BRETHREN OF CHRIST
[p. 255] BRETHREN OF CHRIST
My remarks at this time will be in relation to brethren, that is, brethren, as I hope to show, whom Christ can own as His. I am the more encouraged to turn to this subject as being in this city in which as the Lord graciously revived the truth, specially emphasising the blessed relations of brethren, the enemy sought to discredit the thought, not to set aside the use of the designation ‘brethren’, but to set aside and nullify what it really means. Disloyalty to Christ has sprung up, and disloyalty to Christ is utterly incompatible with the idea of the brethren of Christ. No one who is disloyal to Christ has any right morally to take the title of being one of the brethren of Christ. The brethren of Christ normally are the friends of Christ. There is what indeed is called “the brotherhood”, 1 Peter 2:17 which is a thought which holds and binds us together in relation to any particular emergency in regard to the truth. So I think it opportune to bring this subject up here, that is, that what the enemy sought to set aside, and did to a very great extent by imitation, should stand out with peculiar lustre in this city, and in this section of the country too, that the term of family relationship should retain its original value as in the divine vocabulary. It had become dreadfully desecrated and hackneyed so as to be well-nigh lost where once it had its place; and, as with all other divine terms, the Lord would reinstate it in our souls, that it should shine in our relations with one another, and more particularly as representative of Christ in a family sense, that is, Christ seen in us in that relation, so that He is not ashamed in this regard to own all of us.
So I have selected this verse in Acts 16 hoping to come to it later in my remarks, but just to touch on [p. 256] it now as in its setting in Europe, how the idea is put down by the Spirit in this particular verse after the great victory achieved at Philippi. The martyrs, the witnesses of Christ, having been let go from the prison, came, we are told, to Lydia, and having seen the brethren, they exhorted them and departed; that is, the position is to be held by the brethren, and hence the exhortation. Now I have linked this verse on with those two in the seventh chapter so as to touch on the type, the great typical teaching on this subject in the book of Genesis. Joseph was made known to his brethren the second time. I want you to note that, and to proceed to note certain points in Genesis which are essential to our understanding the position, how it is that it was the second time, and not the first. They were known to him on the first visit, as on the second, but he was not known to them. Secondly, Joseph’s kindred, or family, was made known to Pharaoh. Now it is in these first and second visits that the instruction largely lies, the instruction by which we reach the true thought of brethren of Christ. Whatever they pleaded the antecedent conditions had been, there was a murderous condition in ten of them, but true brotherly state in one of them; that is, the element was there in one of them, and in that sense in all of them, in one amongst them, an important point, dear brethren, as regards this in our local settings. How much value attaches to one maintaining the right thought, whatever may be the crisis involved! Crises mark the history of the saints, and in every one something is stressed; and if one in any given place is true to the issue, victory will follow. Some may be lost, but there will be victory in the issue, if the truth involved is maintained; there is overcoming, there is victory, so that the history of crises is the history of victories for the saints, one after another. I suppose no annals in heaven are more interesting than the annals of the victories of the saints. “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory”, 1 Corinthians 15:57. It is a characteristic thing attaching to those who love our Lord Jesus Christ. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5:4,5. The annals of heaven afford no more interesting history than the victories of the saints, culminating in overcomers. The Lord presents Himself as an overcomer in the last address to the assemblies, that is, to Laodicea: “As I also overcame”, He says, “and am set down with my Father in his throne”, Revelation 3:21. In other words, the whole dispensation is in that setting; it is in the setting of overcoming, first by Christ, and then by His own. The truth cannot be maintained otherwise. So that to the last assembly the Lord’s word is that the overcomer is to sit down with Him in His throne. That is a future thing, but one to which every lover and friend of Christ is looking forward with the greatest satisfaction, for there is a link in it between the saints and Himself, the link of overcoming. Let no one allow the idea of overcoming to slip away from him; it may. It is the great thought at the end.
