THE CREATOR OF THE WORLDS
[p. 394] THE CREATOR OF THE WORLDS
Hebrews 1: 1, 2; Acts 1: 1 - 9
The brethren, doubtless, will be aware that Paul is the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, which affords much as to the Person of Christ, the deity of Christ. The epistle treats much of the Psalms, and it has been pointed out too that the Psalms correspond in measure with the Pentateuch; that is to say, with the books of Moses. It might be easily pointed out that the deity of Christ, in a figurative way, in a forerunning way, is much treated of in the book of Psalms, and the hearts of the saints of old were cherished by the thought of the Messiah, their Messiah, being so beautifully spoken of therein; undoubtedly the saints of God, from of old, were all touched by their Messiah being thus spoken of. And many a saint in our own dispensation has found real joy in the food afforded in the book of Psalms for the nourishment of the believer’s heart, as it is even today. Many today in this very hall have been affected, turning away from the world and its attractiveness, its glories, turning away from all that, to be with the Lord’s people, as we are here today, as those whom they love.
The book of Hebrews therefore becomes a wide field for the enjoyment of the brethren, the enjoyment of their affections for Christ. How they admire Him, the glories of Christ, the death of Christ too, and the glory that should follow, as it is said. The book therefore is to be looked into even more than ever, recalling the great servant Paul as to his admiration for Christ. However much he presented the truth to the gentiles, he also presented it to the Hebrews, the Hebrew Christians of his day; but in our day we are not concerned so much about the Hebrews as we are about the saints of this dispensation, those who form the assembly, for the assembly [p. 395] is the great theme of the Scriptures. I ventured to read from the first chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, to call attention to the expression ‘worlds’. “God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets” — the allusion being to the Old Testament, “at the end of these days has spoken to us in the person of the Son, whom he has established heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds”; that is the word I want to come to, to link it on with the book of Acts, showing how in that book the Spirit of God enlarges on the up-going of Christ, not the down-coming but His up-going.
It is recorded twice in the passage I read, that He was received up, or taken up, and, of course, it ought to appeal to our hearts, that ours is a going-up time. The going up belongs to us also, so that we are not concerned with the glory of this world or what it affords to the natural mind. We are referring to that world, “that world, and the resurrection”. The Lord Himself spoke of those who are counted worthy to have part in that world, and the resurrection; but, as I said, I wanted to come to the word ‘worlds’ in this first chapter of Hebrews. As lovers of God, the brethren love to think of His word, the word of God. It is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and is a divider asunder of soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, and of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Who is the Christian that is not exercised on these lines? and so it is, that I would say a word as to this word ‘worlds’.
We are not much conversant with the idea of the worlds — using the word in the plural, and that the worlds were made, or framed, by the word of God. “The worlds were framed by the word of God” (Hebrews 11: 3); but here in chapter 1 it is said that the worlds are made by the Son, by the Lord Jesus.
[p. 396] They are made by the Lord Jesus, and the question is, how many worlds there are. It is a question really involving the Deity, the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but particularly the deity of Christ; and the question is, how many of us know anything about this great subject of the ‘worlds’. We know something of the present one, the one we are in. It can be measured geographically; the school-children often know something about it geographically, the solar system and all that, but the solar system does not include all the worlds. We are to be directed to the greatness of Christ; He is the Maker of all the worlds, as it says here, “by whom also he made the worlds”. He made; that is, He is God. The “He” is God; therefore the making of the worlds is a creatorial, or rather, I should say, a mediatorial term. It is creatorial, of course, but I was rather thinking of the idea of mediatorship, of the Mediator. God has effected redemption through Christ, and many other things, but Christ is Mediator of creation. The idea of mediatorship was brought out largely in Moses, and so the study of Moses becomes of immense importance as to all these matters. But now I am speaking of the worlds. Moses did not speak of that; he did not speak of the mediatorship of the worlds; he spoke of the mediatorship of Moses, and we are told that the law was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator.
