THE WORK OF GOD
THE WORK OF GOD
Romans 7: 1-4; Romans 12: 1-6; 1 Corinthians 6: 19, 20
I would like to say a little more about the work of God. I am sure we must feel that God is working. If He is working it is of the greatest importance that we should consider His work. There is nothing in material things to compare with the work of God in creation. What could you put alongside a lily, a dove, or an ant? So it is with all the creation. We are exhorted to “Consider the work of God,” Ecclesiastes 7: 13. And it says “Remember that thou magnify his work, which men behold,” Job 36: 24. God wants us to magnify the work that we can see — not that it could be greater than it is, we can never come to the end of its greatness. I do not think a scientist could ever fully understand a worm; it is the work of God. We are to magnify His work which men behold.
Now I want to speak about what God is doing spiritually, for God has finished the material creation. The heavens and the earth were finished, and nobody can improve them. God is still working, but His work now is connected with what is spiritual and what is invisible to the natural eye. The things that are not seen are eternal, but the things that are seen are for a time and they will all disappear. The heavens and the earth will pass away; the elements will melt with fervent heat. But what is spiritual will abide, and that is what God has been occupied with these thousands of years. The Lord says: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” John 5: 17, but that work is spiritual. I have read these three scriptures with that in view — God is doing three great things at the moment. He is forming His assembly — “the house of God, which is the church of the living God,” 1 Timothy 3: 15. Then He is forming the body of Christ, just as He built Eve. It says He “built” a woman. Then He is building His temple. Of course He is doing more than all this, for you could never come to the end of His work, but I want to speak of these three things: the assembly of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of God. These three things are being formed by divine workmanship. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all engaged in this great work, and it is not yet finished. The thing that matters is to be in it; our whole being should be set towards this great end.
I would like to show how each one of us comes into this. How do I come to form part of the assembly? How do I form part of the body of Christ? How do I form part of God’s temple? These three great thoughts are universal. The assembly of God includes all believers from Pentecost to the rapture. Every believer on earth is a member of the body of Christ. The whole assembly is to be the temple — “all the building... groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord,” Ephesians 2: 21. In the epistle to the Corinthians we see that there was the assembly of God in Corinth, that God’s people in one city are also viewed as His assembly. And the apostle says to the Corinthians: “ye are Christ’s body,” 1 Corinthians 12: 27 — in that city He has His body. Then he says to them also that they are the temple of God, 1 Corinthians 3: 17. Think of what you have in thousands of cities patterned after the great universal thoughts — the assembly of God, the body of Christ, the temple of God! Could anything be greater than this in the town in which we live? This is worth living for — to be in this town in God’s assembly, as a member of Christ’s body and as forming part of God’s temple. This is the work of God. How do I find my place in this?
Now I come back to the inquiry: How can I come into these three things? I believe that a similar process goes on in the individual soul, and in the assembly. The assembly is destined to be married to Christ. Christ “loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it,” Ephesians 5: 25. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the assembly. The day is coming when it will be said “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready,” Revelation 19: 7.
How do I find a part in all this? I come into it firstly by being to Christ myself. That is what the apostle says in Romans 7; he refers to what happens in each heart — “to be to another,” Romans 7: 4. It means that Christ has such a place in our hearts, that He is as Husband to us; He is the object of our hearts; He is the One to whom we live. Now see how this comes about in the woman in John 4. The Lord appears to her — one blessed Man — the “one man” of Romans 5. He appears to her. He wins her heart, and He becomes the Man to her. She goes away and says to the men of the city: “Come, see a man”; He knows all about me, He knows everything I have done, but I love Him and I want you to love Him. He is so great a Person that He can be Husband to every heart, so that every heart should love Him and live to Him. That is how the thing begins: each heart learns to love Him, to be supported by His love, by His power, to know that what law could not do, what the world cannot do, what money cannot do, what nothing else can do, this Man can do. So we are married to Him that we might bring forth fruit for the pleasure of God. That is what goes on in one heart. Now there may be thirty brothers and sisters in a place, every one of whom loves Christ as a wife her husband, and is conscious of being supported by Him just as a wife is supported by her husband. Now when such come together the idea of the assembly is realised. What meetings we should have if it were so. Every local assembly should know something of this. But it begins with each individual Christian being married to Christ. It says in Isaiah 4, “seven women shall take hold of one man.” Christ is so great that all can take hold of Him; every heart can find a Husband in Him. It is a reproach if we are not married; these women in the prophecy said: “take away our reproach.” If there are any not married to Christ, they are under reproach. When such a Man has come in — “the man Christ Jesus,” who is Himself “over all, God blessed for ever” — when such a One has become a Man, if we are not married to Him, we are under very great reproach. Those seven women who take hold of one man, say “...let us be called by thy name”; a Christian is one who is called by “thy name”; he is married to Christ. Now that is how we touch the assembly, for the idea of an assembly necessarily includes others. Every one in God’s assembly is a lover of Christ, every one is married to Him; that is how the assembly is formed in order to be united to Christ. How little practically we really contribute to the assembly! — and the Lord wants more from us.
