THE HOPE OF THE CHURCH
THE HOPE OF THE CHURCH
“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself”, Philippians 3: 20, 21.
It has been said that in the epistle to the Philippians we get the experience of the heavenly man, while in the Ephesians we get the position and practice. Well, it is very evident you could not have the experience without the position and practice, but still experience is a great thing, because it flows from them. You do not get anything about the Lord’s coming in the Ephesians, because you are by the Spirit in association with Him, you are enjoying His presence in His own sphere. You get in Ephesians that you are raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. We have to learn by the Spirit that such is our place; in fact, a Christian has no other place. In the gospel I get the right to the place, like the prodigal to the father’s house; in the church I find that I have a place, because I am a member of the body of Christ. Now in Philippians I come to the practical experience of a man that has a place in heaven. “Our polity is in heaven”, that is the force of the word; ‘citizenship’, it is sometimes called; it is really more, it is the rule or order of the state or city to which we belong. Our polity is in heaven. We are looking for One to come from that place, “From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ”. We are looking for Him to come. And mark, beloved friends, we are not looking for Him to come merely as a great historical event; and not merely to obtain relief from our distressing circumstances — not at all. In James the Lord’s coming is put before you as the harvest day. In fact, all the apostles present the coming of the Lord [p. 188] in a different aspect. Peter speaks of the advantages that are to come to us, the grace that is to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. But here you have what satisfies the heart of the one associated with Him in His own place, while still on this earth. What do we look for? We look for the Saviour to come. What for? We are looking for Him to come to change this body of humiliation. We are not looking for Him to come merely to settle things. He is coming to reign, and we shall reign with Him. We are looking for Him to come and “change this body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself”.
Beloved friends, it is beautiful when the heart apprehends that the first wave of the power of the Lord, when He leaves the Father’s throne, will be to give a glorious body to every saint on the face of the earth, wherever they are. That is the rapture. “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout”; we shall meet Him in the air. He does not come yet to reign. I am speaking now of the first step, “This corruptible must put on incorruption”.
But before I pass to that, I must turn to a passage in 1 Corinthians 15, which corroborates what I am saying. Here we see that no one has a glorified body till Christ comes. I know people speak of Elijah and Moses, as if they had glorious bodies, but we cannot give pre-eminence to anyone but Christ: He must have the pre-eminence. I think it is an important incentive to desire the coming of the Lord, to bear in mind that nothing is consummated till He comes; there is no finish, Christ must get His place. Now He is in the place of rejection; He must take His place before anything is brought to a finish. We groan now, being burdened in this earthly tabernacle; we are looking to be clothed with our house which is from heaven, but the time for it has not come yet. Now look at 1 Corinthians 15: 23, “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits”; that is all, we have not got beyond that yet; Christ only is glorified. In Romans God speaks of us as glorified, but that is in His own counsel. Paul has not a glorified body yet; “Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming”. And therefore it says in the Hebrews of the Old Testament saints, that they “without us should not be made perfect”. Now I have no doubt that it will affect you much to think of the Lord’s coming as the harbinger of the day. It is the day-star, and therefore the apostle says to the Thessalonians, “We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind .. . as that the day of Christ is at hand”. But it is the prelude of the day. When travelling by night, one’s attention has been called to the morning star. What does it indicate? That we are near morning. It is not the question what is the interval, but there it is: “Until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts”.
But the first step, the first thing is, we are looking for Him to come from heaven that He may change our vile body, and fashion it like unto His own glorious body, according to the power whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself. He was called to sit upon the Father’s throne until His foes were made His footstool; and there He is now. But He comes. He will be like a conquering general coming into a besieged city where his family are in prison, and he says, I must release my family first. The very first expression of the power of the Lord is the resurrection of His own; that is the rapture.
Now look at 1 Corinthians 15: 52: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this [p. 190] corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality”; there must be a change. What the nature of that change is, I do not know. We know that sin brought death into this world; and all that appertains to it, all that on which the judgement of death was, must go. Even if the Lord’s coming occurred this minute, all that must go; the corruptible thing must put on incorruption. “We shall be changed”. What the nature of the change is, I cannot tell; but we shall drop the old thing, this corruptible shall put on incorruption; and then it goes on to say, “So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory”. We have already got the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, I need not say. In the Red Sea we find that all that was between God and us has been removed; but it is in Jordan that we find that all between us and God has been removed. We see all gone in the death of Christ, and therefore we can say, “O grave, where is thy victory?” In Thessalonians we read He “died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him”. Then we know practically for ourselves that all between us and God has gone, and therefore, as we read, we are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world. If we were practically dead with Christ we should be better prepared for the change, the dropping of all that is connected with death. I believe that it is because we do not reckon ourselves dead that many of our trials have to be passed through, as the hymn expresses it:
“The cords that bound our hearts to earth
Are loosed by His hand”.
They are loosed by Christ’s death, but if you have not accepted it, then it comes in that they are loosed by His hand. We are dead with Christ from the elements of the world, that is Jordan. The power of [p. 191] the enemy is broken in the Red Sea; and all that debars from the new ground is gone in Jordan.
