testimony. I would that everybody here might really know the full extent of the grace of God in presenting Himself to us in the Person of His Son in regard of all that which lay upon us — the curse, and death, and judgment — presenting Himself to us there in order that we, instead of entering into the reality of these things, might have the light of God as the life of our souls. And the application of that principle is very wide. It refers to every family, for the revelation of God will be, in greater or less degree, the life of their souls; only I would ask you just to bear in mind that you must not confound the revelation of God with man’s ability, even divinely given, to enter into that revelation. Man may have more or less ability, by the grace of God, to enter into that revelation, but the revelation of God in the death of Christ stands good for all. It is a truth of universal application. I think it is in that sense that the Lord gave the commission to the apostles in the last chapter of Matthew, to baptise to the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The revelation was good for all, for ourselves, and for Israel, and for the nations, but there may be a great deal of difference, in different families, in the power to enter into the greatness of the revelation, but, anyway, the revelation is the light of souls in every family. For instance, the way in which God presents Himself to Israel in the new covenant will be their light: “All shall know me,
[p. 90] from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more”. It is a beautiful passage, and is prefaced by, “They shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord”. Every soul will have the light of the knowledge of God, and that knowledge will be practically the life of their souls. They will have life in that light. And thus it is in regard of ourselves — our privilege is to live in the light in which it has pleased God to reveal Himself to us, that is, in the light of His love. The office of the Holy Spirit in the believer is to shed abroad in his heart the love of God, and the Holy Spirit maintains your heart in that light, and that light becomes formative in the soul. The Holy Spirit works on that line, to bring my soul under the influence of the love of God. When it is a question of the revelation of God, it is difficult to distinguish between light and love, because the light is the love. The love of God has come to you as light, that is how we learn what God is, and this is not when we are with God in heaven, for God has already shone out in light. You may depend upon it as the truth, that the light of God is in us the formative principle, and the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart and mine is to bring our affections under the influence of love, that we may be formed for God. How do you think you are going to be holy and without blame before God in love? I judge by the Spirit of God bringing your soul under the influence of what God is; God is holy and without blame, in that sense, in love, and the Holy Spirit works to bring our hearts under the influence of what God is.
We come now to another point. “The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, ... was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God by us”.
[p. 91] That is the point from which God has started in regard to man. There is the assurance that every man will take his character from Christ. Christ is the Head of every man. It is in the Son of God that God can secure man for Himself, and He has secured man for Himself, for it is in the power of God to affect man’s heart by the revelation of Himself. That is how God works so as to secure man for Himself. God has gained the victory, and for the reason that He can affect and influence the heart of man by the light in which He has been pleased to shine out. Without the work of the Spirit in your heart, that could not possibly be the case; but if you look at things as to God’s outward dealings here, He affects and influences the heart of man by the light in which He has been pleased to shine forth in His Son. I fear that a great many Christians go on for many a year without coming under the formative influence of the revelation. They believe the revelation, they know their sins are forgiven, and have peace with God, but their souls do not get enlarged and expanded by the light of God, or they would, I think, be very different from what they are.