I pass on now to the thought of the body of Christ. You must have many members to constitute a body. A hand is not a body, an ear is not a body. “If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?” To have a body you must have many members all united together into one such is the body of Christ. The body is for Christ to express Himself. That is what our bodies are for, for the expression of ourselves. How could we know one another if we had no bodies? What a man is finds expression in his body. God is forming the body of Christ in which Christ is to be expressed universally on the one hand, and locally on the other. Think of a company of believers being in this place in which Christ can express Himself! Think of such a company throughout this earth in which this is possible anywhere; a company made up of myriads of believers, most of them inconspicuous, but all united in the one great function of expressing Christ!
Now how can I have part in this? This is another great matter that should be kept before us. How do I find my place in the body of Christ? We are brought into it as having the Holy Spirit — “in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body,” 1 Corinthians 12: 13. But how can I function, how can I fill my part in the body? That is what every member should be concerned about. The ear is always working for the body; the eye is ever occupied for the body; the hand is ever working for the body, the feet in the same way ever moving for the body. No member acts for itself — such a thing could not be in the body. How do I function in this? Well, I have a body;
that is how it is worked out, and where it begins as far as I am concerned. I must learn what to do with my body before I can function as part of the body of Christ practically. In Romans 12, after speaking of our bodies, the apostle immediately begins to speak about one body; he says “we, being many, are one body in Christ.” His mind travels from our own bodies individually to one body in Christ. So my part in the body of Christ is worked out in connection with my own body. The thing is so great to the apostle Paul that he says, “I beseech you... brethren”; he entreats the saints to present their bodies “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service.” It is the only intelligent thing we can do, to hand our bodies over to God, but it will cost something — it is a living sacrifice and a continuous sacrifice. Sacrifice means that it costs us something, but it is acceptable to God.
Now it is a question of our “bodies.” The body is the whole vessel. Some of us think that as to our ears, we will be careful to what we listen. Others as to their lips, they will be very careful about what they say. Other are more concerned about their hands, that they should do nothing that would dishonour the Lord. Others are more concerned about their feet, that they do not go where the Lord is dishonoured. All that is very good, but the word is: the body, that is the whole vessel, every part of us — eyes, lips, hands, feet — the whole vessel is presented to God and He accepts it. Think of thirty persons here doing that! Would they not function as the body of Christ? Would not Christ be expressed in these thirty persons whose bodies are handed over to God, holy and acceptable? You would have the body of Christ in principle in this place, in which Christ would express Himself. That is what He did with His body. “Thou hast prepared me a body... I come to do thy will,” Hebrews 10: 5-9. Christ was here wholly to do the will of God and in service to us. This is what He says at the supper “This is my body which is given for you,” Luke 22: 19. What about our bodies? Are we taking character from Him? Think of the woman in John 4! What will she do with her body now that she has come to own allegiance to Christ, now that He has become the Man of her heart? She will use it for Him. She leaves her water-pot; she will carry what is of God in herself, her feet will move for His pleasure, her lips will speak of Him; her whole body is to be here for God. In coming to the local assembly, what an addition such a person would be! She would come in as married to Christ, as one whose body is here for God. She would bring great wealth with her, and not be merely an onlooker. We suffer greatly from mere onlookers. How many inactive members are there in my natural body? There is not one if one’s body is healthy; I may not be able to see them all, but they are all doing something for the building up of my body. That is how it should be with each of us spiritually.
