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THE GOSPEL WHICH WE HAVE RECEIVED

Galatians 1:6-9; Galatians 3:6-9. Galatians 4:1-7; Galatians 4:25,26; Galatians 5:1; Galatians 5:24,25; Genesis 15:6-14; Genesis 15:17

I wish, dear brethren, with the Lord’s help, to present to you the gospel which we have received, and in order to make it clear, one had in mind to speak of the blessing of the gospel under four heads. First of all I wish to speak of the principle of it, secondly the character of the blessing, thirdly the substantiality of it; and fourthly, the liberating power of it; because I believe there are many who have but little sense of the wonderful character of the blessing that has come to us in the gospel. It is clear from the verses I read in Galatians 1 that the apostle was impressed with the distinctive character, the glorious character of the gospel; which had been entrusted to him, so that referring to what had been brought in among the Galatian assemblies which was of a perverting and subversive character, he says, “to a different, gospel, which is not another one,” verses 6, 7. That is to say, it “was no gospel at all, there was no glad tidings in it at all, and so jealous was he in regard of the glorious character of the gospel which the Lord had entrusted to him to minister that he said that though he himself or anyone else or even an angel from heaven preached any other gospel let him be accursed. A most solemn thing, but that shows us how jealous God is, that the gospel as He has caused it to be proclaimed in this our day, and which we have received, should be apprehended by us, and maintained in its own glorious distinctiveness.

Now, first of all, as to the principle of it, the gospel announces blessing from God, there would be no glad tidings in it if it announced curse, and the apostle in this remarkable epistle works out the subject from the history of Abraham: We well know that what was at work in Galatia was a legal element seeking to bring the saints of God under the power of the law and requiring that they should be circumcised, and the apostle meeting it goes back to the history of Abraham. Abraham lived, as he says, 430 years before the law was given, and God’s relations with Abraham were not on the basis of law but on the basis of what God was pleased sovereignly to promise. So the history of Abraham commences with God calling him to leave his kindred and his country and his father’s house and to go to a land that He should show him. He called him to a path of faith; it was to blessing, but blessing which had not as yet been defined in its full character. He was to move out in obedience and the word to him was that in him all the nations of the earth should be blessed; that is, God was establishing the principle that His thoughts of blessing to go out to all the nations would be on the principle of the obedience of faith, the blessing depending, not on those who were called, but on God Himself. So the apostle laboured to establish this. He says in Galatians 3, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” verse 6; we have that in Genesis 15. God led out Abraham, who at that time had no seed, and directed his view to the stars of the heaven and said to him, “So shall thy seed be!” verse 5. It looked impossible so far as natural calculations were concerned, but “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now we have all commenced on that line, dear brethren, we have believed God. I am not referring, of course, to what precedes that, new birth, the work of God in us, but I am commencing from our own intelligent history in relation to these things, that we have begun there, we have believed God. We have believed on Him “who has raised from among the dead Jesus our Lord, who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification,” Romans 4: 24, 25, and that has been imputed to us for righteousness. That is, our standing in relation to God is clearly established to be purely on the principle of grace, and it must be so in order that things should be assured, and that all the glory should belong to God. If there were any other ground of blessing there would be some glory attaching to ourselves and there would be the certainty of breakdown. But God establishes His thoughts of blessing on the principle of pure grace and establishes them himself through our Lord Jesus Christ, and in that way the position becomes absolutely immutable. Hence it says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Know then that they that are on the principle of faith, these are Abraham’s sons.” Well that is the great principle. I know these things are well known, but it is a question of the truth being established, and we need to be established with grace. The principle on which God has begun is the principle upon which He will continue and finish; He is called the God of all grace - “the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus,” 1 Peter 5: 10. That is what He has called us to.

