THE TWO MINISTRIES AND THEIR RESULTS IN THE SOUL
[p. 239] THE TWO MINISTRIES AND THEIR RESULTS IN THE SOUL
There are evidently two ministries presented to us in the New Testament, that of the gospel and that of the mystery. They are specifically stated by Paul, and may be found in principle in Peter’s writings, and though the two are in perfect accord, and the same persons the subjects of both, yet they are shown to us in distinctness with their respective objects. I desire to set forward, in measure, the nature of each, with its effect in the soul.
And I may first remark that in speaking of the ministry of the gospel, I do not refer exclusively to its proclamation to the unsaved, for I think that the ministry of the gospel is necessary for the establishment of those who through grace have believed, as is made evident by the character of the epistle to the Romans.
The preaching of the gospel has a twofold object: to make known on the one side the righteousness and grace of God in Christ; and on the other to bring the soul through the death and resurrection of Christ consciously into relationship to God on the ground of His glory, and into the consequent enjoyment of salvation from all that is opposed to God.
And here I would remark that too much stress cannot be laid on the fact that before ever the gospel came into the world, the world had been guilty of rejecting God’s Son, and that, in spite of full testimony given both in words and works; and hence the ground on which the gospel now rests is that of the purpose and glory of God. That Christ was rejected by His own people all would admit; but Scripture goes further and lays it down to this world and its princes. Jesus Himself said, “Now is the judgment of this world”. Christ came here in grace, not imputing [p. 240] trespasses to men, healing all that were oppressed of the devil, relieving men from the outward effects of sin, ministering in every kind of divine beneficence, but He was cast out and crucified. Now, though this fact may be lightly passed over by men, it is not so of God, and the consequences are momentous.
The first is, that while the gospel perfectly meets man’s need and his failure in his responsibility, yet the ground on which it has come in is that of the purpose of God, for His glory, to accomplish His will; and souls who have received the gospel leave the world morally to enter God’s house. The basis of it is that where man was most guilty, sin was removed from before God by sacrifice, and God perfectly glorified. Christ having died for all (for the state of all was alike), all are invited to come in, but whether men respond or not to the call, God will surely accomplish, by the gospel, His own purpose. He will have His house filled. The Jews fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them, and God is calling out of the Gentiles a people for His name.
All who preach the gospel should be conscious that they are the servants of God’s purpose; and in this light they will see the equal importance of the ministry of the mystery with that of the gospel.
As I have already said, the object of the ministry of the gospel is, besides revealing God’s righteousness for faith, to bring our souls consciously into relation to God through Christ on that ground. It makes God known in His love and goodness — and by faith of it we are justified, have peace with God, access by faith into favour and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. His love is shed abroad in our hearts, and we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation. We are in God’s marvellous light, and before Him apart from all that is contrary. At the same time our whole thought of God is completely changed. We are brought to Him.
[p. 241] It will thus be evident that the gospel deals with our persons and does not touch the question of any change of order. We who once were guilty are justified, who were alienated are reconciled. We have our place before God clearly marked out, and not only so, but are formed for God by the gospel, for, as we have seen, the truth of the gospel not only makes known to us the benefits given in grace, but forms our souls by the Spirit’s power for God from whom those benefits have come. And hence there is not only the surrender of our own wills in the confession of Christ as Lord, but there are desires of heart for the worship and service of God and fellowship with other saints. The truth, that where two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name He is in the midst is accepted, and the soul has reached the blessing of God’s house. Believers thus instructed are like Israel in the wilderness, the congregation of the Lord. But not knowing the ministry of the mystery they fail to apprehend the truth of Christ as Head, and the relation of saints to Him as such, and to one another as in Him, with the affections which are peculiar to these relationships. Hence the full purpose of God is not reached in the soul, and this is surely a great loss as well as a hindrance to the continuation of the work of God in them.
In the mystery the position of Christ as Head and the relation of the saints to Him as such is made known, and by the ministry of the mystery the soul is fitted for its place in the assembly which is His body. The believer comes thus as a living stone to the living stone to form part of the spiritual house. He is at the service of and under the direction of the Head. Every believer is, in receiving the Spirit, united to Christ, but I think I may say that but few of us comparatively enter here into the blessed reality of union; but as by the truth of the gospel our souls are formed for relationship with God, so by the ministry of the mystery we are practically formed for the special [p. 242] relationship in which we stand to Christ as members of His body, and consequently to one another.
The mystery speaks of Christ and of the assembly. The first important point is to apprehend what the Head is, and then that the members are in accordance with the Head, as Rebekah was of the kindred of Abraham and thus suited to be the wife of Isaac. It is evident that Christ could not have entered on the position of Head of the body while here after the flesh, for He stood completely alone as the corn of wheat. As Head He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, wholly of a new source and order, “out of heaven”. He is also separated by death from all the distinctions by which men are divided on earth according to the ordering of God, in order that He may be Head alike to Jew and Gentile. He forms in Himself out of twain, one new man.
All that is accomplished in Ephesians is there viewed as of the power of God, working where all was in death. Christ had gone into death not only as having borne on the cross all that was due to sin, but in the moral excellence which characterised His blessed Person as Son of man. He was the embodiment in flesh of the grace of heaven, full of grace and truth, the living bread come down from heaven. Infinitely perfect as man, and His perfectness not derived from man, but of His own Person. Hence we can well understand the mighty power of God put forth in His resurrection to give Him a condition and place suited to what He was, and commensurate to His humiliation. Such is the Head, the Man of grace and glory, and thus it was that He made Himself known to Saul of Tarsus; for while He appeared to him in a glory surpassing all natural brightness, He spoke to the stern insolent persecutor in terms that expressed the supremacy of grace. I need hardly add that in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, but that is not now my point, I am viewing Him as the Head.
[p. 243] The mystery makes known not only the Head, but the glory of our connection with the Head. We were by the baptism of the Spirit members of Christ before we knew it, but the ministry of the mystery not only informs us of the relationship which subsists, but forms us spiritually for the enjoyment of the relationship. It makes known to us that Christ is in us. It is not as men on earth (supposing we had ever had any status before God as such) that we could be united to Christ, but as having, when spiritually dead, been quickened by the power of God into a new order of being corresponding morally to what Christ is as Man in glory. “As is the heavenly such are the heavenly”. There is with the Christian an inner and an outer man, and the inner man is that with which the Christian identifies himself before God, and in virtue of which he looks to be clothed upon with his house out of heaven; and even now beholding the Lord’s glory he is changed into the same image from glory to glory.
The mystery, as we have seen, makes known how Christ can be Head of a joint body composed of Jew and Gentile; and how Jew and Gentile while still here in flesh can form a joint body of which Christ is Head.
For the realisation of it, one’s mind and spirit must of necessity be withdrawn by the power of the Spirit from the individual outward life of the Christian on earth in which Christ is known and confessed as Lord. And farther, the ministry of the mystery fits us for the bond with Christ as Head, and it is in the apprehension of Him thus that we enter fully into the privilege of the assembly and are formed in the affections peculiar to it. Christ loved the assembly and gave Himself for it. We get thus an idea of the assembly in its proper character as the body of Christ, and consequently the temple of God; and understanding the truth of our union with one another in the Spirit, are thus greatly helped in the endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.