THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH AND THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD
J. Wright
Galatians 6: 10; Ephesians 2: 18–22; Hebrews 11: 8–11; Genesis 15: 1–6; 17: 1–5, 26, 27; 28: 10–19; 35: 1–15
I seek help to speak of the household of faith, and the household of God. I feel in need of divine help in speaking of them, for I feel my understanding is small. These expressions do not occur much in Scripture, but they are there. I understand that the idea of the household of faith is illustrated in Abraham’s history and the household of God in Jacob’s history. We might have put things the other way round in taking account of Jacob’s history, but there is something very choice reached in Jacob.
Firstly, I speak of the household of faith. Abraham is said to be the father of all that believe, and there is such a household. That is, there are persons moving on that principle who are governed by that principle, the principle of faith. If we have faith we must believe that God is, and that He is a rewarder of him that seeks Him out. Faith is a wonderful gift, and we should be exercised to move on the principle of faith. It says in the Scriptures more than once that the just shall live by faith. It raises the question, beloved brethren, as to the principle on which we live, what governs us in our movements; whether it is things of sight, or circumstances, or even providence; or whether we are governed by faith, by God’s word. Faith would connect us with things that are unseen, but they are nevertheless real. I wonder how much I know of these unseen things. We are bound to fail, and not really come into things rightly if we are governed by sight. If we look at the situation that exists today, just a few brethren, outwardly what is there in that for us unless we are governed by faith? We are thankful, of course, that there are those we have to walk with, but our real strength lies in faith. Persons have found strength in faith, and our link with God is in faith. Our link with a Man in the glory, a Man in heaven, is in faith and we can behold Him there, “we see Jesus”, it says, “crowned with glory and honour”, Hebrews 2: 9.
The epistle to the Hebrews was written to strengthen the saints in faith in a system that is really and vitally established in Christ where He is. That is the vital thing in Christianity. Our walk and ways will be governed by that, if we have faith and our eye is upon the Man in heaven.
This principle is worked out in Abraham’s history and it is brought into the epistle to the Galatians. If you look into that epistle you will see how much the principle of faith is stressed. God helped Abraham as he moved on that principle, and He will help each one of us as we move on that principle. Righteousness is obtained on the principle of faith, and Abraham moved step by step in faith. We cannot look too far ahead in our movements here, but we can go step by step. Scripture speaks of the steps of the faith of our father Abraham (Romans 4: 12); he had God’s word and moved in faith and God helped him to take the next step. That is how the believer’s life is to proceed. We cannot please God unless we have faith and move on that principle, believing God. It is not that you believed in Christ so many years ago (that is a vital thing, of course, that you do come and believe in Christ) but to live on that principle. Are you living on the principle of faith today, that is, believing God? It becomes characteristic of us that we believe God.
So I read a few sections that bear on Abraham and the steps of faith that marked him, because it became characteristic of him. No doubt there were lapses in his history, and if we are honest we know that there are lapses in ours, we get away from it sometimes, but characteristically Abraham was marked by faith. It says in Hebrews, “By faith Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out into the place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and went out, not knowing where he was going”. Some people speak about blind faith. I do not think it is that, because he went out in dependence upon God, trusting that God would guide and direct him. He obeyed the call. Now the call comes to us in the gospel, and is to be obeyed. The gospel is preached for the obedience of faith, there is in it a call from God. It is a wonderful thing to have a sense in your soul that God has called you. Why has He called? He has called you because He has a deep interest in you, and wants to bless you. He blessed Abraham. He called him out from idolatry, He called him out from the land of his nativity and his father’s house. It says that he obeyed, not knowing where he was going. He never actually received the land as an inheritance; God showed him it, and told him to walk through it, but he never actually possessed it. So men might say to Abraham, What do you have for going out? What do you have for obeying the call? He had an altar, and he had a tent.
