READINGS ON 1 CORINTHIANS (3)
READINGS ON 1 CORINTHIANS (3)
FER We must keep before us the light in which we have been looking at this epistle, that is, the working out of the thought of Christ as the wisdom and power of God. That line is traceable through the epistle. We have had two points of great moment; that is, the temple of God, and of necessity, the oracles of God. The value to us of the temple of God is derived from the oracles of God being there. Then there is the anointed vessel so that the oracles are brought into contact with men. The oracles would be of no avail if not brought into such contact. The anointed vessel is analogous to what was true in Christ Himself, He was the anointed Man to preach the gospel. Now we get another point of great interest, in which is more the thought of the power of God. Christ is not only the wisdom of God but the power of God. The apostle says, “we preach Christ crucified, ... Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God”. Well, I take it that He is the power of God, so that everything may be put on resurrection ground and death be dispossessed. You get in this chapter, “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam ... a quickening spirit”. Then, afterwards, “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven”, and what the chapter goes on to is not the rapture, which is not introduced here, but victory over death. Certain things have to come to pass, the dead raised and the living changed, and then will be fulfilled the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. This is a quotation from the prophet Isaiah.
JP So in that way the book is quite complete.
FER Yes, it gives us a good deal of instruction as to what God’s Son is to establish [p. 180] here.
OO'B Do you connect the life-giving Spirit with John 20 and Romans 8?
FER Yes.
WM I suppose in this chapter it is carried on to the body?
FER I think that quickening always involves the body, because man has no vehicle without a body. We get the spirits of just men made perfect. But a man is not such without a body.
WM “You hath he quickened”, in Ephesians, is anticipative.
FER Evidently, because it also says, He has “raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places”. Evidently that is anticipative.
JSA That is going beyond resurrection. Resurrection itself does not take off the earth, does it?
FER I think not. So you do not find, as in Thessalonians, the rapture; that is not the point. The point is the dispossession of death. The last enemy, that is death, shall be destroyed, and at the close of the chapter it adds, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
GR It is necessary to have that in the very place where death was in power.
FER And that is where Christ comes in as the power of God, to put everything on the ground of resurrection, where death is dispossessed.
WM Why do you think resurrection sets forth the power of God?
FER The apostle says, “What is the exceeding greatness of his power ... which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead”. It is appealed to as being the great exercise of divine power.
WM It is great morally.
FER Everything in Scripture is moral.
Ques Does Philippians 3: 21 refer to that power?
FER It refers to Christ’s quickening power, no doubt. Though quickening is not exactly the same thought [p. 181] as resurrection.
GR Is not death looked at as a power of the enemy?
FER It is looked at as being an enemy to us. At the end of the chapter the question is raised, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” So, too, in Romans, “That as sin hath reigned unto death”.
Ques What distinction do you make between resurrection and quickening?
FER I think quickening has its application to those who are living here when the Lord comes. Resurrection more to those who have died.
WM So that verse in Romans refers to living saints, “if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you”.
FER Exactly. It is the quickening of your mortal bodies. We all have mortal bodies. It looks at us as here.
JSA The idea of ‘mortal’ is not a body that is dead but a body that is liable to death.
FER So, too, the distinction is made here, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed”.
WM If we had only this epistle we would not know that we left the earth at all. It is all resurrection.
FER That is intelligible, because the point of the epistle is to set forth what is involved in Christ as the wisdom of God and the power of God. That is, how God has taken in hand to bring to nought all that existed here and to establish that which is of Himself.
JP So the epistle is complete.
FER Yes, and really every epistle is complete in a way. In order to make up the completeness of truth we must take in all, but there is a kind of completeness in each; the detail of each follows on the particular light in which Christ is presented, and every epistle has its own completeness; and yet all are needed to give you the completeness of Christ.
WM I suppose in that way Hebrews proceeds on the lines of the Apostle and High Priest, and completes that.
FER Quite so. We see the way in which God has been working in order to put things on the ground of [p. 182] resurrection so that death might be completely dispossessed in its power. We see the triumph, the glory of God there.
JSA The idea of the resurrection of the dead is not so much a question of raising of bodies as of setting up a man on the earth in a condition beyond the power of death.
