CHRIST AS A MERCHANT
[p. 245] CHRIST AS A MERCHANT
Matthew 25: 6 - 9; Revelation 3: 18; Song of Songs 3:6; Matthew 13: 45,46
The Lord Jesus calls our attention to Himself in these scriptures as a Merchant, and I have suggested the consideration of them with the desire that young believers, and indeed all of us, may be encouraged to have personal transactions with Him. It is to be noticed that He brings Himself before us in this character more particularly in the closing period of the assembly’s history. It is just before the Bridegroom comes that the prudent virgins tell their foolish companions to go to those that sell and buy oil for themselves, and it is to Laodicea, the last stage of the christian profession, that the Lord gives counsel to buy of Him, so that this presentation of Christ has a particular bearing at the present moment. We are nearer the Lord’s return than the assembly has ever been before, and in view of it the precious things which He has to sell are indispensable to every one of us, but they are obtainable through personal transactions with the seller.
I do not think that the similitude of Matthew 25, or the counsel to Laodicea are intended to raise the question of whether we are able to pay for the oil or the things spoken of in Revelation 3:18. Indeed, in the latter case the Lord is addressing those whom He says are “poor”, so that ability to pay in an ordinary sense would not be found with them. In the commercial sense buying an article involves giving an equivalent value, but this could never be in relation to divine Persons or to the things which can be procured from Them. Whatever surrender may be called for on our part if we are to become possessors of [p. 246] things which have value before God — and no doubt a certain price has to be paid — we could never get them by paying an equivalent. In buying from the Lord Jesus it must always be “without money and without price”, though to get them there must be a turning from the world and its things and from what is natural and fleshly.
Many merchants in Vanity Fair have many commodities to offer, but things of true value can only be obtained by transactions with the heavenly Merchant. The suggestion that we should buy intimates to us that the precious things are obtainable; there is a Merchant who has them in stock and is prepared to furnish them to those who wish to be possessed of them. The Lord’s words are intended to assure us that until the moment of His return the things which He speaks of will be available to those who desire to have them. Desire for them is really “current with the merchant” who has them to dispose of; He accepts payment in that currency. But the matter is urgent, for we are just at the end of the period in which these things are procurable. An honoured servant of the Lord used to tell us that the most important thing was to finish well. The things which the Lord encourages us to buy are indispensable if we are to finish well; that is, if we are to finish as those possessed of spiritual wealth. I trust we all desire to finish thus. The things referred to have been available all through the assembly’s period, but the Lord calls special attention to them in the last days because of the urgency of the moment. He would have His saints to be furnished with the best and choicest just before He comes, so that He may not find us without oil in our vessels, or as poor and naked and blind.
The oil, the gold, the white garments, and the eye-salve are all obtainable now, but many, alas! will put off going to the divine Merchant until it is too late. When the Bridegroom comes it will be too late, but until the moment of [p. 247] His coming a supply of oil will be available. The Lord has the Spirit without measure, which indicates there is no limit to the supply. As long as vessels came in the prophet’s day, the oil continued to flow; it was only when there was not another vessel that the oil stayed (2 Kings 4:7). Every one who values the Spirit can have Him. God delights that the Spirit should be valued, as we may learn from Luke 11:13 and John 4:10. The great sin of christendom is that men are despising the Spirit. We read of those who insulted the Spirit of grace, Hebrews 10: 29. He is insulted by being disregarded. If the king came to a town and no one regarded his presence it would be counted insulting behaviour. As the Spirit is now obtainable from Christ, how important that we should have oil in our vessels. I understand oil in the vessel to represent the Spirit as power to maintain witness to Christ as the coming Bridegroom.
The coming of the Lord is God’s great objective; He has had it before Him from the beginning of His ways. There is no other remedy for the world’s ills, no other possibility of the promises being fulfilled. We all know something of the state of the world today; one can hardly suppose that anyone is still so blind as to persuade himself that it is getting better. A bright witness to the coming Bridegroom is peculiarly seasonable amidst all the upheavals and uncertainties of a time when men’s evil passions are coming more and more into ascendancy. The Spirit is the power of divine witness to the Bridegroom and to all that is coming in with Him. In contrast to all the false lights which appear as the Lord’s return draws nigh, believers are to be vessels of the Spirit’s witness to Him. It is not enough to have a lamp — to be professed believers — but each believer is to be personally a vessel of the Spirit. The believer’s body is to be characterised by the presence in it of the Spirit, who witnesses to all that is coming in with Christ. Oil in the vessels is indispensable in view of that [p. 248] witness.