So the first and second visits to Egypt to Joseph are the crucial ones, and I hope the Lord will help everyone to hear, and help me to speak rightly on this point, because whatever may have been the antecedents in our histories, the idea now is to become really brethren, really so. Joseph’s literal brethren had that status, of course, as the sons of his father, twelve brethren, sons of one father. This is what they assert, but the profession was void of the real thought in the ten, and it is so today, and it may be so with us even here to some extent. We want the real thing, dear brethren, and heaven is looking for the real thing, and all that the Lord is doing for us [p. 258] is in order to attain to that in reality; and reality in this involves enrichment. That is how divine things are reached, not simply by light, but by enrichment in our souls. Heaven is full of riches; divine Persons there are infinitely so; and the intent of divine operations is to bring us into that, into conformity with heaven, not only in the way of light and intelligence, but in the way of riches.
So the brethren, Jacob’s sons, in the first visit are treated hardly, they are treated roughly. You wonder at such a man as Joseph being capable of treating his brethren roughly, and the more do we wonder at the antitype, for, of course, it is not a question of Joseph, it is a question of Christ. Were we really to judge ourselves as to the antecedent history, we should have no just complaint as to the rough treatment; we can have no just complaint. It is the most salutary kind, the most needful kind, of treatment if we are to reach the divine end; for the Lord in dealing with us must be always dominant; He must have His own way. He has the means by Him of enforcing His own way. Let no one assume anything else! “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” 1 Corinthians 10:22. Were Jacob’s sons stronger than Joseph? No! He says, I am lord of all Egypt. He was a father to Pharaoh; and he treated them roughly. He is not going to tell them who he is on the first visit; it is a question of breaking down fleshly conditions — that will which is, you know, capable of anything. The human will, even in a christian, is capable of the worst things; it is simply that, simply the human will. Then there is not only rough treatment, but imprisonment. You say, That is not christianity that you are talking about! It is christianity, it is the most salutary kind of christianity when will is at work. No one can deal with the human will but God; no one can really deal with it effectively but God, and He does it. Joseph [p. 259] imprisoned the whole of them for three days, the ten of them. Think of how they must have looked at one another in that prison! In Jacob’s house before they left they looked at one another.
There is a great deal of that, looking at one another; but how are we looking at one another? Are we clothing one another with divine thoughts? Do we see any loveliness in one another? If we do not, looking at one another only provokes ill feeling; that is what it does; and Jacob says, ‘Why do ye look one upon another? Go down and get corn!’ (Genesis 42:1). Brethren who are stopping about, looking at one another, are not carrying on the work of God. Why should anyone shackled by his own will, hindered from the work of God, be looking at another? Now then, in the prison they have three days to look at one another as common prisoners. They would never forget those three days. No! Joseph knew that it was needed. Then he binds one of them before the eyes of the others. In all these cases there is someone that needs more severity than the others. There has never been a party yet without a leader, and the leader is the most responsible. Heaven hates parties, and has ways and means by which to break them up; and to break them up it will break up the leader. I am not saying Simeon was in any way worse than the others; Scripture does not say so; but anyhow he was not Reuben, and he was not Judah. Reuben and Judah would have saved Joseph at the outset. Nothing is said about Simeon in one of the blessings; he is left out altogether. Why should that be? But here he is bound before his brethren: what does that mean? It means that I need to be bound, too, as in the same cause, as in the same pernicious party; because there was murder behind it, there was nothing at all of brethren in it, not a whit, not an iota of family feeling in those men! The very anguish of soul they now speak of as having been in Joseph did [p. 260] not touch their hearts. Simeon is bound before their eyes, and remains a prisoner till they have gone back and come down again.