Before we proceed further, I would like to refer to the passage in Genesis that I read, because Abraham having believed God and it having been accounted to him for righteousness, and God having promised to give him the land to inherit it, Abraham wants to know how he shall know that he will possess it. Now that was not displeasing to God, that was not doubting His word. Abraham wanted to be assured in himself of the reality of the things which God had promised him, and God would have us all assured in ourselves. That is to say, on the one hand there is such a thing as the word of God which we believe, we commit ourselves to it; it is a question of believing God; but then there is such a thing also as being confirmed in the truth in our own souls, and that is what Abraham desired. He said, “How shall I know that I shall possess it?” verse 8. The Lord God told him to do a remarkable thing; .to take all these animals and birds, a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old and a ram of three years old and a turtle dove and a young pigeon. We find in the epistle to the Romans that the principle of law is brought in in its bearing upon us, following upon our having been justified on the principle of faith, in order that by means of facing the exercises that that raises, we should be established in the grace of God. And so in Romans 7, as we know, the apostle traces the application of the principle of law to an exercised soul. He says that the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good and yet the experience of the soul which he is tracing was that by reason of the application of the law to his conscience, he was made conscious of being convicted and condemned by it. He says that he had not known lust if the law had not said thou shalt not covet, but as soon as the law, which was holy and the commandment holy and just and good, was applied to his conscience, he discovered that that which was insubject to the law and condemned by it asserted itself in his own case. And therefore that which, as he says, was intended for life was, in his case found unto death. Now all this, beloved brethren, while elementary, is very important. It is a question of facing every one of these exercises, if they have not already been faced; in order to be brought into the liberty of the blessing which God has in mind for us in the gospel. Abraham said, “how shall I know that I shall possess it?” He wanted to be fully assured, and so God told him to take account, in what has been described as an analytical way, of what he had in the way of substance. He had to go to his flock, he also had to look out a heifer and make sure it was a heifer of three years old; he also had to look out for a she-goat: and make sure that it was a she-goat of three years old; and so on. That is, he had to examine carefully what he had in the way of wealth. There had, to be a kind of analytical process gone through, and not only that, but when he had these things he had to divide them in two pieces and set one against the other. I believe all that is intended to be illustrative of the process which is depicted for us in the chapter in the epistle to the Romans which I have mentioned. A certain analysis goes on under the effect of the law as brought to bear upon the conscience. What is discovered on the one hand is that there is a total inability to answer to the requirement of the law and indeed a constant movement of will in opposition to it and of lusting after the things that the law condemned: and yet on the other hand there is a desire for what is right, a desire after what is of God, an acknowledgment of the law, that it is holy and just and good. And by means of facing all these exercises the soul arrives at this that there is an “I” - “I myself”, as he says - an inner man, which he can take account of as the result of the work of God; there is a something there that is of God. He says that if he acknowledges the law that it is right; then he recognises that there is an ‘I’ there, an identity there that he can take account of as being the result of the work of God in him, but he also discovers that flesh is in him and the true character of the flesh becomes exposed, so much so, that he says, ‘I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell,” verse 18, it is not there. The flesh is discovered to be wholly corrupt and incapable of improvement, as indeed - it says in the next chapter, “the mind of the flesh is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God; for neither indeed can it be: and they that are in flesh cannot please God,” verses 7, 8. But then over against that, the person comes to it, he says, “I myself with the mind serve God’s law; but with the flesh sin’s law,” chapter 7: 25, and again he says, “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man,” verse 22 - a remarkable statement - that is, he can take account of the inner man, and there is a remarkable correspondence between his inward man and Christ Himself, a most remarkable thing, for Christ as coming into the world said, “To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight, and thy law is within my heart,” Psalm 40: 8, and the exercised soul comes to it that there is a something in him that is the result of the work of God that does not attach to his flesh by any means, but there is a something there, as the result of God’s work in him, as to which he can say, “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.” That is, he learns to identify himself - “I myself” - with the work of God in him, and he learns to repudiate and judge the flesh as it is exposed by the law in its true character as utterly incapable of bringing forth anything that is pleasing to God. In that condition he says, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?” verse 24. And that is what is alluded to, I believe, in this horror of great darkness that came upon Abraham, a horror of great darkness, and he is made to enter in his feelings into the bondage which was later to be the portion of his seed, he entered experimentally into the horror of this bondage of which God spoke that they shall afflict them 400 years. It says, “Know assuredly that thy seed will be a sojourner in a land that is not theirs, and they shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years,” verse 13. God intimated that his seed must go through that experience of bondage if they were to come into His own thoughts in conscious enjoyment, they must go through it, and Abraham who is father of us all had to go through it to begin with, a horror of great darkness, this experience of bondage; but then it says, “that nation which they shall serve I will judge; and afterwards they shall come out,” verse 14, that is to say, God gives the answer, He is to be the Deliverer. The person in Romans 7 says, “who shall deliver me?” and the answer is, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” verse 25. That is, God Himself is the Deliverer, and He is the Deliverer through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus Christ our Lord has come in on God’s behalf and on our behalf too, and He has not in any sense suggested any attempt to improve the flesh, but He has sustained the condemnation of sin in the flesh on our behalf; indeed, God sending His own Son has done it for us in order that that matter being disposed of and the judgment of flesh being established for us to take up in our own souls, we might walk henceforth in the power of the Holy Spirit in order that “the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit,” chapter 8: 4. It is a question, dear brethren, of understanding what flesh is and how it has been condemned, God Himself entering into the matter in Christ, in order that we might be set up in the liberty and power of life, life in Christ Jesus by the Spirit. It says here that “when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces,” verse 17. I believe the smoking furnace speaks of the severity of the judgment, condemnation of sin in flesh; and “a burning lamp that passed between those pieces” (or a flame of fire) is a suggestion of God taking the matter up Himself for us, to be our Deliverer by means of Jesus Christ. I have gone into all that in the hope that it may stimulate exercise on the part of any who are younger or less established,