FER I think so.
WM It is the resurrection of persons.
FER Resurrection of the dead; but the point to my mind is the way in which it is brought about. All depended on a Man, a Man who could not be holden of death, but who could enter into it, although for others; to accomplish redemption and discharge every liability under which man was.
JSA Having done that He has the keys of death and hades.
FER That is the last Adam. He subsists in His own personal perfection as the righteous One, but in the power of redemption. That is, He has redemption rights, for He is God. Death is completely in result dispossessed.
WM God would be the only One who had a right to redeem.
FER Exactly, because God alone had title to the inheritance, and evidently the one who has title to the inheritance is the one to redeem. I could not redeem another man’s inheritance if he had mortgages on it, I mean not so as to have any claim of myself; I would not have redemption rights. They were particular about that in Israel.
JP So even in the case of Boaz, his was not the first right. There was one who had a right preceding his, but he had a right.
FER And the other gave up his right.
WM Had God’s right come in because of His being Creator?
FER That seems the way in which things are presented in Revelation 4 and 5. In Revelation 4 all is [p. 183] taken up on the ground of creation right and in Revelation 5 on the ground of redemption. You get the same thing in Colossians 1 in connection with the headship of Christ.
WM The mortgage has, so to speak, come in since the creation and has been taken up by Christ the Head.
FER Exactly. God has never given up His creation rights. God has right to man. All were created by Christ; that comes out in Revelation 4. All were created too for the pleasure of God, but then that would not be good for man while man is under liabilities. But God takes up the liabilities by Christ, using His right of redemption. And so men are brought into blessing on the ground of resurrection, and death is dispossessed.
WM As all is taken up on the ground of resurrection, the liabilities can never come in again. They have been discharged.
FER Exactly.
JB What are the liabilities?
FER I think the curse and death. ‘Death and the curse were in our cup’. They were the ingredients in man’s cup. Christ took them up.
WM And the judgment of God lay upon man.
FER Yes, Christ was made a curse for man, was under the ban of God.
WM And I suppose in Christ on the cross is the expression of God’s abhorrence of sin.
FER That was the demonstration of where man was in the eye of God. Christ was really in that sense in man’s place. It was not His own place. He took it vicariously, and came under all that that place entailed.
WM He really died for the sins of the whole world.
FER He is the propitiation for the whole world. He died for all so that He might take up the position of the last Adam, the Sun of righteousness, and put everything on resurrection ground. That was the end in view; I have no doubt that the thought and purpose of God was that that which had come in by sin, death, should be [p. 184] dispossessed, that there should be a moral universe in which sin and death should no longer reign. “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life”. That must of necessity be on the footing of resurrection. God will place everything on that footing. That is why this chapter comes in as glad tidings. The main point insisted on in this chapter is the reality of the resurrection, beginning with the resurrection of Christ. We have already come on to resurrection ground. The apostle says to the Colossians, “ye are risen with him”, so that death should have no power with regard to us. Then as to the Old Testament saints, it says, “are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection”. Israel too is revived. The figure is given us in Ezekiel of dry bones, where apparently there is no hope of life, but they are revived. Daniel takes up the same thing, “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”. There will thus be a revival of Israel, “some to everlasting life”, then in regard to the gentiles, Israel’s revival is spoken of in Romans 11, as for them “life from the dead”. Every circle and every part of the system is put on resurrection ground.
JSA It is comparatively easy to see it in connection with Israel and the literal resurrection by and by, but it is more difficult to understand its bearing on us at the present time. I suppose the thing is that we are come to it in mind and spirit.
FER It says we are risen together with Christ by faith of the operation of God that raised Him from the dead.
OO'B I wish you would make that a little plainer in connection with eternal life, being come on to that ground now.
FER Well, what system do you belong to? Do you belong to the Christ system or the world system?
OO'B To Christ’s system.
FER Then you are risen with Him, else you could not be in that system. There must be some sense in [p. 185] which you are risen with Him. The truth is this, in mind and spirit I have parted from the world system, have gone down to Jordan; I am circumcised in Him. On the other hand, in mind and spirit, I am associated with Christ in that system of which He is Head, and if that be the case, I am risen together with Him. It works out in this way, that every interest I have belongs to that system of which Christ is the Head. The politics and the business of this world concern me little. I care only to go through it. You may think this selfish, but I do not mind about that. My business is to go through it as a stranger and a pilgrim. My interests lie in that system which is centred in Christ.
