THE ASSEMBLY

^[p. 638] THE ASSEMBLY

Genesis 1: 27, 28; Proverbs 31: 10 - 12; Revelation 21: 9 - 12

I have in mind to speak about the assembly, the assembly — of which Christ is Head. It goes on into eternity, and for the moment it takes the form of an order of things in which God sets out His thoughts about the coming age; but whatever it may be that it sets out, the assembly is greater; and, therefore, it can be safely employed to set out other things. It has such intelligence. Indeed, it is said that the all-varied wisdom of God is set out in it and the angels are looking on to see this. Angels have intelligence, but not as the persons in the assembly have. There are things that we know well, that they desire to look into; so that God has furnished Himself with this wonderful assembly to represent Him. No other family in all the families of God is equal to the position the assembly has, and throughout all generations of the age of ages this assembly will carry on the service of God. God is to be worshipped in it. There is no end to it at all. It is constituted great enough for all these services, and it is not to terminate as Israel will terminate. Israel as a nation is not viewed in that way, though persons who form it will, of course, continue for ever. The assembly is always a creature, but next to divine Persons in importance; not comparable to them, of course, but still next to them in intimacy and love. This great assembly commands our respect, and inasmuch as we are of it, it commands our minds. Our intelligences are called upon and all the time we can devote to it, so as to understand it. As Paul said, one who knew it best of men, of creatures: that “ye may understand my knowledge”. There was at least one who knew. It is just a question if there was any like him, but at the same time, God is seeking to bring us all into those things which Paul was seeking ^[p. 639] to set out. He was the minister of the assembly; he only was. No other is said to be that, but Paul, and he laboured with the brethren in his time to lead them into the truth of it. As he said, “in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”, Ephesians 3: 18 - 20.

Well now, I desire to begin with Genesis 1 and to show how the idea of the assembly was there in the mind of God in that day of freshness. The verses I have read tell us plainly the facts. “And God created Man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every animal that moveth on the earth”, Genesis 1: 27, 28. We can see the Spirit of God in writing these verses through Moses had in mind something that had not yet been disclosed. Indeed it is said formally that throughout all ages it was concealed in God, but it was there. The idea was there. And so the Spirit of God has in mind the male and female. There is no suggestion of inferiority of the one to the other. The facts show that the man was head of the woman; he is that, as Christ is Head of the assembly. These things are shown in the facts, but, nevertheless, it says in Verse 28, “And God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion”.

The word dominion is to be noted, and that the two are blessed. God begins everything with blessing in these matters, even after the flood too. What God likes, having created it particularly, He blesses; and here they were to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the ^[p. 640] earth; the word replenish means fill. The subjugation of the earth comes in after the filling of it. It is not to be filled only with cows and sheep and horses, and other creatures of that kind, all of which were created with Adam. It is not to be filled with these only. It is to be filled with creatures of a kind, persons peculiarly interesting to God. There were these two, and they were to fill the earth. That filling would control all else. That is the principle. So that the subjugation is ensured in the filling. Filling must be not only physical but moral. That is to say, the order of being that is filling the earth has a moral importance. Cattle have not. The spirit of man goes up. That indicates at once the superiority of man. God breathed into man the breath of life; it was an intimate matter, and man became a living soul. He was to fill the earth, he and his partner. It was the principle set out in these two; they were to fill the earth and subdue it. That will come about in a coming day, that the earth will be filled with men according to Christ; the new heavens and the new earth.

I am making these remarks so as to impress our souls with this great matter, as far as I may be able. I am comforted with the thought that many know it in measure as I do. The brethren are coming to know it and they are coming to value it, and they are coming to see that they belong to it, and that as God looks upon us He values us; He clothes us with His own thoughts. We shall grow in the knowledge of them, but He clothes us with His own thoughts, His own perfect thoughts, and that is a great comfort, that the thing must be regarded abstractly as perfect, as God has it in His mind. And so, dear brethren, it is very comforting to think of an earth filled with men like Jesus. All else will be removed. The Father knows them, and He would instruct us as His children, first as to ourselves, as to one another, and then as to all the others,

^[p. 641] for the earth will be filled, the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness will dwell. It will dwell there. Men will be there. Let us understand this, dear brethren, that angels are not taken into account in this matter of formation, and the work of perfecting. They are not said to be heirs. Their place is to be servants of the saints. Wonderful thought. Wonderful they are, and mighty. How wonderfully God has provided for us. Everything is for our sakes, says the apostle, “all are yours; and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s”.