Now a word about the temple. God is building His temple. David says of the temple that it must be “exceeding magnifical,” 1 Chronicles 22: 5. The buildings which men have built, cathedrals supposed to be dedicated to the service of God, are poor things. Could such a building be a dwelling-place for God — the living God? The living God requires a living house made of living stones. He must have a spiritual house marked by what is magnificent. Where will you find anything magnificent, where will you find splendour, except in Christ? All splendour is connected with Him, as the Psalm says — “in thy splendour ride prosperously,” Psalm 45: 4. God’s temple must be splendid. Could it be otherwise? At Corinth men were bringing in what was corrupt, and the apostle rejects what they were doing. Ananias and Sapphira tried to bring into God’s temple what was corrupt. Peter said to Sapphira: “Lo, the feet of those that have buried thy husband are at the door, and they shall carry thee out,” Acts 5: 9. It was essential that such a defiling element should be carried out. The temple of God is holy whether in its universal or local character; it is made up of material that comes from Christ only. Now how do I come into this? It is to be worked out in me so that I can really be part of God’s temple here, and I have to learn how it works as to me personally. So in 1 Corinthians 6 the apostle says: “Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” How can we practically maintain the truth of God’s temple unless we are in accord with the Holy Spirit, and marked by holiness. The greatest thought of God’s temple is what is collective, and I understand my place there by learning to hold my body as a vessel which is holy. The Holy Spirit dwells in the believer’s body. Are we holding our bodies in the light of this? How can we have holiness or magnificence collectively, if the Spirit of God is grieved in us individually; if holiness is not maintained in each? Holiness is the great feature. We are to “worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,” 1 Chronicles 16: 29; according to God what is holy is beautiful. How that was seen in Christ the Holy One! His body was holy — “that holy thing.” His body was the temple — “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body,” John 2: 19-21. What a holy shrine was the body of Christ! John says: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove” — the symbol of peace and of what is pleasing to God — “and it abode upon him.” The Holy Spirit came down to abide there. No one Christian could receive the Spirit in this bodily form, this complete sense. It was unique to Christ. God would fill our hearts by the Holy Spirit, but He is infinitely greater than we are personally. The Holy Spirit as fire can sit on each one, but not even Peter or John could have all the fire; they could not have all the anointing oil. The Holy Spirit is great enough to take up residence in every Christian. When it says the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in a bodily form, it means that the Spirit came in His entirety — in a complete way. The Holy Spirit in completeness came upon Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is great enough to take up residence in every believer’s body.
Now if there are thirty persons coming together, each one of them married to Christ, each one a member of His body, holding their bodies for God, each one a vessel of the Holy Spirit; having judged what is unholy in themselves, in their associations, in what they read, in what they do, what days we would have on earth! As this is maintained, we should have the days of heaven on earth, and this is known to some extent. The consciousness of the love of Christ for the assembly is being enjoyed, the body of Christ is coming into evidence, features of Christ are being seen in their beautiful variety, and the temple of God is known with its glory, and light and worship. These things are the work of God, and God’s work must go on. Even Balaam recognised that;
as he looked at Israel from the top of the rock, as he saw God’s thought about them, he said in regard to a coming day: “it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!” Numbers 23: 23. That is what is going on, and one would like to rouse deep interest in our hearts that we may enjoy our part in God’s assembly.
If I have the light of God’s assembly, what is any national assembly to me as compared with the assembly of God! Then what can there be greater than the body of Christ over which Christ is Head? Christ “is the head of the body, the assembly,” Colossians 1: 18. How all that of which man is head fades away when we think of that of which Christ is Head! Then there is the temple of God, which is holy and great and wonderful, and in which we have part! Every Christian is to have part in what God is bringing to pass on these three lines — first he is married to Christ Himself, then his body is held for God, and then his body is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That is how the thing works livingly and practically. Divine Persons are engaged gathering the assembly, forming the body of Christ, building the temple; this is the present work of God. People are so occupied with what He has done in the past, and some Christians are much occupied with what He will do in the coming world — books are written about the Lord’s coming and the millennium, etc. — but is the Lord doing nothing now? Are these two thousand years of no account? How shall we allow such a thought? He is doing a great work and He says: “Remember that thou magnify his work, which men behold.” We also read: “So shall I talk of thy wondrous works,” Psalm 119: 27. What do we talk about in our intercourse one with another? Is His wondrous work so little to us that we do not talk about it? Think of all His wondrous works, and we shall have much to talk about! The Lord help us to consider the work of God for His name’s sake.