in order that we should really knows how we are to possess these things that God has for us in the glad tidings. “How shall I know that I shall possess it”, Abraham said, and the answer was what I have been seeking to present to you.

When we come to the second point I had in mind, it is what is opened before us in the beginning of chapter 4 and that is, the character of blessing. The glad tidings is a gospel of blessing. “In thee” - that is, in Abraham, on the principle of faith, for Abraham stands for the principle of faith, that it might be by grace - “all the nations shall he blessed,” Galatians 3: 8. But now, when we come to the character of the blessing, that brings in the thought of the son. You remember that as the history of Abraham developed, God promised him that he should have a son, and in due course, the son was born and he was named Isaac which means laughter; and Sarah said, “God has made me laugh,” Genesis 21: 6, that is, it refers to exuberance of spiritual joy. The name Isaac conveys that it was not a laugh of unbelief. Sarah had laughed in unbelief before and God had rebuked her for it, but now the son was given, the son was born, and he is named Isaac, and Sarah said, “God has made me laugh.” When he was weaned Abraham made a great feast. I believe it is possibly that incident to which the Lord refers when He said in John 8, “Abraham exulted in that he should see my day and he saw and rejoiced,” verse 56. Abraham made a great feast, the son had now come into view and he was weaned, that is, he was standing out by himself, so to speak.. There he was, born according to promise; it was not anything that Abraham could produce, it was simply what God had brought in of His own free will. So we have in chapter 4, “when the fulness of the time was come; God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law, that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship,” verses 4, 5. That is what God has brought in, that is the character of the blessing. It is not a question of anything less, there is nothing less than this in His mind. The character of blessing God has in His mind in the gospel is set out in His Son, God sent forth His Son. The idea is before us objectively in Christ that nothing less than sonship as set out in Christ is what God has in mind in the glad tidings which we have believed. I wonder whether we all believe it. Sonship is for the pleasure of God, dear brethren; indeed Galatians l says, “Grace to you, and peace, from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, so that he should deliver us out of the present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father,” verses 3, 4. It is a question of the will of our God and Father that we should be delivered from this present evil world in all its features, including the principle of legal religion, including that element of the world. He wants us delivered from the present evil world according to the will of God our Father. And the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins in order to become a personal Object of faith and affection. It does not say the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, but He gave Himself for our sins in order that He should become an object before our hearts, and an object, dear brethren, in sonship, for God sent forth His Son. The time of sonship has come, it is what God has indicated as in His mind even as long ago as the history of Abraham and Isaac, but now it has come - “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law, that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship,” receive it as a gift. That is what I understand to be the character of the blessing, and as Isaac was weaned, and the son stood out before Abraham, standing out so to speak, in his own distinctiveness,

