1 KINGS 8 (NOTES OF A READING)
1 KINGS 8 (NOTES OF A READING)
Ques We were interested to see that Solomon as king and priest was great enough to reach out and take in, in his prayer, a wider circle until the stranger is reached. Would he be a type of the Lord in a day that is to come?
CAC Yes, surely; and you would not object to giving it a present application, would you? It seems to me that what is presented in chapters 7 and 8 very much answers to the two presentations of the assembly in the gospel of Matthew. In chapter 16 the Lord speaks of building His assembly, and the gates of hades cannot prevail against it. It is the assembly viewed in its abstract perfection, where all is of God, answering to the temple as built in chapter 7. The material is all spiritual. It is the saints viewed in their abstract perfection as subjects of the work of God and material which Christ can handle and put together so that there is that which stands for God in this world.
Peter is brought to the confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. For the moment Peter is abstracted from all that he was in himself, and characterised by the Father’s revelation, that is, he is a stone for the divine building. It is a comfort to view the saints from that standpoint. I thought, as I looked around yesterday on that company of sixteen hundred saints, of the substance that is here — divinely wrought substance. You can look at them apart from what they are according to flesh and nature.
Then when you come to Solomon’s prayer, you have chapter 18 of Matthew, the thought of the assembly as the [p. 95] vessel of the grace of heaven, and yet called upon to bring that grace into contact with many things that are not exactly pleasurable to God. You find that he says again and again, “Forgive”. If you view the assembly abstractly as in Christ, there is nothing to forgive; if you think of the assembly as built by Christ upon this rock, it is invulnerable. Forgiveness does not come in at all there, but when you come to the prayer it is taking account of actual conditions, so that it is the assembly viewed according to Matthew 18, where one brother may sin against another; he has to be approached, but he is approached in the grace of heaven. Heaven is God’s dwelling place, and in the actual conditions of the assembly down here, things have to be handled in the grace of heaven. We must never forget that. So this prayer is permeated with the grace of heaven. The fact that those are the only two references to the assembly which the Lord made during His life and ministry here on earth show how much they demand our attention. We should consider them very seriously.
If you think of the assembly as in Christ Jesus it is a universal and eternal thought. The assembly is going to be in Christ Jesus to all generations of the age of ages. But when you come to Matthew 18 it is the assembly locally; because you can tell things to the assembly and it is the local assembly that speaks. The universal assembly never speaks. It only says one word that I know of; that word is “Come” to Jesus. But the local assembly can speak if you bring a refractory brother before it, it can speak to him in all the grace of heaven.
Ques The thought of the assembly in Corinth would be responsible and local?
CAC That is right; and in the assembly viewed locally there are always matters that call for forgiveness. We shall never be in a state, as set here locally, when there will not be things that call for forgiveness. So that we are to [p. 96] meet everything that arises in the grace of heaven. I think you see Solomon here as a man imbued with the grace of heaven, so that he reflects in his prayer the thoughts and feelings and desires of heaven. It is most important for us locally, because it is locally that we are tried and tested. A man comes on the scene, locally, who sins against his brother; he will not listen to his brother when he goes to him about it, and when the brother takes two more, he will not listen to them; finally the assembly has to speak to him.
Ques Does Peter give the idea of the local assembly in his epistles?
CAC I think he has in view the abstract idea of the spiritual house. It is written to those who are scattered, and I think he presents the general thought of coming to Christ as the living Stone, and we also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. It is the universal thought. It is the holy priesthood, Godward, and the royal priesthood, manward. That is, Peter has in mind what we should speak of as the morning meeting and the gospel preaching.
Rem Solomon was anticipating general failure.
CAC Shewing that we can count upon God whatever the conditions may be. He goes over a number of conditions that may arise that call for forgiveness. How many times he says, ‘Forgive!’, ‘Forgive!’. Everything that does not please God has to be forgiven. How much there is in the christian profession that does not please God; and how much there is in me that has not pleased God. All that calls for forgiveness. Now God is in the spirit of forgiveness, and heaven is in the spirit of forgiveness, and if we are not in the spirit of forgiveness we are not in God’s assembly properly.