But there is a second visit, dear brethren; let us not be content with the first, with the harsh treatment; though really Joseph made things harder for them on the second visit; but Joseph was made known to his brethren “the second time”, as they came down from Canaan into Egypt for corn the second time. What a change now! They have the overcomer with them. As a rule if God is working with a party, a party against the truth, He is working with one person in it, never with the whole of it, never en masse. It is a feature of partyism to move en masse, but that is never so with God: He is against that. It is “the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart”, Zechariah 12:12,13. If I go out it is by the sheep gate, and I must come back by the dung gate, each one must do so; there is no other way. It is worthwhile to come back by the dung gate. We cannot afford to be outside, to be outside the precious family relationships which are God’s thought for us, and which heaven recognises, and which heaven would bring us into in the reality of.
So in the second visit they bring Benjamin, the overcomer; that is to say, God is working with someone; and now when they come, Joseph’s house comes into view. The family thought is coming into view. How different from the prison! Simeon is at once released and brought to them. I do not say he was bound all the time; I do not know; but now he is brought immediately they come down; for now it is not prison time, it is house time. You see, there is prison time, and there is house time; but the prison time is [p. 261] necessary, if will is at work, if I am to reach the house period. What a great thing it is to be brought into Joseph’s house; and there is a man there who speaks about God to these wayward brethren of Joseph. God has been merciful to you, he says, and He has made you rich. You see, now you are coming into a little riches. You will allow me just to turn to the passage; Genesis 43:19: “And they came near to the steward of Joseph’s house, and they communed with him at the door of the house”. You see, dear brethren, we are travelling on right lines if we have strayed from the thought, and if we have not strayed from the thought, but perhaps have not reached it, this is the way. This is the steward of the house; the steward of the house has authority, for the thought is authority. A man in authority is a great thing in these matters, someone who can speak with authority. So it says, “They came near ... and said, O sir, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food; and it came to pass, when we came to the inn, that we opened our sacks, and, behold, every man’s money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight: and we have brought it again in our hand. And other money have we brought down in our hands to buy food: we cannot tell who put our money in our sacks”. Genesis 43:19 - 22. That is good: they are rich men now. They sold their brother for a few pieces of silver which could not enrich them very much; but now they have found money in the mouth of their sacks, and they are not hiding it; they are honest men now so far. To the steward of the house they must make acknowledgement; and they do so. There is no hope without acknowledgement. Self-justification has no place at all here. Away with it! It is foreign here! It is the steward of the house of whom we are speaking — really those who keep order, according to Canticles. Their business is to keep order. The steward’s business is to look after the interests of Joseph’s house; he has authority in the [p. 262] house. These are honest men. What can we do with any who are not honest men? These are honest men; they have money in their sacks, and they could have kept it hidden, but they brought it back, and other money too. Their wealth here is in their honesty, not in their money; you may be sure of that, dear brethren! What is money in itself? Nothing! It is what lies behind the money, whether it be a love gift, or honesty, paying what I owe, it is what is behind the money that is of value; and so there is wealth here: they are honest men, becoming wealthy so. The steward says to them in verse 23, “Peace be to you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks”. Genesis 43:23. Now, dear brethren, you see, God is giving them treasure. It is really a moral matter. It is a question of honesty, and being enriched. This is a very beautiful speech: “Peace be to you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks”: God has done that. How different that is, even if I might have been elevated through my own honesty, I am now elevated to the idea of God enriching me: God is doing it. However much I may claim to be one of the brethren of Christ, of what value is it if I am not rich on moral lines first, and then on divine lines, in that God enriches me, puts money in my sack? Let every young person, every young man and woman, test himself or herself as to this, whether they are becoming rich on these lines! How much deception there is! How much lying! How much hiding of things! We shall never become rich in divine wealth on those lines. The moral thing comes first, and then the divine enrichment. They are honest men now, you see, but God is making them rich. God has a great deal more than I have: He adds to what I have. Now I am on the line of being one of the brethren of Christ.