Without the Spirit all christian light which there may have appeared to be will die out in utter darkness; it is a solemn thing to contemplate. The light may burn low even when there is oil in the vessel and the lamp may need trimming. That is the case with most believers; there is need to remove whatever tends to obscure the light, but the trimming in the case of the foolish virgins brings out that they have no oil in their vessels. It is well to face the exercise of this, and to be quite sure that we have had dealings with the Merchant and have oil in our vessels. In any case, thank God! the oil is still obtainable, the Bridegroom has not yet come.
In Revelation 3:18, the lesson impressed by the Lord’s counsel is that we are to be possessed of what has true value, and the things spoken of can only be obtained from Christ: “I counsel thee to buy of me gold purified by fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white garments, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be made manifest; and eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see”. The acquisition of these things is open to all who give heed to the Lord’s counsel. He is persistent in seeking access to those whom He loves; He patiently stands at the door and knocks that the door may be opened and that there may be personal intercourse of an intimate character with Him and the one who opens to Him. He is still the faithful Friend and Lover, notwithstanding all that exists in that which bears His name. But it is to be noted that the counsel to buy of Him comes before seeking admittance. I believe it is only those who have acquired gold and white garments and eye-salve who will open the door to Him. Those who have not these things will not desire His company for they will be conscious that they have not anything in common with Him. In such a case how could He sup with them or they with [p. 249] Him, for neither would have what the other could enjoy? The first thing which the Lord counsels us to buy of Him is “gold purified by fire”. Material gold is corruptible and perishes, but as a divine symbol it represents the best that men can have. Gold is the first metal mentioned in Scripture, and it is also the last. The most precious thing that any intelligent creature can have is the knowledge of his Creator. I believe the land of Havilah, spoken of in Genesis 2:11,12, of which it is said, “where the gold is. And the gold of that land is good”, was a prophetic intimation that God meant to have a region upon earth where He would be known. This was His thought in separating Israel from the nations and, now, in taking out of the nations a people for His name. He had the assembly in view even before sin came into the world. The great symbols to which God gave a place at the very beginning are worthy of our deep attention — the tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the river, the land where the gold is. God would stimulate enquiry into the meaning of these things! He intends them to be subjects of enquiry on man’s part.
Then gold was prominent in the tabernacle, and we may particularly notice that the mercy-seat was of pure gold. It sets forth God’s thought to be known by men, for it was there that He met with the mediator, and He spoke with him of all that He would communicate to men, Exodus 25:22. We may be sure that when the Lord speaks to Laodicea of gold purified by fire He has in mind what had been set forth in the Old Testament in a symbolical way. He intends it to convey the thought of the knowledge of God as He has been pleased to reveal Himself. There can be no true knowledge of God in love, or grace, or mercy, save as we recognise the necessity for sin being judged, and this, I believe, is set forth in the symbolical language, “gold purified by fire”. The gold of the mercy-seat had upon it [p. 250] the blood of the sin-offering and that blood witnessed to the consuming judgment of sin, as seen typically in the sin-offering which was burned to ashes outside the camp. The love of God is only known when it is seen that He gave His Son to bear the judgment of sin.
All the gracious words and acts of the Lord Jesus in the days of His flesh were based upon the fact that He was going to bear the judgment of sin upon the cross. Those who heard and saw those words and acts did not know it, not even His disciples, but He knew it. They were all the expression of God in mercy, but founded upon His death. It was all “gold purified by fire”. If we could not know God as in relation to men who have come under sin and death, we could not know Him at all, for we were in that case. This is the charm of the gospels; we see Immanuel, not with unfallen angels but with sinful man. All that God is morally, and in His nature, came out in a scene where sin had left its mark on everything. God was speaking from above the mercy-seat so that He might be known by men in a way He could not have been known in an innocent world. Every word and act of Jesus brought out what God is in His faithfulness to men in spite of their unfaithfulness to Him. So that those words and acts, as the expression of God, are enough to fill eternity with praise. They are all “gold purified by fire”.