So as I said, the thing begins here and it widens out as you go downstream, and we find that woman retains her place in the government of God. God is not allowing her to be submerged by man. She is retaining her place. God sees to that right down the line to the book of Revelation. I desire, dear brethren, that we may seek to maintain this line. Be in it. It is what God is doing. He is in it and it is going through. And so woman is not submerged. The feminine idea is preserved and God sees to it that it is preserved according to His counsel. It is not to be lost; it is to go through into eternity in the assembly, in a great administrative capacity.

I was thinking of Vashti, a queen. She had her own friends. The women were with her; the men were separate. That will not do. Mischief will happen if we have that sort of thing. We want the sisters to stand by their husbands, co-operate with them, take their advice and give advice too, as Sarah did. In all the glory of that realm that is depicted in the book of Esther she was queen, but she lost the queen-ship and another took her place, a better than she. That is God’s way. If He has to discard somebody He does not leave a void. She is displaced. Her place is filled. As the vessels in Jeremiah’s time; he made another that pleased him, another vessel; the first was marred and rejected. And ^[p. 642] so Esther had a wonderful place, not only negatively or passively, but actively. She fills out a wonderful place according to what I am saying, according to what Scripture teaches. She supported Mordecai. The Jews were carried through. That is to say, the people of God viewed abstractly, clothed with divine thoughts, were carried through. Haman would destroy them and there are many like that. We are not to destroy a weak brother for whom Christ died. Whoever he may be, administration will preserve him, will protect him; and, of course, we are to be helpers of one another in these matters, and particularly to preserve the feminine idea. And so, Esther became a queen. She was better than her predecessor and, therefore, she superseded Vashti.

What a sister we have in Phoebe, for instance, and in several others that I might mention, as Lydia. Hence it is that great place is given to sisters in the assembly at Philippi. The royal line was there. Those women that worked with me, says Paul. He sent his regards to them. They were important in his eyes and in his mind, particularly Lydia. He went to Lydia when he was leaving Philippi. It was as if he said, Lydia, I trust you to look after things; not that the Spirit would leave anyone in charge, but Paul trusted Lydia. Who is she? The Lord had put it into her heart to attend to the things spoken by Paul, the man who would speak the right things. Follow him; listen to him. And she did. The apostle went there when he was leaving.

In Revelation 21 you have the number twelve greatly stressed. The use of numbers as language in the Scriptures is a convenient way of teaching, and a way that does not take up great space. But there is the host of publishers. God gives humanity the Bible and John alludes to it in saying that if all were written that could be written the world itself would not contain the books, but God has contented Himself to write just that and it is called the Bible; there is no other really; although ^[p. 643] the world may be filled with things about it, there is no other one but it; and it stands. God has been pleased to make it small, to limit it, as the ark was small, but how complete, how infinite! The Scriptures really are infinite. They run into the idea of the word of God. “All things are naked and laid bare to his eyes, with whom we have to do”, Hebrews 4: 13. I do not say that allusion is exactly to Scripture, but it is the word of God, and the Scriptures represent the word of God. And so it is that I was referring to numbers, that the numeral twelve is pressed into this chapter I have read, and how glorious it is in the language used and the thing alluded to. First of all, “And there came one of the seven angels which had had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and spoke with me, saying, Come here, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit, and set me on a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city. Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her shining was like a most precious stone, as a crystal-like jasper stone; having a great and high wall; having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names inscribed, which are those of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel”, Revelation 21: 9 - 12.