It is a wonderful thing to have an altar. Do you have an altar? Does each brother and sister here have an altar? You say, What do you mean by an altar? It means you have a known relationship with God. You know what it is to serve God on the principle of sacrifice, because we could not have an altar apart from the sacrifice of Christ. Abraham had altars but he was not told to build these altars. Genesis brings out that persons were not told to build altars, they were not prescribed. In Exodus they were prescribed, but in
Genesis they were not, it was what men built as a result of their knowledge of God. That is the greatest thing you can have, a knowledge of God Himself. Abraham had that and he had a tent as well. “By faith he sojourned as a stranger in the land of promise as a foreign country, having dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise”. They were heirs with him, that was his son and his grandson. Jacob would not have been very old then, about fifteen years old. We know that the teens are a difficult time in life; those of us who are older have been through that and we are sympathetic with what young persons go through in their teens. But Jacob had the advantage of having his grandfather and his father in these tents, and they were heirs of the same promise. God had promised them things. They had laid hold of those promises in faith.
Then it says, “for he waited for the city which has foundations, of which God is the artificer and constructor”. Abraham waited for that city. It is a wonderful thing that on the basis of faith and the Spirit we can come to this city now; it is one of the things we have already come to, this city of which God is the Artificer and Constructor. Could you find a city more beautiful than that? Men have their cities; how corrupt they are, and the enemy uses them to allure people into corruption and sin. But God has a city for you, and you can come into it now through faith and by the Spirit. Can you have anything greater than that, a city built by God? That is going to remain and abide. All the cities of men are going to come down, they are not going to last; they are not built on a right foundation. Do you know you can find your life in this city as you commit yourself to God, and as you move in obedience on the principle of faith?
In Genesis 15 it says, “After these things the word of Jehovah came to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield, thy exceeding great reward”.
Abram had just refused anything from the king of Sodom, he refused anything from this world. Honours in the world do not do a Christian any good. You do not want to be on the world’s honours list. Abram had just had a successful mission, he had overcome kings. He had not done it to acquire glory for himself, but to rescue his brother Lot who was caught up with the world. Abram had gone into the mission in faith, and he did it with trained servants in his own household. You see the household of faith is an ordered system of things; Abram had these trained servants and he went out and rescued his brother. The king of Sodom wanted to honour him, but he refused it; we should refuse the honours of this world. God says to him, “Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield, thy exceeding great reward”. You could not have anything better than God being a shield, that is God being your protection; because the person that moves on the principle of faith is dependent upon God. That is a much better reward than what the king of Sodom could give him. The greatest thing you can have is your knowledge of God and God as your portion. Mr Darby knew God as his portion; it comes out in his hymns. God can be your portion, and my portion.
Then Abram said, “Lord Jehovah, what wilt thou give me? seeing I go childless”. This title “Lord Jehovah” is an interesting one. God was speaking to Abram here and the word of God was coming to him, and Abram says, “Lord Jehovah”, he speaks to God in that way, he recognises the authority. It is essential to recognise the authority of God. If you are in the household of faith there is blessing in recognising the authority of God. Each Person of the Godhead has authority—the Lord Jesus has authority, the Holy Spirit has authority, and the Father has authority. There is great blessing and security in recognising the authority of God, and in being governed by His word in all our movements here. You might not know what to do in life at times, but God would give you a word, and it is necessary to be governed by it.
God speaks to him not only about his circumstances here, but would in His word enlarge his view as to what He has in mind for him, His great purpose. He speaks about Abraham’s seed being as the stars of the heaven. He is enlarging Abraham in his view of things, and God in His word would enlarge our view of things. Things do not centre in us, although God cares about us, because He is interested in us. But God has a great plan, He has His purpose, and He is unfolding it to Abraham here. What do you think of God’s purpose? You say, Yes, I was chosen in Christ before the world’s foundation. It is a great thing to realise that. God knew you before you were born; even before you were a sinner, God knew you in purpose. It is a wonderful thing to lay hold of the purpose of God. God is speaking to Abraham about His great thoughts. It says Abraham believed God. Do you believe God? He believed God, and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. Then in Genesis 16 Abraham is tested, and he had moved away from dependence upon God. This idea of having an heir through Hagar is devised by Sarai, and what sorrow it brought in through moving away from God’s thoughts.
His thoughts are far better than our thoughts. Let us be governed by God’s word. Abraham believed God but he was tested by His word, because it was several chapters later when Isaac was born. God is true to His word and you can rest in that; He will be true to His word, true to His thoughts.
