"GOD'S *PRESENT* PURPOSE FOR US; HOW HE BRINGS US TO IT"
“GOD’S PRESENT PURPOSE FOR US; HOW HE BRINGS US TO IT”
What I desire to do is to endeavour to trace the course of divine ways with us from the beginning to the present end which God has purposed for Himself.
That purpose is stated in Romans 8: 39: nothing shall “separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. That is God’s purpose for us, and is the end that God has in view. Now so far as I understand, the purpose of God is to bring us to that confidence. It is not His purpose to take us to heaven yet: that awaits us; we shall be taken to the Father’s house, but the point God has before Him to bring us to is to that persuasion that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Everything is measured, height and depth, etc., but the persuasion is, that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God”. The passage involves our association with Christ.
The thought is contemplated of love resting in perfect complacency in Christ Jesus, and we are there. We are in association with Him. God and saints meet in Christ. The fulness of God is in Him, and we are complete in Him. We are there. The apostle, having measured everything, had come to the persuasion that nothing could separate from the love of God. It is the grace of God to bring us to that point now.
I would trace now the course which God takes with us to bring us to that point. The beginning of God’s ways is Christ, and the course which God was taking was “reconciling the world unto himself”. The way that God took to recover man for Himself was the introduction of a Head. But the introduction of a Head involves the setting aside of the Jew for the time being. “This child”, Simeon said, “is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel”. The introduction of Christ as the Head of every man involved the casting off of the Jew for the moment, but that involved the “reconciling of the world”. What an immense difference the introduction of Christ meant. The mass of the nations was idolatrous, the Jew was almost as bad, but God’s way was to introduce a new Head. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself”. The casting off of the Jew was the reconciling of the world. All the world in that way came near to righteousness by the very fact of God being near to men in the new Head raised up. Now that is the beginning of God’s way. The next step is, Christ entered into all the liabilities which lay upon man. Death lay upon man; man was under wrath; the Jew was under curse. Well, Christ entered into all. He entered into death, into wrath, into every liability under which man lay, in order to lay the ground upon which God could bring in reconciliation. In Christ it is in the power of God to approach every man, even the reprobate Jew. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself”, and the effect is — righteousness lies very close to man. “The word is nigh thee”. He does not need to go up to heaven or to go down to the deep. Righteousness lies quite close to every man. Repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in the name of the One who had suffered and was risen again. He was the light for the revelation of the Gentiles and for the glory of His people Israel. If you do not apprehend that, you could not see how God could go on with the world. Christ is the Head of every man. The “grace of God, and the free gift in grace ... abounded by one man unto the many”. Thus the effect of Christ being set as Head of every man is to sift men. The man who does not accept Christ as Head proclaims himself lawless. He is not prepared to submit to the new Head, and therefore [p. 141] there can be nothing for such but the judgment of God, and that is what will come to pass. The Head is a test of men, and if men do not answer to the Head, judgment will become a necessity, because they prove themselves lawless.
Now there is another point. All that state of things must lead up to Antichrist. Antichrist is the fittest man in that state of things, in a lawless world, and that will bring in the judgment of God. When Antichrist comes to the top the moment has come for the judgment of God. Now there is a testing process going on at the present time. Men are tested by the new Head. There are those who have believed in Christ; all do not believe in Him. God does not expect all. Faith is not the portion of all. God does not work in sovereignty in all. You must not expect it. If you have believed in Christ you are bound to own that it is through mercy you did believe in Him. The effect of believing is that the Spirit of God is given to those who believe. Those who believe receive from the Head the gift of living water. Now two things are true of those who have received the living water. They are: first, God’s house, and, secondly, they are companions of Christ. “Whose house are we”, and “we are become companions of the Christ if indeed we hold .the beginning of the assurance firm to the end”. We have come to that point where we have received the Spirit of God, and we have become God’s house. Christ is the builder of God’s house, and we are God’s house and we are also companions of Christ if we hold fast; it is subject to conditions, but I assume that all here have answered to these conditions. “If ye hold”, etc. I want to dwell on these two points now, for it is that to which God has been pleased to bring us for certain purposes.