GR And that is quite compatible with the word, “do good unto all men”.
FER Yes, but I do it as identified with Christ in that system.
GR I was thinking of that word in John, “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life”. That is, there is to be the acceptance of death because it is impossible to reach resurrection except through death.
FER Or the appropriation of it, “he that eateth”. So in Colossians both death and resurrection are connected with baptism, “the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of the Christ; buried with him in baptism”. If I have gone down into burial, it is clear that I have parted company with this world; but this brings in another thought in Colossians which is extremely important, “wherein also” (that is, in baptism)”ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead”. In our case it is of course in mind and spirit. We are in accord with what has come to pass actually in Christ.
Ques Is that where you reach eternal life, in resurrection?
FER It must be on that ground. God could never bring eternal life into the system of this world. Everything here is dominated by death. Eternal life must [p. 186] belong to a system of which Christ is the beginning and Head. So the Lord Jesus speaks, “in the coming age everlasting life”. The coming age is Messiah’s age.
WM When the scripture says, “through the faith of the operation of God”, would not that involve the great system?
FER Yes, it means the bringing out of the wreck and ruin here another universe. You get the same principle in Ephesians. God comes in to operate in life-giving power in a scene of moral death, raising Christ from the dead and setting Him far above all principality and power.
JB-n Would you say that the Jew in the millennium was risen with Christ?
FER He is on the ground of resurrection, but risen with Christ applies to us now. The Jew is raised nationally.
JSA And would you say the operation of the mighty power of God in Ephesians involves the truth, all that is connected with Christ?
FER Yes, for it is not only that He has raised Him, but has set Him at His own right hand and put all things under his feet, and gave Him to be “head over all things”.
WM So it really involves the conception of the great sphere of which Christ is Head.
FER Exactly. The whole sphere that is under the Son of man as in Psalm 8.
GWH Then it is in that sphere we have our part.
FER Exactly. We are brought into association now with Christ, and the point in regard to us is that every interest we have belongs to the system and order of things centring in Christ.
GWH And in view of that we are enjoined to set our minds on things above.
FER The ground of the admonition in Colossians 3 is, “If ye then be risen with Christ”, everything is to come out from the right hand of God. For Daniel, the point of interest was Jerusalem, because Jerusalem was the centre on earth, but now the point of interest to the [p. 187] christian is not Jerusalem but the right hand of God. “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God”. If you have your window open, let it be toward the right hand of God.
OO'B My only difficulty about it was calling what you were speaking of in connection with “risen with Christ” eternal life.
FER I understand eternal life to consist in three things: the first is rule, the second is atmosphere, and the third is light. I ask you where do all these things belong to? Do they belong to the Christ sphere or to this world?
OO'B Surely, they belong to the Christ sphere.
FER Then eternal life belongs to the Christ sphere, where all is on the ground of resurrection. It is only in Christ risen that you get rule really. This verse will explain it, ye are “married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God”. You are married that you may come under rule. You get rule on the ground of resurrection, and you get atmosphere on the ground of resurrection, for the church is set up here undoubtedly on that ground. The Holy Spirit being here and the church as the family of God, is all on resurrection ground and in Christ risen you get full divine light. So there are rule, atmosphere, and light, all on the ground of resurrection.
J.B. What is atmosphere?
FER In a moral point of view it is the love of Christ in the christian circle.
Ques Would you say, “and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” is atmosphere?
FER No, that is rule, and you never come into atmosphere until you come under rule. The moment a child is born it comes under rule, under the influence of laws which God has established in creation and into an atmosphere, and so, too, into light. Rule, atmosphere, and light are all there, and the moment an infant has an independent existence it comes into all these.
WM And these are the conditions [p. 188] of life.
FER And the same holds good in regard of eternal life. When you get a person born of God he has, so to speak, a body, a substantive existence, and lungs and eyes, then he comes into conditions which God has appointed for us to live in; but all these conditions are on the footing of resurrection.
