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COMMUNION

J. A. Gardiner

I have been thinking since Lord’s day about communion. We sang in the opening hymn—

‘Lord, we drink the cup of blessing,

The communion of Thy blood’. (Hymn 30)

1 Corinthians 10 is the chapter about fellowship, or communion, “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of the Christ? Because we, being many, are one loaf, one body”(1 Corinthians 10: 16, 17). That really, of course, is a two-way matter. You can appreciate, as our brother has been saying, the wonderful communion that these saints enjoyed in the brokenness of the day in Malachi, “they ... spoke often one to another”, they communed, and God was pleased with that. No doubt they had spoken to God. I think Malachi has in mind the priesthood, that the priesthood should be purified, “he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he will purify the children of Levi” (Malachi 3: 3); that Levi might come up to what Levi ought to be. It says, “unrighteousness was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and uprightness”, Malachi 2: 6. We say we come into fellowship.

Well, how do we live? How do we spend our lives? The Lord Jesus here in Matthew’s gospel is answering the devil, and He is speaking about how man should live, how we should live. He is living in the light of the covenant in Deuteronomy 8: 3. It is very interesting, He is quoting from that. Deuteronomy opens up the heavenly land to us, describes it and everything about it, its characteristics, its substance, its resources, its attractiveness and all that belongs to it. All that is to be known in the fellowship, in the wilderness, in this situation in Corinth; because in Corinth it is the assembly of God, and God is there, He is dwelling there, He is walking with them. So the word is, “Wherefore come out from the midst of them, and be separated ... and I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”, 2 Corinthians 6: 17, 18. God says, I will walk among you and dwell among you. That is the situation in the local meeting, and life proceeds according to God in it. As our brother has been saying, how precious to the heart of God to look down and then to come down. It is a habitation of God in the Spirit, where He dwells and has communion with us.

Do you ever speak with God and He speaks with you? That is normal Christianity. “Man shall not live by bread alone”. What kind of life do you live? Life is very aimless for man away from God. He has certain objectives, and when he reaches them he finds there is nothing in them. It is vanity and pursuit of the wind. You go over the city just now, and there is tremendous rush and bustle, persons have certain objectives, and when it is past there is nothing left. That is not life according to God. Wonderful thing to study and to understand in some measure what life is according to God. It is not “by bread alone”, but it is “by every word which goes out through God’s mouth”. How fully and beautifully this was exemplified in the Lord Jesus, as God has so found His delight in Him. What an answer God had in Christ, and has in Christ, so delightful that He says, He opened His ear every morning. God spoke to Him and opened His ear. That is available to us, beloved. Does God speak to you?

Does He open your ear in the morning? The prophet says, “to hear as the instructed”, Isaiah 50: 4. Think of the great impartation of wisdom and instruction that comes from God so that we may hear as the instructed. So that you are able to represent God, and represent Him in grace and mercy, “that I should know how to succour by a word”, comfort by a word, “him that is weary”, Isaiah 50: 4.

See how there is this holy interchange and fellowship as we are among the brethren; there is a great sphere of salvation. But then it is a sphere of enjoyment. God is delighting in it. Persons are alive by the word of God, it is quick and powerful, it is sharp, it is effective. It is not condemnatory. In Deuteronomy, I think the saints are viewed as living in the gain of the covenant, the second writing. We are conscious that the tables this time have been placed in the ark of wood where they are safe, where the truth is held in its entirety by Christ. The sons of Levi are immediately related to that because they are morally equal to it. That is they are of the same character, from the point of view of the synoptic gospels they are the brethren of Christ, as they are presented in Matthew, Mark or Luke. Morally that is what they are, and they live by the word of God. That is very beautiful.

I know I am not up to it, and who would say they are? Who could say that every day, every morning, morning by morning, he heard the word of God? But that was Jesus, morning by morning. He says, through the prophet, “He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed”, Isaiah 50: 4. That ear that was bored through with an awl; he was committed to bondmanship in His love for God, and His love for the assembly, and His love for His children, His brethren. That ear was a ready receptacle for the word of God.

It was the avenue to His heart. This is carried forward into the local assembly in Corinth, and this is what it ought to be. Hence the reason for the devil continually attacking and seeking to nullify the authority of the apostle in the place, as he did at Corinth.

I read in Timothy because I am thinking about the value of the Scriptures. How essential it is that we read the Scriptures and know the Scriptures and know the spirit of the Scriptures. So Paul says this to a young man, and we would say this to young men, we would say it to all of us, “abide in those things which thou hast learned, and of which thou hast been fully persuaded, knowing of whom thou hast learned them”. And then he says, “and that from a child thou hast known the sacred letters”. Well you think of your childhood, you learned things in your father’s house, you learned the Scriptures. Then you have reflected on that and you found that what you learned was very substantial, and as you abide in that you are saved.