I now return to what I call the first step; and there is not a heart bound to the Lord but must anticipate with great satisfaction the day when we shall have a glorious body like His own. That is what we are looking for; that is the first thing.
Now, if you turn to 1 John 3: 2, I will bring before you the next step. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him”. In fact, there are two things. One, “we shall be like him”. The other, “your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory”. When He comes, we shall be with Him.
First, we are clothed upon with glorified bodies, so that we shall be like Him. I suppose there is nothing more satisfying to the heart than to be like Him. And the next thing we are told is, that we shall see Him as He is. I do not think it means here that seeing Him makes us like Him, but when He is manifested we are like Him, and being so we shall see Him as He is. As you get in Psalm 45: “The king’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework”. The idea is that we are really suited to Him; you cannot find a more comprehensive word than ‘like him’. We shall be in similitude, which is the real effect of association with Him now, as you read in another place, Beholding the Lord’s glory we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. That is similitude; it does not say equality; there is no contrariety. There is moral correspondence. I ask you, beloved friends, what could attract your heart more to the coming of the Lord than these three things: “a glorious body”, “like him”, and to “see him as he is”? These you are waiting for and anticipating.
Now I turn to Revelation 19: 7, 8: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of saints”. I have dwelt on the three things which must delight every heart; the day has not dawned yet; these three are before the day. Now I bring before you the scene in heaven. “The marriage of the Lamb is come”. The rival, the harlot, Babylon, has been destroyed, and there is great joy in heaven because of it. Consequent on the destruction of the rival, the marriage of the Lamb is come, the declaration of our union with Him. One cannot dilate upon this, but I am sure that the more you dwell upon all that is connected with the coming of the Lord, the more will your hearts be drawn to Him. It is no longer individually, we all together share this consummation, “the marriage of the Lamb is come”. It is the declaration of union. You say, Are we not united to Him now? Yes, but the opening of the day is marked with the public declaration of our alliance to the Lamb.
I believe that it is of all importance that we should know our union with Him now. Many put off even association with Him until He comes. I see that many Christians believe only in the first coming of our Lord, His death and resurrection; but between the first coming and the second coming of the Lord, they skip over everything; they know nothing of His chief interest in the interval. Therefore they know nothing about union. They are looking for the second coming of the Lord. Oh, they say, it will be a great delight when the Lord shall come, and then everything will be right. Now the fact is, they have never made acquaintance with Him by the Holy Spirit. They are looking [p. 193] for His second coming as the day of their acquaintance with Him, while they should be looking for the day of His nuptials. In the Canticles you get personal attachment to Him, but there is no union there; union is by the Spirit. Many earnest souls have not seen the Spirit of God residing in the assembly, both in the individual temple and in the collective temple, and therefore they cannot understand union with Christ. It was not that they were not attached to the Lord. Such men as Baxter, Owen, Rutherford, and the like, were devotedly attached to the Lord, and yet they never knew union with Him. Why? They never saw the fulfilment of the feast of Pentecost; they never saw that the Holy Spirit had come down and formed the church. When Christ was exalted to God’s right hand, a power equal to Himself was sent down to maintain for Him in the very spot where He is rejected, invisible to the world that rejected Him (and rightly so), but visible to faith, thank God — visible to every one that receives Him.
But to return, we read, “The marriage of the Lamb is come”, and that is the consummation. Next, “His wife hath made herself ready”. The readiness is in the next verse, “To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints”. I believe that she has passed the judgment-seat, she is now coming with the King to reign in righteousness — the reign of righteousness is about to begin, and therefore now it is righteousness; she has passed the judgment-seat, she has made herself ready, and there is given to her fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints. Now mark the words of the apostle to the Thessalonians, “That ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer”. Beloved friends, it is by grace only that you have heaven; but your place in the kingdom will be according to your righteousness here. As we are [p. 194] followers of the Lord, suffering with Him, when He comes we shall reign in righteousness with Him. We read in 2 Corinthians 5: 10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad”. Now the marriage has come, and His wife has made herself ready, she is ready in her righteousnesses; each person appears according to the righteousness in which he has acted here on this earth, and according to that righteousness he obtains a place in the kingdom. And therefore “it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you”. And instead of a person shrinking from the judgment-seat, on the contrary it ought to be a cheering thing for us to know that every part of our history, from babyhood up to the moment we leave this world, will be all brought out there; not brought out to condemn us — we cannot be condemned — but to show us what objects of grace we have been all the way; so that when that declaration is made as to what God has been to us from our babyhood up to that moment, our hearts will be filled with His unwearied grace which has followed us every step of the journey. Each will be rewarded as he has turned his talent to good account. As the apostle says, “I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me”. Where you were entitled to nothing, where nothing but the grace of God could save you, the grace of God has given you heaven. But the pound, or the talent, has been given to us, and we have to trade with it, so that we may be counted worthy, one to rule over five cities and another over ten cities — that is, we are rewarded according to our righteousness. He is coming to reign in righteousness, and therefore our righteousness entitles us to a place according to it, one to five cities and another to ten cities.