JP So that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Everything is now in Christ Jesus, is it not? and Christ Jesus is the risen One.
FER Yes, and in the last part of this chapter the last Adam and the second Man stands officially in relation to a universe, the Head and beginning of it.
EA You referred to Ephesians 2 just now, I would like to ask whether there is not any present application to the words, “made us sit down together in the heavenlies”.
FER Most unquestionably. We were saying it was anticipative. It describes what will really take place in the coming of the Lord, but God has given present effect to it.
JP I have thought we could not understand what is set forth in Ephesians unless we recognised that it is anticipative.
FER I do not think we can, God has given a present effect morally to what will take place actually at the coming of the Lord.
JSA Does not that come about in the knowledge and appreciation of Christ in the place where He is?
FER I would hardly say so, I think it lies in the appreciation of the love and the grace of God. God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us — as we enter into that we begin to realise, by the Spirit of God the place in which God has set us according to His counsel. In that way it becomes good to us as a present thing.
JP We grow by the true knowledge of God.
FER That is the principle. Even in natural things a child gradually grows up in its father’s affections, and as the child develops in intelligence the father is well pleased [p. 189] to make known to it all that is in his own mind. The father does not care to have secrets from the child he loves.
GR Would you say all that is in the mind of God is set forth in Christ for our apprehension now?
FER There is another point, that is we are joined to Christ, “he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit”. We are quickened together with Christ.
GWH Referring to the conditions you mentioned, would you say that one who is brought into attachment is brought under rule?
FER Yes, that is the object of being brought into attachment; until then man is lawless.
EA What other word could you use instead of attachment.
FER Anybody at all conversant with astronomy would know the word. It is rather difficult to find another suitable; ‘bond’ might serve, but that might be almost as difficult. The fact is that in common language ‘attachment’ has got a conventional meaning of affection. It really means a state in which things are bound to one another. It is an expression in regard to the solar system. The opposite, ‘lawlessness’, is also a word used in astronomy. Everything not in attachment is lawless.
JB Is there any distinction between rule and order?
FER They are very much the same thing.
WM And the first condition of life is to be attached.
FER Yes, so physical life depends on rule. We would not live a moment if we were not under rule, we should fly off into destruction. It is a necessary condition of existence.
WM Then after attachment you find a place in which to breathe.
FER As we are creatures with lungs; a body like the earth is not intelligent and has no lungs.
WM And this is supplied by love in the brethren.
FER The christian circle. This is brought out in 1 John 3, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren”. “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”.
JP On the other side, he that loveth not his brother abides in death.
FER The truth is, that the circle of the brethren is so pervaded by the love of Christ that it is the circle of love. That is the great importance of being in the circle of the saints. I would not like to be out of it at all.
WM You mean all the saints of God.
FER Yes, in the largest sense, only we have to carry out the proof of it in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
GWH I suppose that is why in Ephesians 3 we get, “May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge”.
FER Quite so, you get the extent of the universe of bliss, but then another thing, and that is, “to know the love of Christ”, that is what fills that universe.
WM And then you would be in the light of the love of God?
FER Yes, that is brought out in 1 John 4, it is the love of God in the revelation and application of it to us in our responsible pathway from the time we were sinners to the day of judgment; that is the light in which we are.
WM You mean the love of God gives confidence all along the line.
FER Yes, “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world”.
GWH Does attachment cover those three conditions?
FER They are consequent on attachment. You cannot have one of them until you are attached, you do not come under rule until then.
GWH They follow of necessity.
FER Yes, but it is extremely difficult in the present order of christendom to get an idea of the christian circle, for the great part of the christians in the world at the [p. 191] present time is entangled in the great churches. You do not get the christian circle there. They hardly know one another as christians. There may be a select coterie in some evangelical congregations, but that is all. You can in that hardly get an idea of what one may call the christian circle.
GWH That is all the effect of the rights of God in mercy.
FER Exactly. They have been set forth in redemption, and in consequence of that, Christ has become the point of attachment. You have Him as the centre of a system. Men could not be attached to God, but God has established in Christ a point of attachment on the ground of redemption, and in being brought into attachment by the Spirit of God we come at once under rule. The anointing is what brings you into attachment. The Spirit is the bond between us and Christ, and consequent on that we are brought into the christian circle and there we get the light of the Spirit of God. That is the way it works.
