‘THE BREASTPLATE AND THE LOCAL ASSEMBLIES’
In making these remarks [from Exod.28:15-22] I am referring to the fact that there were no names of individuals in the breastplate, but of "tribes", and, as I understand it, each tribe as a type would have its antitype in the local assembly. The Lord would give us a sense of the speciality of the way He thinks of us as on assembly ground in each locality.
Paul is in a particular way the representative of Christ, he is the "called apostle of Jesus Christ", and what marked him was great interest in local assemblies. No doubt he was interested in the saints in a general way, but his service, as we have it recorded in Scripture, is largely service to local assemblies. His epistles are nearly all addressed to saints in defined localities – Corinth, Rome, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, etc. In this, I think, he was peculiarly in accord with the heart of Christ, one might say with the stones in the breastplate.
Each assembly is in view as having its own particular character; the tribes as seen in the breastplate were all set together in unity … but each tribe had its own special place in the breastplate. I believe every local assembly has a distinct place on the heart of Christ. We may gather this from Revelation 2 and 3, where we have seven assemblies (no doubt representing all the assemblies), and each is addressed as having the special attention of the Lord … [He] has a peculiar and special interest in each local company … it puts us in a place where we receive peculiar and affectionate support direct from the heart of Christ. It is in that character typically that we are seen in the breastplate. It would help us to see that the teaching of the type does not refer to individual saints, but to the saints viewed … as definitely set together locally. This regards us as being together locally on true assembly ground …
The enemy's point of attack is the local assembly, see Acts 20:29,30. His object is, of course, to assail what is universal; but his point of attack is the local assembly; we ought to realise that; it would preserve us from expecting that we are going to have all plain sailing in our local associations; we must expect to find the enemy operating in respect of the local assembly. … All sorts of things rise up in the local assemblies, but how precious it is to know that in relation to these difficulties we have the affectionate interest of Christ, and we are borne on the heart of Christ in a peculiar way in relation to those very things. It is most encouraging …
The different questions that arise locally develop Christ's glory in the assemblies. … I believe the most testing exercises are those connected with administration … perplexing questions of right and wrong. … Now it is just these exercises which impart distinctive colour to each local assembly. As to the testimony, the service of God, the ministry – in a word all that is priestly or levitical – it is universal, and all that is administrative has to be worked out in the light of it. But administrative exercises are local, and have to be worked out locally, and when worked out they give distinctive features of Christ's glory which answer to the stones in the breastplate. ...
What a comfort to know that the breastplate was never detached from the ephod. Christ as Priest before God bears all the local assemblies on His heart in relation to those particular features of His glory which local exercises are designed to bring out. All have their place in the universal setting, and go to make up the completeness of the administrative features which belong to the assemblies viewed universally. All are perfectly fitted together, like the stones in the breastplate, so as to be manifestly one complete whole … So that while each local assembly has its own exercise, all move together as one whole, and each forms an integral part of the whole. "The breastplate of judgment" would suggest that everything is to be judged from the standpoint of what is in the heart of Christ.
In the assemblies viewed according to God there is a setting forth of Christ's glory that corresponds with the precious stones in the breastplate. One local assembly is never to be detached in our minds from all the others. ...
Paul, in writing to the assembly of God in Corinth, is careful to remind them of the universal unity, for he addresses them as linked "with all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ", 1 Cor.1:2. … This is not a voluntary association, or a union of independent assemblies, but an organic unity which, like the settings of gold which enclosed the stones of the breastplate, embraces all saints, in however many local assemblies they may be found. … The saints are one body, and are called by God to one holy fellowship. So that the thought of independent local fellowship, or of any assembly action which can be limited in its bearing to the particular locality where it was taken, is entirely out of accord with the truth…
Many things in Scripture have been held in reserve; the typical teaching of the Old Testament is among the reserve stores of divine wisdom and love kept to encourage us in our exercises today. In the sense of this may we seek to answer locally to what the tribes are as seen in the breastplate!
C.A. Coates Vol.9, Outline of Mark’s Gospel, pp.423-434