[p. 195] Now I turn to Revelation 21: 2, to complete the picture, “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”. That is the future, the eternal state; but in the tenth verse, “He carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God”, we are come as the bride now to the earth. This is the introduction of the day. I turn to this to complete your anticipation. I desire to arouse in your heart this great joy; such a prospect will have a wonderful effect on you. What could give you a more dignified and restful continuance in well-doing than the moral effect of this great anticipation?
I turn to this scripture. It is most interesting to come to the full answer of the Lord’s prayer in John 17. It must affect us much to reach the moment when His desire shall be accomplished. There was a little gleam of an answer to this in Jerusalem, the natural place for it, but now it is fulfilled in the new Jerusalem, the city coming down from God out of heaven. The city is the bride who comes down to administer on the earth for Christ.
I must now give you a little sketch of what our future may be. We see our present to be very sad; but let me draw your attention to what a gladsome future we shall have here where we have been such a failure. The picture runs down to the fifth verse of the twenty-second chapter, “They shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads”. Our future then with regard to the earth — There are seven traits of the bride as the holy city, the new Jerusalem. I shall not go into them at length. It is very interesting, that where there is a defect now in the assembly, it is the lack of one of these traits. Then there will be a perfect and a complete expression of the mind of the Lord to the earth. It is not then that the wisdom of [p. 196] God is known in the church as now, but this is its actual administration. As the apostle says in the Hebrews, “Here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come”. Abraham looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God; and therefore it says, “He has prepared for them a city”.
Then we take our place with Him here. We are not only looking for a glorious body, but we shall be like Him, and see Him; the marriage of the Lamb is come, the bride has made herself ready in heaven, and now we are to be in perfect administration for Him on the earth. Now the day begins.
Let us now briefly look at these seven traits, for as we anticipate our future, we are instructed as to our present. The first trait is light. The holy Jerusalem descends out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. It is evident that we ought to be the light now.
The next is “walls”. I can only give an outline of the picture for your anticipation; the effect of such an anticipation is that you are ordering your life now on earth with reference to it. What do you anticipate? What do you look for? The first thing is the light most precious, a jasper stone, the Lord Himself. The second, “walls”, they are not only protective, but exclusive. It says in verse 27, “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life”. Everything is excluded that is not fit for the Lord; that is the principle of the assembly now. “Holiness becometh thy house, O Lord, for ever”.
The third trait is “gates”, twelve gates, with the names of all Israel upon them. The gates are not only the place of judgment, but they also have a moral character. We read in chapter 22, “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city”. The twelve gates show the perfection of administration here; and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel upon them, that all the Israel of God can enter through them.
Then there is the street of gold, the walk of divine righteousness; next there is no temple there, no shrine; next the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the light of it. It is in reference to the earth. There is no earthly light, no sun and no moon, the Lamb is the light thereof. Then there is the Spirit of God; the living water which you can offer now. “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely”. Finally, His servants shall serve Him. However we fail now, there is a day coming when we shall not fail; we shall do His pleasure here; we shall be the medium of the communication of His grace for ever. We are the trophies of His grace now, thank God, and we shall come, as I have said already, clothed in fine linen. As Peter says, “They may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation”. There will be the acknowledgment in that day of your good works. I might take the case of the rich man (Luke 16); he singles out Lazarus as the one to serve him. Had Lazarus ever received any attention from the rich man? No; but he now owns that Lazarus is a man of God, and he cries, “Send Lazarus”. Look at the way he gives him credit; a credit which he did not render to him on earth, he renders now; he glorifies God in the day of visitation. If there is not the acknowledgment now, there will be the acknowledgment by-and-by; God is a righteous Judge.
To sum up — our polity is in heaven, but we are down here, and are looking for Him to come from that place, because the moment He comes, the first wave of [p. 198] His power is to raise up every saint on the face of the earth; wherever they are, they will all rise to meet Him; these that are dead will rise first, and together we shall all be caught up to meet Him in the air “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed”, and we meet Him in glorious bodies. What a moment! We shall be like Him, and we shall see Him. Our hearts will be satisfied. After a short interval the marriage is come, the wife hath made herself ready, and we now come with Him to the scene of His rejection, sharing with Him His place of power, when all His foes are made His footstool. We are not only glad in the day of His espousals, but we accompany Him when He takes His place of power in righteous judgment here.
The Lord lead your hearts to anticipate the great realities which I have tried to present to you in these lectures. I began with His first coming, death and resurrection; and then that He is glorified in heaven, gone to God’s right hand, and the Holy Spirit has come down here, and is down here with the assembly; next, that Christ is the Head of the body, the church, of every believer on the face of the earth; next, that the body of Christ is on the earth; last, His coming, the hope of the church.
I need not add more. The one great thing is to be led by His Spirit, and to hear His own voice. Oh, what a wonderful effect it would have on each of us if His coming were brought home to our hearts tonight. Do your hearts anticipate that hour? Do you anticipate all the varied blessedness, the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ? The Lord grant that each of your hearts may have a better and a fuller idea of it. I like to hear a man praying for the Lord’s coming if I see that he is ready for Him; but I say, if we are not ready for Him, we are overlooking the wonderful blessings which will be ours at His coming.