When we come to chapter 17 God is again appearing to Abraham to bring him back to His thoughts. He is saying to Abraham, “I am the Almighty God—walk before my face, and be perfect”. He is saying to him, I have the power to bring about My thoughts; you are apt to use your own thoughts and devices to try and bring about divine things but I have the power, rely upon Me. What a great thing it is to be maintained in dependence upon God, the One who appeared to him in this way as the Almighty God. He said, “walk before my face and be perfect”. You say, How can I walk before the face of God and be perfect? That is you are walking here
pleasurable to God. You cannot do it in your own strength, none of us can. In our day we have the Holy Spirit, not only faith but the Holy Spirit, the power to walk before God’s face.
Every day Abraham would be walking before God, not walking before men as pleasing men, and certainly not pleasing himself, but walking before God, and being here for God’s pleasure. Then God says, “thy name shall no more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of a multitude of nations have I made thee”. That is, he is the father of those that believe, a father of a multitude of nations. Think of God being so pleased with Abraham that what He had in Abraham was going to be multiplied and seen in others, seen in the household of faith in those that believe.
I must go on and speak of the household of God. It is mentioned in the epistle to the Ephesians. You say, What is the difference between the house of God and the household of God? The house is spoken of extensively in the Scriptures, but there is not much said about the household of God. I think it emphasises the family thought, that God is in relation to those of His household. Now that brings out the intense interest that God has in His household, which would be a well ordered household. God intends that every parent would desire their household to be well ordered. It gives honour and credit to God that He has a well ordered household. It is marked by affection because God loves His household, and loves those who compose it. He exercises discipline to correct us, to form us, and to educate us.
The discipline of God takes several ways. There is what becomes the common lot of men; sorrows, bereavement, pressure of circumstances, that is the common lot of men; but God would use it for those of His household for their discipline, for education and formation.
Then there is what may happen through our own folly, but God uses it for discipline to correct us. Then there is what is peculiar to Christians, that is the pressure of the way as being in the testimony, that men generally do not have,
but God uses it for the discipline of His people.
We have this reference to the household of God. Paul says, “through him” that is, through Christ, “For through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father”. Those who form God’s household have access to the Father. I understand having access to the Father could be priestly service. Think of believers having “access by one Spirit to the Father”, that is both Jew and Gentile. The difference that existed between Jew and Gentile has been removed in the death of Christ. It says earlier that He “might reconcile both in one body to God by the cross, having by it slain the enmity”, Ephesians 2: 16. That is not the enmity between God and man, but the enmity between Jew and Gentile, the enmity between man and man. How much enmity there is in the world, but it is to the household of God. Christ has slain the enmity by the cross. Then it says, “So then ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God”. What dignity applies to the saints in this way. If you look at Jacob you can see what dignity marked him; at the end of God’s ways with him he became a prince. God says Israel shall be thy name. He became a person of moral and spiritual dignity. There was no greater person at the end of Genesis than Israel because of what God, had made him. This is what those that belong to the household of God are.
Then it says; “being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets”. The apostles would include Paul and the twelve. Paul had a distinctive place, no one had the place that Paul had among the apostles. Then the prophets would not be the Old Testament prophets, but the New Testament ones. There are prophets in the New Testament; they bring in the word of God and mind of God, so that this is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the corner-stone. It all takes character from that blessed Man. God has a household that takes character from
Christ, “Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone, in whom all the building fitted together increases to a holy temple in the Lord”. I understand that is what will be seen in the millennium, “a holy temple in the Lord”, where from the assembly the authority of the Lord will become intelligible to men.
Then it says, “in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”. God has a dwelling-place now, this is provisional. I think the household of God relates to that. I just refer briefly to Jacob who illustrates it. The first mention of the house of God is in Jacob’s history. When he went out of his father’s house he was obedient to his parents, but he was alone and his circumstances were hard and difficult. You may find that, your circumstances are hard and difficult; we all know something of that. But God assured Jacob that angels of God were interested in him. There was this ladder so that communications came from heaven to Jacob. It is a wonderful thing to be conscious of divine communications. It is a principle on which the believer lives that he has them. Our Christianity becomes stale and static if we are not in the gain of living communications from God. They keep the believer going in a right way. We do not need the things of the world to keep us going, because we have living communications from God. God pledges Himself to Jacob, pledges His interest in him and says He will keep him. Jacob awoke from his sleep and God said He would bless him, “And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee ... and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee until I have done what I have spoken to thee of”. It was a long history with Jacob until he was brought to what God would do with him, and it is a long history with most of us. But God says, “I will not leave thee”. In all Jacob’s ups and downs, his wanderings and his going away, and his going in for money, all those kind of things, God did not leave him. God had pledged Himself to him, and that was to assure Jacob.