God came near to men in Jesus that men might know Him. The gospels are the most wonderful part of Scripture, ‘A life divine below’. We see God coming into contact with men in all their weakness, guilt, defilement and death, under the oppression of the devil, and yet all was perfectly consistent with divine righteousness and holiness. No reproach could be cast upon God that He exercised grace at the expense of righteousness, for He presented Himself in grace to men on the ground that sin was to be fully judged in the sacrifice and death of Christ. God is made [p. 251] known as acting according to His nature, but in perfect consistency with all His attributes, so that every gracious act and word of Jesus was most righteous and holy, and now the righteousness of God is made known in the glad tidings. What enriching power there is in all this! The Lord Jesus Christ would attract us away from the worthless things with which many in the christian profession are largely occupied and would furnish us with what has imperishable value: “I counsel thee to buy of me”.
Now all is seen in Jesus glorified; God was expressed in Him in humiliation but now He is glorified. We only get a proper apprehension of the gospel record as we bear in mind that all was written after His ascension and glorification. What a deep sense each writer of the four gospels would have that he was recording by the Spirit the words and acts of a divine Person now glorified. This gave it all surpassing value. God had given it all an infinite radiancy by glorifying the One in whom it was all expressed here. So we read of the “radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God”, 2 Corinthians 4:4, and again we read of the “shining forth”, or ‘radiancy’, “of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”, 2 Corinthians 4:6. All that was expressed of God in Him here is permanently radiant in Him as glorified, nothing can dim it. All this is “gold purified by fire”. Nothing really makes rich but what we know of God. Even blessings, if taken up as things in themselves, apart from God being known in them, will fade in the soul. But we only get the knowledge of God as wealth in our souls by personal transactions with the Lord Jesus. He counsels us to buy gold of Him that we may be rich.
A necessary counterpart to this is the place that believers have with God by His grace and calling. This is as perfect as the revelation of God, for it is set forth in the same blessed Person. Indeed, there is only one Person who [p. 252] fully knows the place which His saints have with God according to His purpose and calling and that is the glorified Son of God. He knows it because He is in it and it is fully set forth in Him; He is the only One who is possessed of it in actuality. Man in the Person of Christ is now in righteousness with God, beyond sin, beyond death, beyond the reach of Satan’s power, the object of God’s complacency and delight, made full of joy by God’s countenance, holy and without blame before Him in love, accepted and beloved in the relationship and dignity of sonship. No one knows the blessedness of that place in full measure but Christ and He lives to make it known as the place and portion through grace of all who believe on Him. There is not a trace of creature weakness or imperfection in the place which Christ holds for us as our glorious Head, not a particle of dross there; it is all “gold purified by fire”. Everything that was of sin was taken up by Him and its full judgment borne in the furnace of Calvary, so that nothing remains as set forth in the glorified Christ but Man in the presence of God according to the unalloyed perfection of the divine thought. But this can only be possessed as substance as a result of having personal transactions with Christ. Being rich is something more than having the light of things; it means that we have come into conscious possession of the true riches. Christ has the full wealth of the “gold” and He is ever willing to place it at our disposal. On our side there is always the possibility of increase.
Then the faithful and true Witness counsels us further to buy of Him “white garments, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be made manifest”. “Nakedness” is man exposing what he is according to flesh, and that is something of which to feel ashamed. But “white garments” are obtainable; it is possible for each one of us to come out in such clothing that our whole bearing and manner of life become the [p. 253] evidence that we have had transactions with Jesus. The words suggest a complete covering so that nothing of “our old man” comes into evidence. To be clothed in “white garments” is to be completely transformed morally, hence the features of Christ become manifest instead of our natural nakedness. Paul testifies to us in the Lord that we are no longer to walk as the nations walk but as those who have learned the Christ and have heard Him and been instructed in Him, according as the truth is in Jesus, and he tells us that this involves our having put off the old man and our being renewed in the spirit of our mind and our having put on the new man “which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness”, Ephesians 4:17 - 24. The devil is doing all he can to bring christians into correspondence with the world of which he is god and ruler, but God is working mightily in His elect people to bring about correspondence with Christ. Personal transactions with Christ result in learning from Him and being instructed in Him and in this way we learn what “white garments” are and we acquire them.