But there is another point connected with the Son of God, namely, that every promise is now established in Him. The promises of God had relation to man, whatever they were. They regarded man, and therefore, in order that these promises might be effectual, they needed to be centred at a point from which God could affect and subdue man, for it was impossible that God’s promises could be brought to pass if it were not in God’s power to affect man according to Himself; but that is what God has proved His power and ability to do; it is in the Son of God that all the promises of God are yea and Amen. If you look for a moment at these promises, they related both to Jew and Gentile. The great promise to Abraham, “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed”, had relation to the Gentile as well as to the Jew, and so,
[p. 92] many other passages in the Old Testament relate to the Gentile. There are ample promises to the Jew, and at the same time rich promises for the Gentile. Christ is to be the “Head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me”. There are abundant promises for the Gentiles, in Christ. The great promise to Abraham was connected with blessing, but we have also foreshadowed the complete victory over the power of evil — the head of the serpent was to be bruised; then there is, too, the promise of the new covenant — man was to be morally a reflex of God; and when that came to pass, God would dwell among men. And we have also the purpose of God to reign. God Himself was going to take the kingdom. God had the kingdom, in a sense, when David reigned in Jerusalem. Then, when the line of David became completely unfaithful, and God had to break with them, power was put for the time into the hands of the Gentiles, and we have the times of the Gentiles. But we see in the Old Testament the purpose of God Himself to take up the throne; Jehovah would reign. The kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdom of our God, and of His Christ. Now, these promises refer to man, whether it is the bruising of the head of the serpent, or the blessing of all nations in Abraham. Every promise involves the blessing of man. But then, the promises could not, as I have said, be established until there was a point from which God would affect man. Now there is such a point, that is, the Son of God, in whom is revealed God’s love, and every promise of God is held in Him to God’s glory. That is the light into which we have come — the light of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ, where every promise of God is established and firm, because from that point God can make man willing in the day of His power. That is what will come to pass in the case of Israel, and that is what God has done in regard of us. And now, in regard of the promises of God, in the [p. 93] Son of God is the yea and the Amen, for glory to God by us, because the light of the Son of God can affect man.
And now, I just say a few words as to how we are affected. It is important to see that side of it, if these promises are to be to the glory of God by us. “Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God: who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts”. The first expression that you get there is a little difficult to interpret. My impression is this, that it means attaching us firmly unto Christ. That is the work of God, and I think that work of God, as I understand it, is carried on in the hearts of the saints. God is the One who does it. The way in which it is wrought is this, that God gives Christ such a place in the hearts of the saints, as that He attaches us firmly to Him; He dwells by faith in the heart. Then, God has anointed us. He has given us intelligence in the power of the Holy Spirit, a spiritual intelligence of things. I think I can give you an interpretation of it. Look at the apostle’s prayer, in Ephesians 3: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love” — just notice how all the Godhead is brought into the passage: the Father strengthens you with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that the Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith — “that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend” (that is the effect of the anointing) “with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ” (that is, that your hearts may be firmly attached to Christ) “which [p. 94] passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God”. I think any one can very well understand that if Christ dwells in the heart by faith, your heart is firmly attached to Him; He rules in your heart. And then, you have intelligence, you are anointed, and can enter into the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, that is, into the whole range and extent of divine promises. You grasp the entire system, for all the promises of God form one grand system. The idea is not that there are a number of promises having little or no connection with each other, but that they form one grand system, of which the church is the crowning stone. All the promises of God in Christ are yea, and in Christ the amen, for glory to God by us — that is, by the assembly. The assembly is the witness of them now, and the glory of God is expressed in the assembly, because the assembly has, and gives, the sense of the stability of all God’s promises in the One who is the Yea and Amen.
Then, God has also sealed us. The seal is the mark which God has put upon us, and that is the Spirit. It is the expression, the evidence, that we are genuinely God’s property. He has His mark upon us. We get the consciousness by the Spirit that we are not our own, but God’s property. And more than that, He has given us the earnest of the Spirit; His Spirit is the Earnest of the inheritance and of glory in our souls. That is what God has effected on our side. What He has effected on His own side is in order that He might subdue the hearts of men by the revelation of Himself. What a wonderful company we should be if we were here in the full sense of the certainty and fixity of everything which God has promised, if our souls had power to take up the whole range of those promises! How conscious we should be of blessing if we saw the beauty of that system, everything established in the Son of God, and we firmly attached to Christ; anointed, that we might have intelligence as to the [p. 95] knowledge of God; sealed, as the property of God; and having the earnest of the Spirit until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.
Now, I think you will admit that the passage is a very profound one. It consists of only two or three verses, but it is pregnant with profound meaning. It would be a great study for a young Christian to apprehend the promises of God as one complete whole. They lie about in Scripture, but they form one whole. God could not reveal them all together; He revealed them in part here and there; but now it is our privilege to see the completeness and perfection of the whole, established and firm in the Son of God.