How few are the words: the holy Jerusalem, the bride, the Lamb’s wife! Think of all these expressions. She is the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. So that we have now come, dear brethren, to the great climax of the feminine idea; beginning in the first of Genesis. It was conceived long before the world was formed, and it is as if God would say, It has just come down now complete. It is a heavenly thing. Its origin is heaven from the ‘Father, Spring and Source of blessing’. It is from the Father. He made a marriage for His Son. John says, “He that has the bride is the bridegroom”, John 3: 29. He does not say who ^[p. 644] the bride is. No. She was concealed in heaven and we belong to it. Everyone who is a christian here should just take it in and learn from it; think of it and pray about it, for you belong to that. All these other great personages that I have alluded to are just figures of this great thing, and what I am speaking about now is not simply a type. It is the thing itself, and it is presented here as measuring twelve thousand stadia, and then it is a cube. Pardon me for just referring for a moment to the measurements. It is said, “And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that spoke with me had a golden reed as a measure, that he might measure the city, and its gates, and its walls. And the city lies four-square, and its length is as much as the breadth. And he measured the city with the reed — twelve thousand stadia: the length and the breadth and height of it are equal”. The cube measure means that the assembly is a solid thing, a substantial thing composed of persons, all of them precious as purchased by the blood of Christ and wrought in and wrought out and adorned by the Spirit of God. They are going into eternity and will retain their character too, the character of administration. God would write the word administration on our hearts. He would indeed. It is so necessary, because the world has gone astray, the nations have gone astray. There is no wisdom there at all. If it were not for the sovereign ways of God in holding things there would be chaos. Unless He took certain out of the way, it would not be possible to exist, but God is taking care of things. There is nothing outside of the assembly that is properly regulated, not one thing. But then is it regulated as in our hands? That is the point I am coming to and seeking to impress upon us. God is saying to us. You take that and look after it, whatever it be. If it has to be adjusted, you do it. The Lord is saying that to us. He is giving us to do ^[p. 645] it. You have heard enough to do it. Are we to be ever learning and never come to a knowledge of the truth? Something comes up today and we have heard it many a time, and yet we do the wrong thing right away, as if the wrong thing were the order of the day. It is not the order of the day. The right thing is the order of the day, and there is a way of finding out the right. So it is that we rightly have our care meetings, but then the question is whether we have men of wisdom. The word of wisdom must be there. It is intended to be there. And so, “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety”, Proverbs 11: 14. It is well that brothers should come together but then let us see that we learn wisdom. Wisdom is the principle thing.

Well now, I would like to say something about the virtuous woman before stopping. Her price is above rubies. Who can find her? One is often inclined to say, Where is she? Where is she to be found? The writer goes on and he writes about her as if she did exist. That is the way you come to it, that the thing is there. It is in yourself. And so you find a beautiful thing that the wise man says which will fill out what I am saying about the virtuous woman. “Who can find a woman of worth? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband confideth in her, and he shall have no lack of spoil”. We may regard it as abstract for the moment. But he goes on to say, “She doeth him good, and not evil, all the days of her life”. And then in verse 15, “And she riseth while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household”. She giveth them meat. We have to challenge ourselves now as to where we can get it, but she gives it. “And the day’s work to her maidens”. That would mean she assigns the work they are to do, which is important. And then again it is said, “She perceiveth that her earning is good; her lamp goeth not out by night”. She can stay up all night if necessary. That is another point: that we have to sacrifice if we ^[p. 646] are to carry on assembly work, because this is a picture of the assembly; it is described by the wise man, and he treats it as if it were existent. That is the way I think we ought to reach it. Learn it first in the abstract and then look in and see if we have any part in it at all. Why not? It is ourselves. We belong to it. And so as I said before, “Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land”. That is an important thing to bear in mind, and the other things that go with it. “The heart of her husband confideth in her”, and then it is said, “Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates”. That is to say, she can be spoken of by herself. You say, That sister is a good wife, but then she is more than that. She is something in herself, her own works. She reflects her husband’s works, but her own works will praise her in the gates. That is the one word I would just leave with you, that the sisters are to be praised themselves. She follows on the line of trustworthiness. Her husband shines in the gates, but she has her own works, what she is herself. She can be praised by herself.

Well, how important that is in this matter of administration, because this whole chapter, I might say, is administration; how the wife looks after things in the absence of her husband; the assembly looks after things in the absence of Christ.