Moses did not speak of the worlds; it belongs to the many subjects treated by Paul in Hebrews. Many others are treated of in the first chapter; I have already alluded to how the Psalms are quoted in the first chapter, finishing up in the last verse of it with a reference to angels, it says, “Are they not all ministering spirits”. They were made before men, but they are ministering spirits, they are subject to us; that is, to Christians, those who [p. 397] are heirs of salvation. We are heirs of salvation, with the dignity and glory of that position, dear brethren. We can enlarge on this matter, that there are those who are heirs of salvation and angels are ministering to them. Angels are ministering to us, angels are creatures, they are not divine Persons. There are only three divine Persons, as far as Scripture shows; that is, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We read of other creatures, such as cherubim and seraphim, but these are not strictly creatures, they are just symbolical representatives of certain things. I do not know what I can say about them, or whether anybody here can say anything about their description, about seraphim. Seraphim are simply creatures of God, or rather, though symbolical, are spoken of thus in the Scriptures. The only divine Persons are the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we need to be clear ourselves, to disabuse ourselves of any other thought as that there are any others outside of the Three — the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Three exist, and They are all to be understood, and enjoyed and worshipped; every one of Them worshipped, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, all are to be worshipped. We cannot assume to minimise any one of the divine Persons, strictly; They are all equal, as one might say. In the abstract, They are all equal; the Father and the Son and the Spirit are equal. What They were before, in the equality of Their own proper relations, we cannot say; nobody can say. We can worship, and we do, thank God. We have learnt to worship. I hope every one here has learnt to worship. It is a time of learning, learning who the Father is, and learning who the Son is, and learning who the Spirit is; and then remember too that the Spirit has not died for us, nor has the Father died for us; the Son has died for us, and only the Son has died for us, and we [p. 398] worship Him, we revere Him, and it is well that we should, that He should become everything to us. There is only one Person in the whole universe who died for us, and that is Christ. He is the great Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.
Well now, I am coming back to my subject, and that is the word ‘worlds’ — whether we know anything about the worlds; that is to say, about them. We know something about the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and they are worlds, of course, in a certain sense, but they are not everything. There are worlds that we have never seen, or heard of in the ordinary way; we have heard of them, of course, because the scripture speaks of them, here in this very chapter, the Son made the worlds, for they were made mediatorially. In John 1 it is said that “All things received being through him”. That is the Son, the Lord Jesus, a divine Person. He is the Maker of everything. He is a divine Person. Not one thing, it says, received being without Him; and so now the question to be worked out a little is, What about these worlds? Are they anything to us? Are they anything to wonder at in our minds; anything to bring in reverence, seeing that God has made them, that Christ has made them? Think of the vastness of the idea! Of course, even the earth itself is a small thing relatively. The sun is small, larger than the earth, but still small; and the stars appear small, of course, but then they are all made by the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus made everything, not one thing was made without Him. We are not even told that angels had anything to do with it. Not one thing was made without Him — incomparable, the magnitude of it! and yet it belongs to Christians. It is one of the things that belong to us, that we should revel in, that we have part in all this vast universe.
[p. 399] Now, in the passage I refer to here, in the second verse, this word ‘worlds’ is said to be a Jewish expression, though that is not in the scripture. In Scripture it is called ‘worlds’, it is a plural word. Possibly the word cosmos is involved, but that usually refers to the earth, things that are made that we know of; but it is not ‘the universe’ here, it is the word ‘worlds’ that is here; we do not know how many, and that is what I am saying, that there are so many, the things that we have to deal with are so immense, that they cause reverence and respect, and, we might say, joy as we think of what we are brought into, that the world in itself, that is, the earth, disappears, you might say, in its nothingness. I repeat, that we do not know, dear brethren, how many worlds there are, but we do know the Creator, we do know the Maker of them, and we worship Him. We love Him and we worship Him, and that is the great point at the moment. I would think that all ministry must reduce itself to that. All ministry must reduce itself to that, to what is in the Father, and what is in the Son, and what is in the Spirit; but, to come now to the point, God made the worlds, by the Son; that is to say, the Lord Jesus has made them, but He has made them mediatorially, in that sense. He wrought redemption too, mediatorially, but there are things beyond that, that we cannot fathom or reach in our minds, but we do well to ponder them and be worshipful, to think of their existence, and that we have part in them.
I hope the brethren will be patient with me, in trying to say what I am saying, because I think everybody will realise something of the magnitude of it, and however big the systems of the worlds are by themselves, they are God’s creation and they cause worship in our hearts; and that is the whole point, dear brethren, what causes worship, for we [p. 400] are to worship God. As the angel said to John, “Worship God”. Whatever we may speak about, the first day of the week, and the Lord’s supper, the result, the outcome, the thought in all is that we are to worship God. John bowed down to the angel, but he said, “Worship God”; and that is the word that I would say to every young person here today, ‘Accustom yourself to the worship of God’. “Worship thou Him”, it says elsewhere. And so I go back again to my text, and that is, “By whom also he made the worlds”. I do not go beyond that, although there is much that could be said, that some of us have often spoken of, and that is about the Lord Jesus, “who being the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, having made by himself the purification of sins, set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high, taking a place by so much better than the angels, as he inherits a name more excellent than they”. So now I pass on to the book of Acts, having spoken about the worlds. It is just, as I said before, that the brethren may begin to think of these things, and to think of the vastness that we are brought into; that we are to be worshipful because of it, that we have part in it.