So the steward goes on to say: “I had your money”. Genesis 43:23. You see, it was in good hands. One always finds where [p. 263] there has been disruption among the brethren that those not with God seek to vindicate themselves; they think the whole matter is in their hands; but it is not; it is in better hands. God looks after the matter. Let us leave it where it belongs. The steward says, “I had your money”. They had it in their sacks, but now they have brought it back; he is testing them out. They are honest men, now becoming wealthy men by the blessing of God, on moral lines in themselves, but by the blessing of God. So he goes on to say: “I had your money”. “And he brought Simeon out unto them”, Genesis 43:23 that brother who has been ‘ill-treated’, you know! It is wonderful how oratorical we are in setting out what we think is our ill-treatment! There is not a word about the ill-treatment which we meted out to Joseph, no! He brought Simeon out to them. They might say, What reason had he for imprisoning our brother? He had a reason; he knew better than they; he was dealing with them all. God has a wide outlook in what He is doing; He is dealing with each one of us in these issues. Every person in the place, indeed, the whole assembly, is supposed to get something out of it. The once imprisoned and bound Simeon is handed over by the steward of the house to his brethren with not a singe upon him; nothing at all has happened to him to damage him. He has been in good hands. If I am in prison on those lines, I am in good hands. There is not a word of self-vindication from Simeon, or from any of them. Here he is, handed back by the man who had the money, this trustworthy man, the steward of the house. Then we are told that the man brought the men into Joseph’s house, the same man, the trustworthy steward of the house; he brought them into Joseph’s house. Dear brethren, we are making headway: let us not keep ourselves out of this man’s hands, this trustworthy man! His business is to look after Joseph’s affairs; he is not Joseph, but Joseph’s steward, the steward of his house. Let us trust him; let [p. 264] us see what he will do for us! God has made you rich, he says, I had your money and now here is Simeon, and you can have your money.
Now he brings them into Joseph’s house, the place of family distinction and affection. Let no one keep himself out of it! Let every one of us, dear brethren, get down to the bottom of the matter and see to it that our assumption to be brethren is really true, that it is so, that we are becoming rich on moral lines, and on divine lines, God adding to what we have. God is making you rich, says the steward of the house. God is making you really what a brother ought to be, a wealthy man according to God. Now they are brought into the house. What a difference between the house and the prison! They are brought into the house.
I cannot say much more on this line, but you all know the history, one of the best known histories, and yet one of the least known; but you know the letter of the scripture anyway. They are brought into the house, and Joseph came home at noon. That is, the Lord has other matters in hand, not only your local matters. He is not only occupied with what is local, but with what is universal. We think there is no other matter than our local matter. We are just living on our matter, as if there were not anything else to be concerned about, living on it — and dying on it, that is the truth! But Joseph is a man of affairs; he came in at noon. The Lord Jesus, whom he typifies, has immense affairs. I love to think of the Lord Jesus in that sense. We are enjoined as to the Christ dwelling, through faith, in our hearts; that is, Christ viewed operatively. Well, Joseph came home at noon, and it was a fine time for the brethren. He set them all in their places — it is still a tentative sort of thing — Joseph by himself, and they by themselves, and the Egyptians by themselves; still, Benjamin, the loved one, the real brother [p. 265] loved by Joseph, is sent five portions; discrimination is now coming into view; the overcomer is recognised; but, still, Joseph is to be made known to them all the second time. This is the second time; this is the testing time. “The second time Joseph was made known to his brethren”.