The response from Jacob was very mixed here, but nevertheless God committed Himself to him, and God would do it for us, as taking us up for blessing, being foreknown before the world’s foundation. God has an end in view for us and He will not leave us. Jacob said, “How dreadful is this place!” Then it says, “Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had made his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it”. The pillar was to be for testimony. There was some testimony as to what God was and what God was to Jacob in what he did here in setting this up as a pillar. He poured oil on it, indicating something spiritual coming from a man like Jacob. He appreciated divine blessing, but he was a schemer and thought he would get things his way. He poured oil on this pillar and that was something spiritual. There can be no power in testimony really without acting by the Spirit, acting in dependence upon the Spirit.
When we come to Genesis 35. Jacob is brought back to this point, he is brought back to the house of God, where God had spoken with him. He comes back enriched, he is much richer now than when he went out; he had developed in the knowledge of God; but it was not without sorrow, it was not without wandering, and not without discipline. God disciplined him for the discipline of God comes out in a marked way in Jacob. He went to Padan-Aram, he was told to go there, but he was not told to stay; he stayed there twenty years and amassed wealth for himself. It was sorrow to him for he had a hard time with Laban his father-in-law; there was bargaining, and all that kind of thing, and Jacob got the best of it. He was such a schemer, he got the best of it, but it was only sorrow and suffering. When Joseph was born he says, I have to go away for these circumstances are not compatible with Christ. He went to go away but he was detained in Succoth. He built a house in Succoth before he reached the house of God, but what sorrow was brought upon Jacob. He built an altar there too, but it surrounded himself. He had his
religion, his link with God, but he was centring things around himself.
God says here to Jacob, after the sorrow, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto the God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother”. Jacob, in answer to this, has to get rid of the strange gods, and the unsuitable things that were in his household, because holiness marks God’s house. Discipline is in view that we might be partakers of His holiness, that we might be fitted for His house, and be fitted to have part in the household of God. I think the exercise that Jacob went through, in facing Esau his brother, helped him in this; he had to face his brother whom he had wronged, and he had to get right with him. He thought to appease his brother by scheming, by telling him of all the cattle he had and all that kind of thing. Would that have pleased Esau to tell him all he possessed? In the end Jacob wrestles with God, and God changes him. He becomes a giver, he sends a large gift to Esau, he becomes like God. I think those exercises were fitting Jacob to have part in the house of God.
His house is cleansed and he is here with God. It says, “And he built there an altar, and called the place El-Beth-el; because there God had appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother”. Jacob is not centring things around himself, El-Beth-el is God of the house of God; he is centring things round God Himself, and God is his Object. That is a great thing, beloved brethren, that God becomes our Object. God changes his name, saying, “Israel shall be thy name”. Then God makes known His name to him. When Jacob had wrestled with God, he asked what His name was, but God did not tell him; He would not tell him until he was ready for it. God tells us things when we are ready for them. When we are ready for His house He would cause us to be there in liberty and joy. It is a place of liberty and joy, a place of merriment as illustrated in Luke 15. If you
want to enjoy yourself, enjoy what is in God’s house as belonging to His household; it is a holy sphere filled with holy joy. It is not what the world goes in for, it is holy joy and holy merriment, for God Himself partakes in it.
So God says to him, “kings shall come out of thy loins. And the land that I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee will I give it”. And God went up from him in the place where He had talked with him; God was pleased with him. Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He had talked with him. He set up a stone for a pillar when he was there before, but now he sets up a pillar of stone. I think a pillar of stone would suggest something permanent, something reached in Jacob’s own soul; and he poured on it a drink-offering and poured oil on it. A drink-offering was not mentioned in Genesis 28 but it is mentioned now, showing that Jacob himself was pleasurable to God. I feel I cannot say any more, but it is a good thing to look into. The two households are one really, but two thoughts, one leads into the other. We are marked by the household of faith and move on that principle, and have part in the household of God. May it be so, in the Lord’s name.
Address at Manchester
16 September 2000