Ques Would you say that Adam was in attachment before he fell?
FER He had a peculiar place. He was the centre of a system, a figure of the One to come. As the image and glory of God, he was the centre of a system, only he broke down immediately. There he was not fit to be head to anybody else. You get the contrast here, “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a quickening spirit”.
WM So that if Adam had never broken down there would have been but one man before God in the world?
FER But he would have been head and would have had posterity, I suppose.
HM As to a man in these large churches who is a christian indeed, what atmosphere would you say be was in?
FER I know the great difficulty of realising the christian circle so long as you are entangled in these things. One had to come out, to get an idea of the circle.
WM [p. 192] It would be a struggle for breath all the time.
Rem It would be a social circle.
FER But that would be only in a certain grade of society. You do not understand very much when you are entangled in these things, of the thought that there is neither Jew nor gentile, male nor female. The fact is we have come out of these things in the hope of realising something of the christian circle. I hope we do, for if not I do not see what compensation we have. It is a great thing to have come into attachment to Christ, but we want more than that, the reality of the christian circle down here.
Ques Is the christian circle the circle of the Spirit of God, and it is for us to get into that?
FER Yes, a circle down here pervaded by the affections of Christ, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”. The Lord presses continually upon the disciples, that they should love one another.
JB Would you say that the light is the love of God and the atmosphere the love of Christ?
FER Yes.
WM Is not love presented in John as a kind of atmosphere? “He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God”.
FER I only take it up from the passage, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren”. It is evident to me that with the brethren there is the atmosphere of love.
GWH I suppose it is by the Spirit the Lord conducts our hearts into the love of God.
FER But that is very much more a question of light. Where it is a question of Christ, there is a circle down here which is pervaded by the affection of Christ. It is the reproduction of Christ down here. That is what the Lord contemplated in John 15.
GWH Your thought is not that we should be in that circle only on Lord’s day.
FER [p. 193] No, always.
Ques Is that the thought in John 14, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”?
FER Yes.
WM Why do you speak of the love of God as light?
FER Because it comes to us in that way.
JP That expression seems to involve it, “We have known and believed the love”.
FER Then there is another expression, “Keep yourselves in the love of God”.
WM Would you not think that love was a more positive thing than light?
FER But you must remember that it is the love of God. You cannot take that up in the way you take up the love of the brethren. Brotherly love in Scripture is distinguished from love.
WM Hence Scripture says, “he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom be hath not seen?”
FER I think brotherly love is the atmosphere, but the love of God is more the light in which we are.
JP It is evident in 1 John 3, that hatred is death, and love is life.
GWH You connect light with God’s nature.
FER Yes, but what is light to us? Light to us is the revelation of God in His nature.
WM When it says, “God is light”, the statement is modified somewhat.
FER It is in contrast to darkness. Love is absolute.
WM So the saints can be said to be light in the Lord, but not love.
FER Yes. You are said to be light in the Lord, but not love. You see, love is an effect produced in us. It is not an effect in God. What I mean is, God is love, every quality in God, holiness, righteousness, judgment, everything has its spring and source in love. With us it is an effect, “We love him because he first loved us”.
GR How do you make out that judgment flows from the love of God?
FER Because it never could be according to holy love to tolerate lawlessness, and therefore for the good of the universe God abolishes lawlessness. It is not arbitrary. How lawlessness came in I do not know, but it is not consistent with holy love to tolerate lawlessness.
HM In chastising the saint, is that the end?
FER Where lawlessness is allowed God comes in to put it away.
JB The cross would be the proof of that.
FER It is a great thing to apprehend what Scripture says, that God is love, and there is nothing in God contrary to love. We have had before us, that Christ risen is the pledge of everything being put on resurrection ground, where death can have no power or authority. Everything is in the last Adam. He is the beginning and centre and pledge of everything being put on ground which cannot be invaded by death. Then what a display will come out! The heavenly city and the whole heavenly company, Israel revived, and the nations all brought into view. What a triumph on the part of God to bring all that to pass out of the wreck and ruin of this world! He brings it all to pass in a day.