Not that you are not saved for eternity, but you prove the effectiveness of current salvation. The power of the word of God keeps the devil out, keeps him out of our lives, and keeps him out of our households, and keeps him out of the local meeting. You abide in those things which you have learned, things that have been handed down from generation to generation, especially in the revival. Matters have come down authoritatively. They have come down in moral power and moral attractiveness and moral beauty, and the devil has attacked them constantly; but they have remained, and consequently salvation has remained as these truths and these characteristics have remained.

So he says, Abide in them. Do not move out of them. Do not try and import something that does not relate to that, because you will find you are up against the Lord. He had to say that in Corinth, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?”, 1 Corinthians 10: 22. We need to think about these things, beloved. I think this is very important. There are wicked men, juggling imposters, advancing in evil; even now they are rewriting the Bible so that they think it will be politically correct. It is all of the devil. We need to recognise that we are in the midst of an evil world, this present evil world, and the influences of it have an effect on us immediately we step outside those things which we have learned. The devil has a certain advantage in that case. We are not to give him any advantage. We are to abide in those things, every single detail of them. We are not to try and modify them or adapt them, but there they are in their entirety. They all relate publicly to the great and vital truth of separation from evil, God’s principle of unity, and then grace, God’s principle of gathering. These things are to be held by us in our affections.

Then he says, “from a child thou hast known the sacred letters, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus”. We relate what we read to Christ Jesus, to the Man in the glory where He is, Christ Jesus. This epistle is full of that appellation, Christ Jesus, the anointed Jesus, that is what it is. The One who was here and set out the truth, God has raised from amongst the dead and anointed Him, made Him both Lord and Christ. Then he says, “Every scripture is divinely inspired, and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, fully fitted to every good work”. Well I think that is an extension of what Jesus was here, “that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary”. Good works are a great matter, but we need to be instructed in the Scriptures. We need to read the Scriptures.

You ask yourself. How often do I read the Bible? When I read the Bible, do I understand it or have I exercise and concern that I might understand it? Maybe I just say, Well I cannot understand that, and that is it. There are loads of helps. The Lord has seen to it that there are all sorts of helps that are accredited and approved to be helps. As we have faith in Christ Jesus, and we relate the word to Him, He will come in and help us. Paul says, “Think of what I say, for the Lord will give thee understanding in all things”, 2 Timothy 2: 7. There is no need to be ignorant or lack understanding. The Lord Jesus is available to give us understanding as we consider what Paul says, “Think of what I say, for the Lord will give thee understanding in all things”.

Now he goes on to speak about the cloak. This has often been referred to, and whilst it would be a literal cloak, it does relate to the measure of Paul that is to be maintained in the local meetings. That is what it means, and there is a great system of help to maintain it. There are the books. People sometimes speak disparagingly of the books. They may say it is all book knowledge. I do not think much of that. There are the books, all Mr. Darby’s volumes, all Mr. Raven’s, all Mr. Stoney’s, all Mr Taylor’s, and all Mr Coates’ volumes, they are all helps.

The ministry has been written down, and it is authoritative; it carries heaven’s authority in it, and it has been proved to do that. Persons who have gone up against the books have finally, if they have pursued that path, gone out of fellowship. They went out of communion and became open. Every division has ended on that line, what is open. That is because the Lord’s authority has ceased to be recognised.

And then he says, “the parchments”. I would relate that to the current line of ministry that proceeds in ministry meetings and fellowship meetings, and booklets that come to us. They are not inspired by any means but the Lord has helped in the furnishing of these meetings, as persons have been exercised in relation to it. Thus help comes in, and all that augments this great line of things that is to fill out what is represented in Paul’s cloak. It is to strengthen us and help us and enlarge us on this line of communion, this kind of life. It is not by bread alone, but by every word that goes out through the mouth of God. Think of the delight that God has, beloved, to speak to us, to commune with us; you speak to Him and He speaks back to you. It is all very wonderful and very blessed, and really is the subsistence of the position in the wilderness, the assembly of God at Corinth, or in each local meeting. At the close of Numbers 7, Moses went in to speak with God, and God was so delighted with the proceedings that He spoke to Moses.

May the Lord help us to be up to that level of things, and find the joy and happiness of heaven increasingly in our souls, and the spirit of liberty that comes with it. May we desire to manifest willingness of spirit, to sustain these meetings. Why should we sit here for quarter of an hour before somebody decides to speak? Every single brother and sister should be exercised about the meetings and every brother should be concerned to be free. The Lord would set us free. He would help us. I am certainly not chiding, but I can understand the need for that, and so can you. May the Lord help us in it, for His name’s sake.

Word in meeting for ministry, Aberdeen
13 December 1994

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