So now I want to say a word about the first chapter of the Acts. The dear brethren will be aware that all one is endeavouring to do is to help, especially the young people who are here, and who perhaps have not much taken account of these great and glorious things. The book of Acts is the work of the Spirit of God, of course, we might in a way say, the acts of the Spirit of God. In a sense, the book comprises the works of the Spirit of God; and the thought now is just to call attention to what is going up, what going up means, because it implies what we have in the service of God the worship of [p. 401] God, so that in Ephesians 4 we have: “Wherefore he says, Having ascended up on high, he has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men. But that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens, that he might fill all things”. And then again Paul’s own remarks in the epistle to the Corinthians, that he said “I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago ... such a one caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man (whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knows;) that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable things said which it is not allowed to man to utter”.
Well now, that helps me to say a further word as to the passage in the Acts that we have read; that is to say, the service of God is in mind, and the epistle to the Ephesians exemplifies what it implies, that we have to with such a realm, a non-created realm, and perhaps someone would say it is impossible to know what that means, but it is a fact, it is a non-created realm, for the Lord Jesus has ascended up beyond all the heavens, it says, gone beyond all the heavens, and where are they? We must stop and think of these things, and become worshipful about it. Where are they? Where are these heavens, all the heavens? How many are there? We must inquire about these things. And so, as I said, in this verse, “having by the Holy Spirit charged the apostles whom he had chosen, he was taken up”. He was taken up; that is, the Lord was taken up, and so when we take part in the service of God on the first day of the week, what do we understand about being taken up? What do we understand about the third heavens, “above all the heavens”? I am just endeavouring to say a word to the brethren to stir up our affections as to the magnificence of all [p. 402] these things, and to be enjoying them constantly, that we ourselves have part in them.
Here, as I said, we have the word, “having by the Holy Spirit charged the apostles whom he had chosen, he was taken up”. And then again we are told in Luke that He lifted up His hands and blessed them, and He was carried up into heaven. Well, who carried Him up? Where did He go? Where is He now? We might say, bringing the thoughts down to such as Moses, or Elijah. Where are they now? Are we inquiring about them? We belong to this wonderful system of things, even the creature system. There is the heavenly system of creatures, like the heavens, and we belong to it, we have part in it. We shall not ever enter into what belongs to divine Persons; at the same time, we are not far away from Them. They are not far from any one of us, it says; and so we read in John of the nearness of God, and yet the inscrutability of God, that no one has seen God at any time. No one has seen Him at any time. We may as well accept that, because it is a fact. And yet we read in Matthew, that certain ones see God (Matthew 5: 8), but we have to understand. Philip said to the eunuch, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” and that is a good question for everybody, as we read the Scriptures. “Understandest thou what thou readest?” And be in the things, that you see properly belong to you.
Now I am just going to say a word about the last verse of this paragraph, verses 1 - 9. It says, “And having said these things he was taken up”, the same expression as in verse 2. In Luke 24 we read that as He blessed the saints He was carried up. But where has He gone? How do we reckon where He has gone, because we only see what we call the sidereal heavens; we do not see everything. Many things are not visible; the visible and the [p. 403] invisible are spoken of. And so here, “they beholding him, and a cloud received him out of their sight”. He is taken out of their sight. We say, He is invisible. Well, He is taken out of their sight. That is the point. It does not say that even Moses, or Elijah, was taken out of their sight. We know they must be somewhere. In fact, it says in Matthew that many bodies of the saints that slept arose, and entered into the holy city and appeared unto many. That is all you can say. That is all I can say, but it is wonderful that we can even say those things, and be affected by them.
So it is that I now close with this thought, in the last verse here, “And having said these things he was taken up, they beholding him” — they beholding Him — “and a cloud received him out of their sight”. They beheld Him for a short time, but He was received out of their sight. So that it is an invisible state of things, dear brethren, and yet we have part in it; though we are but creatures, we have part in it. We are going to be taken up to heaven, as the Lord was, but only to a point, not as He was taken up. That is, He has gone beyond all the heavens, but we are to be taken up, and are going into heaven. That is what we are enjoying the thought of, that we are going into heaven, that heaven is our place, and the assembly knows that heaven is its place. In the book of Revelation the assembly of God is seen coming down out of heaven, having the glory of God. So I leave that with all the dear brethren, and the Lord may give a further word.