Timothy is introduced to our notice as “a certain disciple” at Lystra, meaning that he was a young man who was learning Christ. In learning Christ we learn what is morally suitable to God in man, and we come to it in the spirit of our mind as being instructed in Him. In Jesus we see no place at all for the old man. He bore the judgment of that man in view of His saints taking up the ground of having put off the old man and having put on the new. But for this to be practical power in the soul there must be nearness to Christ — personal transactions with Him. Nothing has any divine value for testimony in the last days but those features of Christ which are acquired as a result of having personal dealings with Him. It was said of some that “they recognised them that they were with Jesus”, Acts 4:13. They were persons attired in “white garments”.
[p. 254] Is not such a distinction to be coveted? The beautiful features mentioned in the epistles as suitable to saints are not an unattainable ideal; they are obtainable, but they can only be acquired by dealings with Christ as the Merchant who supplies them. There is not a moral feature of Christ with which He is not prepared to furnish us, so that it may appear in us instead of the dreadful nakedness of the flesh.
The Lord spoke of some in Sardis who had not defiled their garments. He said of them that they should walk with Him in white. There is a suggestion of suitability to heaven in “white garments”. If a believer were conscious of having such garments how careful it would make him of what he came in contact with down here! How vigilantly would his associations be watched and guarded. It is to be feared that many professed christians are like the young man in the garden with a linen cloth cast about his naked body. He had a certain covering but it was not a garment. It could not be said that he was clothed and when his following Christ exposed him to suffering with Him, he left it behind and fled naked. It was something that could be slipped off easily. That is not the true idea of clothing. We see the true idea in the young man sitting on the right of the sepulchre clothed in a white robe (Mark 16:5). He had definitely taken his place as sitting there in identification with Christ as having been buried here, but he was “sitting on the right”, indicating that it was not a place of weak ness, but of power. He represents, I believe, one in whom the strength of the testimony is seen.
The true christian is to have “white garments” so that what is of the flesh is not manifested and the scripture before us in Revelation 3 shows in a very simple way how these garments can be acquired. It shows us where the power of deliverance lies. The doctrine of deliverance as seen in Romans 6, Romans 7 and Romans 8 is most important; being [p. 255] instructed in it preserves us from wrong thoughts, but the true power of deliverance comes from having to do with Christ. Indeed we understand the doctrine by having the thing. He says, “Buy of me ... white garments”. Such garments can only be acquired by transactions with Christ.
Then the Lord counsels to buy eye-salve — this is another indispensable thing — “to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see”. At such a time as this ability to see is of prime importance for there are innumerable bypaths in which we may lose our way and many ditches into which we may fall. Lukewarmness and indecision will leave us utterly blind and ready to be led by any blind guide who may undertake to direct us. But, on the other hand, earnestness and devotion will not suffice, for many intensely earnest men have wandered far from the right paths of the Lord. We need the eye-salve which Christ alone can supply and it is here put on our responsibility to acquire and make use of it. The eye-salve is the Spirit enabling us to perceive clearly the path in which we are walking so that we may regulate our movements in it by divine light. In this connection the Spirit is not viewed as the great gospel gift, but as acquired from Christ by the christian who feels the need of having Him in this particular way. The one who obtains the eye-salve is to anoint his eyes with it. This indicates an intelligent exercise; the mind comes into a state to perceive spiritually through the recognition that the divine eye-salve alone will bring this about, so that the one who sees is able to view things altogether differently from the exercise of his natural mental powers. The mind — the intelligent faculty — is not set aside but it is brought under spiritual healing by the application of the eye-salve; hence it becomes now an organ of perception in a spiritual way in virtue of the Holy Spirit being definitely recognised as alone giving competency to see in a divine way. A very wide range of vision is [p. 256] opened up by the ability to see spiritually. We have referred to the path, whether viewed as in relation to our individual responsibility or with regard to our assembly associations and responsibilities. There was never more need to see clearly as to things.