Ques Is the basis of it all the death of Christ?
CAC Yes, it all stands on that ground and therefore [p. 97] anything that is inconsistent with the death of Christ is a thing that has to be forgiven. Whatever Christ died to put away is really intolerable in the sight of God, and it ought to be intolerable to us. One earnestly desires that what is displeasing to God may be displeasing to me. Now the assembly is to be made up of people of that kind. Everyone has come in as a little child. Matthew 18 begins with that. You come into the assembly very small, and you keep small in that sense. And therefore everything has to be done by prayer. The great suggestion of this chapter is that all through the history of the people everything was to hang upon prayer. In Matthew 18 the Lord suggests that everything is done on the principle of prayer. He speaks about two of you agreeing to ask, shewing that the thing is effective if you are even reduced to two. It is not only the assembly in its abstract perfection, as in chapter 16, or even the assembly in its entirety, but things may be reduced to two. They have not yet been brought down to two here, but if they had, everything would be effective on the principle of prayer. I believe every word of it! I may fail in maintaining the character of it, but I believe every word of it that the Lord will stand by two. If there are only two left He will make the Third, and that makes the thing effective.
Everything is preserved in the local assembly consistently with the dispensation. Nothing will maintain things but the spirit of dependence. It is the dispensation of grace. The hymn rightly says, ‘Grace is the sweetest sound that ever reach’d our ears’. The dispensation of grace is a wonderful thing, and all the spirit of it is enshrined in the assembly viewed locally, viewed responsibly and viewed as having to deal with assembly matters. If people do not surrender to that they are outlaws and have forfeited all title to the name of christian.
Rem Solomon [p. 98] is bent on recovery and the assembly should be bent on recovery.
CAC Quite so, and God has established all the conditions that will bring about recovery. We have to deal with much that God is not pleased with and which He has to forgive; and He does forgive us a great deal without saying anything about it. We all know that; how He has forgiven us when we expected to get a good thrashing.
Ques As to verses 31 and 32.
CAC That supposes that what is evil is dealt with.
We have to remember that whilst we speak of the assembly as the vessel of the grace of heaven, it is in harmony with the government of the Lord. And conditions arise when that state of things comes into view. That is, if we withdraw from a man it is on the line of the government of God.
It is a question of proving the right and truth of a matter, so that the wicked man is condemned and the righteous man is justified. That is government. But grace is ever supreme; we do not read about government reigning, but we do read about grace reigning. Grace is always supreme.
If the assembly speaks with authority there is a governmental element there which must not be disregarded. If a man disregards it he is an outlaw; you do not look upon him as a brother any longer. If a matter comes before the assembly and the assembly expresses a judgment and the man will not bow to it, you do not regard him as a christian any longer; the Lord says, “Let him be to thee as one of the nations and a tax-gatherer”, Matthew 18: 17. It is government, but it is because he has refused to listen to the voice of grace.
The government of God goes on even if things are forgiven. David sinned and the moment he confessed it he is told, “Jehovah has also put away thy sin”, 2 Samuel 12: 13. But look at the government; the government of God went on to the end of his days. He was forgiven on the spot but that did not restrain the action of [p. 99] divine government. But we have to remember that the moment we begin to go right, the government of God begins to act in our favour. So that the government of God which came upon David, and which followed him to his grave, when he really turned to God, began to act favourably toward him to prepare him to lay himself out for the house of God. The very action of the government became a help to him.
Rem As to the coming in of Solomon.
CAC That is the supremacy of grace! Grace is superior to every possible sin that there can be on the part of mankind. God knows all about the sin; but He has secured His own glory about all the sin that ever was and He has provided a Head for every man in pure grace. Christ is universal Head for man. There is only one Head for the human family — Christ. And all that men have to do to be blest is to recognise the divinely appointed Head. Righteousness and love are there for every man in the Head. Romans 5 is wider than 1 Corinthians 11, because in Corinthians He is not the Head of every woman but according to Romans He is Head for every man, woman and child in the world.
Ques Is there a difference between grace and righteousness?