I am not able to dwell on these details; I hasten on to chapter 45, a chapter well known to us. There is no room here for criticism and table talk about this thing and that thing that have happened. No, there is nothing like that now. Joseph and his brethren are together: every man has to go out. It must be a holy scene, Christ and His brethren. Think of that, dear brethren! But then it is the second time; it is the wealthy time, the time of the contrast to the prison, the time of the house, and the time of becoming wealthy. One could say much about Benjamin’s sack, and how the one who is really loved is brought to light. Benjamin his brother is brought to light, and the brother is brought to light in Judah. Judah sets out the crucial side of the matter in chapter 44, that is to say, he is ready to place himself in his brother’s stead, he is ready to lay down his life for his brother. There is never victory in these circumstances unless somebody is ready to die for the people. That is the idea: readiness to die for the brother, to die for the father, to die for the brethren; that is the true spirit. But Joseph has brought them to it. It is the wisdom of Christ typically, the harshness first, then the imprisonment, then the house, then the test of the cup (about which much could be said), then the true brother in Judah, who, we are told, prevailed among his brethren: he prevailed in love, dear brethren. In this way he is ready to be slain instead of his brother Benjamin, for the sake of his father, for the sake of love. Joseph says, That is the finish! Let us come to it: “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”! “Hereby we have known love”; 1 John 3:16.
[p. 266] it was never known before until Christ came; it was never understood before till Christ’s death. “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”. 1 John 3:16. As soon as that happens the matter is settled: Joseph makes himself known to his brethren the second time: it is a great victory, the whole twelve together on each other’s necks! What a difference from biting and devouring one another, self-vindication, pretension to this thing and the other thing! Instead of all that, laying down our lives for the brethren, which is the solution of the whole matter, one man dying for the people. Then there is the other thing, that here and now the Lord is ready to recognise us. If people call us brethren, the Lord says, So do I! We find we are brethren. The Lord says, That is right: that applies. Gideon says to the kings of Midian: “What sort of men were they that ye slew at Tabor?” Judges 8:18. It reminds one of the question as to the Lord Himself: What sort of Man is this? It is a question of kind. Well, they say, Every one of them was like you, every one of them was like the sons of a king; and Gideon said, They were my brethren. The Lord owns that. Let us take it to heart. Is there anyone here, dear brethren, who has failed of this thought, and is asserting himself? Can the Lord own me as one of His brethren? I cannot afford to be indifferent to that: I must be sure of it, and the test of it is laying down one’s life for one’s brethren. Every one of them, say the kings of Midian to Gideon, is like you, like the sons of a king. “They were ... the sons of my mother”, Judges 8:19 says Gideon, alluding to the influence of the saints, viewed as the assembly, in this matter, “the sons of my mother”, bringing out, by the by, what an ideal his mother had, a greater ideal actually than the husband. She must have had God before her soul, for these were her sons.
[p. 267] Well, the other thought is in Acts 7, “The family of Joseph became known to Pharaoh”. This is a sort of general thought which is seen in Genesis 45, how the tidings came to Pharaoh and his house that Joseph’s brethren were come; but this is not enough for Joseph. Joseph would say, Well, Pharaoh has heard about my brethren, but then, I want him to get to know them really. The Lord is not ashamed to call us His brethren, and He wants others to know it: but then He says, It must be a matter of quality; it must be a matter of selection. It is not every one who is called a brother who is presented. Joseph selected five, we are told, from the whole number of his brethren. Every brother is put to the test. Joseph passes by this one, and that one, and the other one, and selects five men out of the whole number to present to Pharaoh. In other words we are now coming to a more crucial matter, to a matter of selection. We are altogether too optional in our outlook, assuming all is well, that we are all brethren. Let us never forget the principle of selection, one of the great principles laid down from eternity in heaven. So here the whole number comes under review. Am I to be among them? Am I to be passed by? — not rejected from the family, but not fit to be presented to Pharaoh. Joseph would have Pharaoh know his brethren really, what they really are. He would make selection — we do not know the names — of five out of the whole number. There are those who quarrel with selection: we hear of it constantly in regard to matters amongst us; but selection is a great principle with God from before time. Every one of us owes his christianity to selection: “Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son”, Romans 8:29. It is a question of selection, and there is no thought that one cherishes more than that, that it is entirely a question of divine, sovereign selection. But here it [p. 268] is more than that, it is a matter of concrete qualities, and I have been speaking of these qualities, dear brethren; and presently the Lord will give us to understand that He is making a selection from the whole number of His brethren. It is from the whole number of Joseph’s brethren: they have all come under Joseph’s eye for selection, for presentation. Can I afford to be out of it? No! I cannot afford to be out of it. If I am a true man, I will seek to be one of the five. The Lord will not pass me by. It is the principle I am speaking of. He has His own measurement, His own standard. He is going to make the presentation an orderly matter. It is a great occasion. Are there five of whom Joseph will not be ashamed before Pharaoh? He is seeing to that. Will he bring the whole eleven in? He might, but he is taking five. He is not going to be ashamed of his own selection. No! He is too skilled in qualities, as we learn in the parables in the New Testament. What a connoisseur of qualities the Lord is! He is too skilled to select anything that would be a discredit to Him.