Then there is the whole range of divine instruction in the Holy Scriptures. The Lord did a great service to His disciples when He opened their understanding to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45). There are wonderful things to see in the Scriptures if our eyes are anointed with eye-salve. Take the Lord’s parables! They all require spiritual vision to understand them aright. Then there are the types, which have so large a place in the Old Testament, and which have been opened up, and are being opened up, in a most instructive way. An immense amount of precious truth has been stored up in the Scriptures as a great reserve for the last days and it is there to be seen for those who have anointed eyes.
It is doubtful whether more than a very few ever stood in the truth of Paul’s prison epistles, even at the time they were written and they have been like buried treasure through the long centuries. But now, as the coming of the Lord draws nigh, they have been brought to light and the attention of many thousands of saints has been called to them. Many are coming to see that death and resurrection with Christ, and a heavenly place and blessing in Him are great spiritual realities, but we shall be blind to these wondrous things unless we have eyes anointed with eye-salve, and we shall be detained by things not framed on the pattern of the heavenly.
To the assembly in Laodicea the Lord presents Himself as knocking at a closed door. There is much within that seems to bespeak prosperity but He has no part in it. How it challenges our hearts and brings us back to the great necessity of having personal dealings with Him! May none [p. 257] of us miss the opportunity, which is at this moment within our reach, of carrying through those transactions with Him to which His love counsels us.
The spouse is seen in the Song of Songs 3:6 as coming up from the wilderness “with all powders of the merchant”. She has had transactions with the Merchant and has acquired from Him costly fragrance which gives her distinctiveness and attractiveness so that she is most acceptable to her Beloved. This is how the Lord would have the assembly to come up from the wilderness, not unadorned or unattractive but as possessed of fragrance she has acquired from Him. At the end of Malachi it is said of some, “And they shall be unto me a peculiar treasure, saith Jehovah of hosts, in the day that I prepare”, Malachi 3:17. It should be a great concern with us all to be such as the Lord can thus regard. It is His thought that the assembly shall finish as possessed of the best that divine love can furnish.
The three scriptures we have had before us present Christ as a Merchant who can supply things of inestimable value, but the scripture we have read in Matthew brings Him before us as a Buyer. He is “a merchant seeking beautiful pearls” (verse 45). He has an ideal before Him, a conception of beauty which compels Him to seek for its realisation and to covet its possession when He has found it. This similitude of the kingdom of the heavens teaches us what the spiritual influence of heaven is bringing about at the present time. “Beautiful pearls” were in the mind of the Merchant, indicating that He had more than one choice product of the divine ways before Him. But at the present time He finds “one pearl of great value”, and “he went and sold all whatever he had and bought it”. All that meets His desire is found in that one pearl; it is worth His while to give up, for the present, all else that He may have it. Whatever there may be of spiritual beauty in other families of saints [p. 258] is found also in the assembly. It has all the beauty which they have. It can be truly said to the assembly, viewed in her true value as found by the Merchant, “Many daughters have done worthily, but thou excellest them all”, Proverbs 31:29. It gives one a great thought of the power of the kingdom of the heavens that it is able to bring about such a result.
In a practical sense it is worked out along the lines which have already come before us. The influence of heaven would lead us to have transactions with Christ as the Merchant, and to get oil from Him, and “gold purified by fire”, and white garments, eye-salve and fragrant powders. If we consider the great spiritual import of these things, then think of a vast company all possessed of them and unified by possessing them in common. Thence we may form some conception of that “one pearl of great value” which is so attractive to Christ. Everything that marks that pearl is divine and spiritual in character. It is all the product of the influence of heaven and it corresponds entirely with the ideal in the mind of the Merchant. He will buy it though it costs Him all that He has, and He is wise in carrying through this great transaction, for He has not been mistaken in His estimate of its value. It will be His treasure and cherished joy eternally.