CAC Righteousness has come in on the principle of grace. It is remarkable, as we have all noticed, that in the first chapter of John it says grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ; it is a singular verb, showing that grace and truth are one thing, not two. There is no grace without truth and no truth without grace. It is a subsisting thing now in Christ; and that is why you get so little about grace in the gospels. I used to wonder why grace was not mentioned in the gospels more than it is. It is not mentioned in Matthew and Mark, hardly in Luke, and John only alludes to it at the beginning of his gospel, “The Word [p. 100] became flesh, and dwelt among us ... full of grace and truth;” and “grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ”. You see, the evangelists did not need to use the word grace; the thing itself was there substantially in the Son of God. If you have the thing you do not want the word, do you?
You remember in Hebrews 9 it says that all these types were only given until the time of setting things right — that is now. God is setting things right and what God sets right cannot be improved upon. So the great thing for us now is to be skilled in the word of righteousness because God has brought in in Christ everything that is right and it is available on the principle of grace for all men. So that righteousness and grace go together. Indeed, Mr. Raven used to say that in Romans 3 grace and righteousness are interchangeable.
Ques What would you say as to righteousness reigning in the world to come?
CAC When righteousness reigns in the coming day it will be on the principle of grace. Things are not put right publicly now but they are put right for faith. God has set things right and we come into it by faith; by and by they will come into it publicly on the principle of grace.
1 Kings 8 contemplates a dispensation set up in divine perfection according to chapter 7, but which quickly became marked by failure. So it has in view the christian profession and all the failure that has come into it. Kings particularly applies to the present time, Chronicles more to the world to come.
If a man sins he comes under the government of God and he has to reap the consequences of what he has done wrong, but then exercises begin with him and if he is a child of God he is the subject of the advocacy of Christ, showing that grace is predominant, and the man is brought to repent. The man may have to suffer all his life.
[p. 101] Some sins are repented of in a few minutes, but the consequences remain through life; but the man who takes up the exercise of it is gaining something spiritually all the time. David is a great example of that. He was perhaps the most tender-hearted man that ever lived; his psalms bring out his great sensitiveness; he felt things and so he was like God. But then that made him feel intensely when he was brought under conviction of sin. He felt it far more deeply than an ordinary person and therefore the work of God developed wonderfully in him so that he speaks of preparing for the house in his affliction. A man afflicted under the government of God becomes wealthy toward the house.
It is very important for us to recognise the assembly in these two aspects. The assembly is the representative of heaven in judging evil; but then it is in the spirit of grace that it judges evil. I have been in a meeting where evil had to be judged and I think every brother wet the floor with his tears. Now that is the grace of heaven.
Rem As to “when the heavens are shut up, and there is no rain”.
CAC There is a reason for the state of things in the christian profession — all the worldliness and all the bad teaching is like mildew and canker-worm. Why is it? God’s people have sinned; that is the reason. We have to get back to God and confess the sin, and count upon His grace. If two walk together in a sense of how the assembly has sinned those two can count upon the grace of heaven and all that corresponds with Solomon’s prayer can be there.
Rem As to Ezra and Nehemiah.
CAC They are eating the sin offering of the people and taking it all on themselves and realising that the death of Christ is needed. Do we feel that when anything wrong happens, ‘This needed the death of Christ; Christ had to die for that’? There is not a single thing displeasing to God that Christ did not taste death for.
Solomon is a priest upon his throne. The more God dominates us in a kingly way, the more competent we ought to be for what is priestly; the priest ought to have compassion on the ignorant and erring; it belongs to priesthood.
Ques As to the “stranger”.
CAC Yes, it widens out to the gospel, because God is dwelling here. He has a Gentile habitation now — “in whom ye also” (Gentiles) “are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”, Ephesians 2: 22. He dwells there so that His grace can go out from there to all men. So that it is incumbent upon the saints as walking assembly-wise that the gospel should be maintained. The gospel preacher thinks of God.
The testimony in the Old Testament was what God looked for in man, but the testimony today is what man may look for in God. What Man can be for God is seen perfectly in Christ, but the testimony is what God is for man and we tell it out at the door of the house. The house of God is an extension to heaven — another wing built on!