you can well understand that Abraham made a great feast, he rejoiced. But then it brought forth the mocking of Ishmael, the one born according to flesh. Ishmael represents the opposition of legality in the things of God, a kind of mixture, the bringing in of the principle of faith in Christ which Abraham stands for, but along with it the bondage which Hagar the mother represents, and that is what is characteristic of Christendom all round us. If we are to serve God, to enjoy liberty in the assembly, if we are to minister to the pleasure of God, it is important, dear brethren, that we should understand the character of the gospel which we have received. And as Ishmael mocked, Sarah says, “Cast out this handmaid and her son;” Genesis 21: 10. It was a matter of being drastic. There must be no allowance in our minds, in our outlook, of anything less than the full thought that God has in the gospel - “Cast out this handmaid and her son”.

That leads me to the third point I had in mind, and that is the substantiality of the blessing. That is a most important thing, and that lies in the Spirit. That is, these things are not only a matter of light, of what God has in mind for us, that is what is set out in the glad tidings, but the scripture goes on to say, “But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father,” Galatians 4: 6. That brings in the idea of substantiality; that is, things can be substantial, they can be real, they can be known in enjoyment in the power of the Holy Spirit which God has given us, the Spirit of His Son. It is a question of how to fill out the position. The Spirit of God’s Son cries, “Abba, Father.” Could there be anything more attractive, could there be anything more pleasing to the heart of God than that we should be able to speak to Him with the same holy feelings of affection as were expressed by our Lord Jesus Christ and that, too, at a time of deepest feeling? The only time we have it recorded in Scripture that the Lord Jesus used these words was when He was in the garden of Gethsemane. I do not mean to imply that that was in fact the only occasion He used them; I have no doubt these words were frequently on His lips, but I do not doubt that they express in a special way deep feelings on the part of One who knew God in the holy relationship of Son and enjoyed a Father’s love in the most unclouded intimacy and confidence in Him. And now the Spirit of God’s Son in our hearts cries, “Abba, Father.” Do we allow the Spirit liberty for this? That is the great matter, dear brethren, that the holy and wonderful character of this blessing which God has given us in the gospel may be known in a substantial and real way in our souls, and God is concerned that it should be; the Holy Spirit is concerned that it should be. We often speak, and rightly so, of the assembly, and all that I am saying has the assembly in mind, and the service of God in the assembly, for the great feature of the service of God in the assembly is that it is in sonship and characterised by the affections and feelings of sons and by the intelligence of sons, too. Hence, when I say the substantiality of the blessing, I have in mind that all that was in God’s heart in the glad tidings should take actual form in our hearts, and that what He desires in response from ourselves should find actual expression from our hearts in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now the last thing one has in mind to speak of is the liberating power of the gospel, and that flows out of what we have been speaking of, for the position of sons necessarily involves a position of liberty. There is no bondage connected with the thought of a son; you remember the Lord says in John 8, “the bondman abides not in the house for ever: the son abides for ever,” verse 35. Servitude is not an abiding thought, it has come in in the ways of God just to pave the way, so to speak, for sonship - “the bondman abides not in the house for ever: the son,” he says, “abides for ever.” That is not necessarily the son with a capital ‘S’; it is true, of course, that the Son, Christ personally, does abide ever, but I believe the thought is the son with a small ‘s’, the son in contrast to the servant. That is, the idea of sonship is an abiding thought, and he abides in the house for ever, he has the liberty of the house. And so the Lord says. “If therefore the son” (referring to Himself) “shall set you free, ye shall be really free,” verse 36.