Now the house of God is composed of persons, of living stones. God’s house is God’s household. It is a spiritual house composed of living stones. There [p. 142] are two things which mark those who compose God’s house, one is divine teaching and the other is discipline. We are brought to God’s house that we may know God in His nature and become partakers of His holiness. We are brought to the abode of His holiness. It is the place too where we come under discipline. Christ attends to the ways of all those who compose God’s house. He is Son over God’s house, and we come under His inspection. He intercedes for us, too, and perhaps that we may not come under discipline; but in God’s house we do come under discipline. No father disregards the discipline of his children, so God corrects His people, and all to one end, that we may be partakers of His holiness. We come under love to beget confidence, and we come under discipline to promote holiness. Love begets confidence, and chastening promotes holiness. There is confidence in children towards their parents in a well-regulated household, because they know there is love there.
Then there is another point. Priesthood helps to that end. You do not suppose that your ways are not inspected. All our ways are inspected, and Christ is extremely vigilant and has our good and blessing in view, and that because He is Son over God’s house. He intercedes for us. It would be a very defective sort of love on the part of the parent if he disregarded the discipline of his children. At the same tune He is careful in regard to their ways that they may be according to God.
Now there is another thing. It is equally true that it is God’s way that we should be “companions of Christ”. It was in the mind of God that there should be a company of which Christ is the pre-eminent One. Aaron’s sons were companions of Aaron. Christ is the Firstborn among many brethren. There is a fitting company in which Christ could sing praise unto God. “In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee”. The disciples were the companions of Christ here, and He sang a hymn with them. The Lord had great delight in their company. Now what marks the moment is that there is a company which Christ leads, and of which He is the pre-eminent One. We are God’s house. Do you believe God is dwelling here? That is the great truth of the moment. Christ has built God’s house in order that God might abide here. Redemption was accomplished that God might dwell here. We have to recognise that God is dwelling here by the Spirit, and our conduct is to be ordered in reference to the presence of God. How far are we regulated by the truth of God abiding here? It is important that the presence of God should be that which is before us as that which regulates our conduct, that we carry ourselves in all lowliness and meekness. We are Christ’s companions, too. God has brought us to both things by the possession of the Spirit.
Now what I want to come to is this, to refer again to Romans 8: 37 - 39. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Nothing shall separate us from the love of God. We get the thought that Christ makes intercession for us. “We have such an High Priest”, and “such an High Priest became us”. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. We have One who intercedes for us, but we are the companions of the One who intercedes for us. He intercedes for us because He loves us. He bears the judgment of His people upon His heart, as the high priest in Israel bore their names on his breast. Now who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Persecution could not separate you from His love. We are more than conquerors through Him that loves us. He loves us because we are His companions. So, too, God loves His household. The love of God rests on the One who is Son over God’s house. There is nothing to disturb the complacency which rests on the One who is Son there. We have found our home here. What [p. 144] is it? What is the home of the Christian? We are not yet in heaven. Your home is in the love of God, and the apostle says nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Christ lives in the love of God, and if we are companions of Christ we are entitled to live in the love of God. God has brought things so to pass that we can live in the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The love of God has been declared in Christ towards us. It is shed abroad in our hearts too by the Holy Spirit that we might find the home of our hearts now in the love of God. If you have found your home there you have found eternal life. Nothing has power over you there, nothing can separate you from the love of God. Now that is the great end to which God seeks to bring us. Our course with God began with recognising Christ as Head, and the end is that we are companions of Christ, and brought there that we may be made acquainted with the love of Christ and the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The effect of abiding there is that I find others abiding there too. We get the great reality of unity there, and the effect is that we have love one to another. We are all one in the abode of divine love, toward God, and toward Christ, and toward one another, and then divine love shines out in us and thus you get an effective witness to God down here. “If we love one another God dwelleth in us”. We cannot go further than that. I want you to ponder these things so that you may get an understanding of the course which God takes to lead us from the beginning to His present great end, that is, to abide in His love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is a great thing to reach our true home and to abide in it, and to let it have its proper effect upon us, which is confidence in Him without fear, and the proper result of that is that there is a witness for God here. The gospel cannot have much power unless there is a [p. 145] witness. I should be taken up with the building up of the witness. If you speak to people about a Man in glory, and people challenge it, how would you answer? My answer would be that the Spirit is here, and the proof of that is that God abides in the saints, and that is evident because the saints love one another. Hence the witness is of all-importance that God may abide in us and His love be perfected in us.