Well, having said all that, I come back to my text in Acts 16 just to bring it all into a local position. We have often commented on this chapter: it has a great place in the gospel testimony, particularly as introducing not only the gospel, but the work of God which is greater really as a continued thing than the gospel; it is the work of God introduced into Europe. So, as I said, the apostle is released from prison. He had been in prison himself as a martyr, not to self-will, but to the truth, a great thing, dear brethren. Many are martyrs to self-will, but he is a martyr to the truth, and so is Silas. They are released from prison, and they go to Lydia. Think of these great men, the greatest men under the eye of heaven at the moment down here. Pardon me for making such bold statements, but I cannot refrain, for we do well [p. 269] to make much of such men as these; heaven does it. Think of the places these men will have! They were amongst the greatest men in the service for the moment — certainly Paul was. He goes to Lydia when released, and then he sees the brethren. It seems to be the first thought — as to the brethren, I mean, as mentioned. He is about to leave; and this is always a matter to be thought of in crises, that the Lord comes in and helps us, but He leaves us. He leads us to a point, and then He leaves us, as it were, to see what we may do. He leaves us with the brethren; they are the ones who hold the ground. We do not know that there were many brethren there. As far as the outstanding facts go there were but two households secured by the gospel; but the word ‘brethren’ must not be omitted from Philippi though there be but a few. The households are the background of the brethren. The authorised version renders it: “They ... entered into the house of Lydia”, but it should read: “They came to Lydia”; it is the person who is in view. Who is she? She is an overcomer; she stands in the foundation of the city, in the foundation of the meeting in the city, in the assembly there. How did she become that? Well, the record tells us that she attended to the things spoken by Paul. The foundation is there, the foundation of the apostles and prophets in Europe is there. Never was a soul more likely than this sister in Philippi to be foundational in a place, save Peter perhaps. Paul would say, She is the one! for her heart was opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul, particular things. Let us not forget, dear brethren, that there are particular things. Peter calls them “the present truth”. 2 Peter 1:12. Lydia would say, ‘The present truth to me is what Paul is teaching: that is the point with me’. And the Lord made it a point with her; He opened her heart that it should be so, and it was so. Paul goes there. It was a question of Paul’s [p. 270] teaching, and that is fundamental; you can trust what is there. Then he sees the brethren; he exhorts the brethren. Can we say Lydia is left out? No, she is among the brethren unquestionably; but it is “the brethren”, those who are left; he went away, having exhorted them.
May I conclude with what I began with, namely, this city, and the brethren here? Writing to the Hebrews the apostle begs them to suffer the word of exhortation, “For”, he says, “it is but in few words that I have written to you” Hebrews 13:22. Suffer the word of exhortation! Those local here know what they need to be exhorted about better than I do; the Lord knows too; but the point is this — the brethren, the brethren in this town where the idea was well-nigh lost; it is to stand in its brilliancy. Let every brother and sister in this town understand: the idea of the brethren is to stand in its lustre, maintained in its qualities, and to have place until the end.
Pages 271 - 412 — ‘Households in Relation to the Ark’ and Other Ministry, 1938 - 39, (Volume 209, first half).