DIVINE DIMENSIONS
Revelation 5:11-12; 21:15-17; Ephesians 3:14-21
I have been thinking about divine dimensions. In the first scripture a number was heard, then in Revelation 21 dimensions could be seen, and in Ephesians it is a question of what surpasses knowledge.
I wanted to start with these examples in Revelation because, if you listen to what goes on in the world, and if you see what goes on in the world, you might wonder where the work of God is. This number that John had his attention drawn to is “ten thousands of ten thousands”. That is hundreds of millions. No doubt it would involve the scope of what God has secured. Our brother has spoken about the scope that is expressed in “the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Tim.2:5. This is part of it, this is what has been secured by redemption. And then “thousands of thousands”. The thousands of Israel are spoken of (Num.10:36). God has not lost Israel: there has been a period of time when their praise has been silent, but they have not been lost. John heard this number “thousands of thousands”; it reminds us that God has lost nothing of what His heart was set on.
I just want to leave this impression, brethren, that the vastness of what God has secured is going through, and it is going to be available to Him for praise. You think of this – to have one Object, “saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that has been slain”. How could you cause hundreds of millions of people all to say the same thing? It is difficult in this world to get two people to say the same thing! In God’s arrangements, there will be hundreds of millions all saying the same thing; they will all be giving glory to Christ. “Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”, Phil.2:9. There will be no divergence of view, no conflicting voice and these vast numbers will all ascribe glory to the Lamb. So if you hear in the world that the thoughts of God have failed, it is not so, beloved; God’s thoughts are going through.
In Revelation 21 we come to what can be seen, and it is still within man’s compass, it is “a man’s measure, that is, the angel’s”. But this city is twelve thousand stadia, and it says the length and breadth and height of it are equal. You remember the road to Emmaüs; it was sixty stadia and the note tells us that that is about seven miles4. So if sixty stadia is seven miles then one hundred twenty are fourteen miles, and if you multiply that up, twelve thousand stadia are 1400 miles. One thousand four hundred miles in breadth and length and height. Now this is a symbol; this is spiritual and symbolic. We were in Vancouver last year and it could take you three hours to drive from one side of Vancouver to the other, so vast a city it is. This city is much bigger than that. And Vancouver has breadth and length but it has no height. God’s thoughts have height; they come from heaven. This city is “coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God” (v.10). It is greater than anything that man could ever devise. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?”, Rom.11:34. Paul quotes that in Romans from Isaiah. “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?” This is part of the counsel of God, that there should be an immense evidence of the substance of divine work, which will be available not just for display in the millennium but eternally for the glory of God.
In Ephesians, we come to what cannot be measured. But we have strength for it, “strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”. That is “the power which works in us”. That is the “greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of the might of his strength, in which he wrought in the Christ in raising him from among the dead”, Eph.1:19,20. It is the power of resurrection and it is not just towards us, but by the Spirit it is working in us, in order to give us access to these things, not just individually but collectively.
And then “fully able to apprehend …”. There are limits set for what we can do, it is the limitation of the fact that we remain creatures forever. The assembly is a creature vessel. There is breadth and length; it begins with breadth because I think that speaks of the outgoing of the gospel and the length may represent what is universal. But then we come to depth. That is something that men know nothing about; they know nothing about depth. They can tell you quite a lot about height, and they can go down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench which is about seven miles deep in the Pacific Ocean, but they know nothing about Christ who descended into the lower parts of the earth. And they know nothing about what is formed as a result of that: “the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God”, 1 Cor.2:10. There is what is formed in the saints by way of depth that will be available eternally to God’s glory.
And then you come to height. We are brought into that in divine power. It is important to see what this translation says: “in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend …”. You may say ‘it is too great for me’, but then it says, “with all the saints”. We need each other, because everybody has an impression and it all contributes; in each brother and sister there is breadth and length and depth and height, there is the fruit of the work of God. In that vast assembly, in that city that we spoke of, think of all that is formed there, and it has foundations. But then “to know the love of the Christ that surpasses knowledge”; it is inexhaustible and it cannot entirely be described. It is greater than anything the world knows about. The world’s knowledge could not give you enough words to describe the glory of Christ.
Then “that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”. God’s fulness is in Christ; “in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”, Col.2:9. It is accessible in that sense. As I say, there is the limit that remains because we are creatures, but then we come to “him that is able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think”. It is striking that it does not say, ‘far exceedingly beyond’, it says “above”; God’s thoughts are always heavenwards. They are always elevated; “far exceedingly above all which we ask or think … to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen”. That is something else that cannot be measured because it never comes to an end. We sing of the Lord Jesus:
‘God’s will in its vastness Thou lovedst’ (Hymn 39).
That vastness is going to come into expression for the glory of Christ in the millennium and for the glory of God eternally, but, beloved, you and I are part of this. It is not all somewhere else and it is not all someone else. It involves many that we do not know, but these ten thousands of ten thousands – God knows them. “The Lord knows those that are his” (2 Tim.2:19), but one of them is you. One of them is you, and God desires that you should be kept away from what the world says, what it thinks, and what it sees, and by the Spirit see and hear what God is doing and be part of what will be for His glory eternally. He thought of you in the purposes of His love in a past eternity, He loves you now, He will love you forever, and He desires a response.
May it be so for His name’s sake.
Word in a meeting for ministry, Grangemouth
4 February 2020
Paul A Gray