Well now, in the verse we read in chapter 5, the apostle brings in the thought of Hagar and mentions her in contrast to what we belong to. Hagar represents a system of religious bondage; he says it finds its counterpart in Jerusalem which now is, and I think there is no doubt, if the apostle were alive today, he would say it finds its counterpart in Christendom. I do not think there is any question about that. It found its counterpart in the apostle’s day in the Jerusalem that then was, the earthly Jerusalem, which he says was in bondage with its children, and it certainly finds its counterpart today in all that is religious in Christendom around us. But, he says, “Jerusalem above is free; which is our mother,” verse 26, that is, the assembly, Jerusalem, is our centre, the assembly is our centre, it is God’s centre, too, and it is above; that does not mean in heaven, it means it is morally lifted above the level of all that is legal and all that marks earthly, worldly religion, it is entirely lifted above the level of it. The secret of that is that it is characterised by sonship, the assembly is composed of those who are sons and all those who compose it are sons, there is no other character of blessing, the glad tidings of today as preached since the day of Pentecost is bringing the assembly to light; and those who compose it are all sons, as it says, “ye have come to mount Zion; ...and to the assembly of the firstborn,” Hebrews 12: 22, 23: Firstborn speaks of dignity, personal dignity. All those who belong to the assembly have this wonderful dignity conferred upon them by God, not of course to attach to the flesh; for flesh has no place in it, but it is a question of what God has been pleased to bring in for His own satisfaction and to give us freely through the glad tidings. So the apostle says, “Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother.” Our liberty depends very much on the light that governs us, that is what I am seeking to bring before you, that these things lie in the very gospel we have received. That is what the apostle goes back to, and I would appeal to everyone who has believed the gospel (assuming that everyone in this room has received the gospel) to take account of the gospel that you have believed, the principle of it, the principle of grace; the character of it, that sonship and nothing less than sonship is in the mind of; God; the substantiality of it, the very power to enter into these things in the Spirit of God’s Son whom God has given to us; and then the liberating character of it. Jerusalem which is above is free, who is he mother of us all. If she is free, she begets those who are free and that is what the light is intended to beget. The light of the assembly in its true character, the assembly of the firstborn ones whose names are written in heaven, is intended to develop liberty in the saints. So that we are not marked by bondage and inability to draw near to God, but by liberty which He delights in. If we are not, dear brethren; let us get to God about it and find out what is the cause of it. There is a good deal of lack of liberty among the saints; I am not despising what there is in the way of liberty and spiritual intelligence and holy affections,

one thanks God for it and what one sees as to it, but one is conscious in oneself that there is a constant tendency to get away from liberty, to get away from the liberty wherewith Christ sets free. And there is a need among the saints for increased liberty of a true and holy character which is in keeping with the gospel which we have believed. So it says, “Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother.”

In closing, I just refer to those two verses which I read at the end of chapter 5, because it may be that they point out what is the secret of any lack of liberty there may be with any one of us. The apostle says, “they that are of the Christ have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts,” verse 24. It is a remarkable expression that we have done it. I wonder whether we understand what we have done, and whether we have really done it intelligently in our souls; whether we have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts, because Christ on whom we have believed, who has been presented as an object of faith to us, is presented to us as One who has reached the position in which we have believed in Him by way of the cross. He could not be presented as an object of faith in the glad tidings until after the cross was an accomplished fact, and the cross means, as we were saying earlier, that sin in the flesh has been condemned and flesh has been crucified; the history of man in flesh has been ended judicially in a way that expressed God’s abhorrence of it. His judgment of it was that it was only fit for condemnation in the most ignominious way. The cross was that, the expression of God’s judgment of man in flesh. And now, as we believe in Christ, dear brethren, we have to believe in One who has been crucified, that is, we have to accept that truth that one order of man has been crucified, and we accept it, we take it home to ourselves that we have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. I ask again, have we done it, dear brethren? In one sense we have done it in believing in Christ, but it is a question of our becoming intelligent as to what we have done, and of doing it feelingly, intelligently, in the power of the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit who is given to us is always faithful to Christ and always faithful to His cross. So it says, “they that are of the Christ have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let us walk also by the Spirit.” That is to say, we live in the Spirit, our life is life in Christ Jesus, and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is what is to regulate us. Let us walk in the Spirit. If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in it. The Spirit is given us as power for life and for walk. You will find Romans is full of what the Holy Spirit is to those who have believed. It says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us walk also by the Spirit.” I believe those two verses which I have just referred to may touch the secret of any lack of liberty there may be amongst us, and I urge upon one’s brethren, as one would continually on oneself, to see to it that we are moving on the lines in which liberty in the Spirit may be enjoyed, so that we may be in the full possession of what God has given us in the glad tidings, and in result be fully for the pleasure of the blessed God.

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