LEADERSHIP

^[p. 284] LEADERSHIP

Genesis 24: 67; Romans 8: 14; Hebrews 2: 10 - 12

That to which I desire to attract your thoughts this evening is leadership, a wide subject in the Scriptures, but in making what I have to say intelligible, I will endeavour to be a brief as possible. The thought is seen in the Old Testament, in Jehovah leading His people. He led them “like a flock”, we are told (Psalm 77: 20). In the New Testament we have leadership in Christ, leadership in the Spirit, by angels, and by men. I have in mind to begin with Christ, and to show in my opening remarks something of the dispensational position. Rebecca was led into Isaac’s mother’s tent, he “led her into his mother Sarah’s tent”. The previous chapter dwells on Sarah, and it does not appear that she was removed on account of failure. The years of her life are mentioned twice in the opening verse, as if God was pleased with her, and much is made of the burying ground in which she is interred, in which she lies, and in which indeed everyone dead in Christ lies until the morning of the resurrection. For that field of Machpelah is by extension just the burying ground of the saints, of those who fall asleep through Jesus. It is under the Lord’s eye; the burying places of the saints are precious in His eyes; He knows where they are.

Sarah having vacated her tent to lie in her tomb, another has to take that position, for there are no voids with God, the position of the testimony is always to be occupied. God has never left Himself without a witness, and He selects His own witnesses. Rebecca was carefully sought. How Jehovah had watched over her, in view of this great position she was to occupy! What interest there was in heaven when the great patriarch Abraham, as he was about to die, called his servant to swear that a wife for his son would be sought from amongst his ^[p. 285] family, and that his son Isaac would not be taken out of the land of Canaan. The matter had the greatest attention from Abraham, and what we see in him reflects what was in heaven. For in truth, Jehovah took charge of the whole matter, as He always does in what relates to His testimony, and watched the journey of the servant of Abraham with the camels and the men, until they reached the spot where this favoured one was.

She was without doubt set there by God, and she shone there; for the divine selection always corresponds, either potentially or actually, with the divine mind. She appeared at once: there was no need to search from house to house for her. She was not like Saul, hiding himself amongst the stuff. Many do that in false pride, but it is a poor thing to be hidden in this sense. Some are now hidden amongst the stuff who ought to be shining in the traits of Christ, so as to be discernible and available for the assembly. Rebecca stands out beautifully, she is on the spot, and the result is that worship is drawn forth from this servant of Abraham, who was over all his house. He is not a mere domestic here, as earlier. His name is not given, it is his office that is now in view; showing that all that Abraham could afford in this sense was used. How beautiful it is when brethren, for in truth that is the idea, when those who have the care of the assembly, of the affairs of Christ here, see the young coming out instead of hiding in the stuff, whatever that stuff may be, appearing brightly and cheerfully, ready for what is divinely needed. That indeed elicits worship from their hearts. Rebecca here appeared exactly as might have been desired, so much so that the servant was astonished. A work of God, a pure work in the young, loves to show itself, and causes delight as it is discerned, and the brethren are looking for it.

I need not go over the ground: it is one of the best-known chapters; the servant here typically reflects the feelings of the Spirit of God Himself, in astonishment, for the Spirit of God takes a wonderfully lowly place.

^[p. 286] He is God, He has part in Deity, but He has taken a low place to effectuate the divine thoughts. Here He is in the attitude of a servant, and as the work of God appears it is (speaking reverently) delightful to Him. So as the Lord met one and another in whom God was working here below, how pleased He was, how refreshed, how delighted, as the true Rebecca in her members appeared as the gratifying result of His unwearied service! We see this in that well-known passage in John 4, where the Lord says to His disciples, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of”; and there are many other instances. Matthew, indeed, would say in effect that the Lord, without looking for it, found a treasure. It was not Israel, for “he came unto his own, and his own received him not”. Although Israel is first loved and has the first place, for Rachel is Israel, this is not Israel, it is something better. He found the treasure in the field, before we are told that He was seeking for something of that kind. It was there, and He hid it, and He bought the field, so as to have a right to it. It is an important thing to have before us in service that the Lord has acquired the field in order to acquire a right to what was in it. This is something He must have, and no one else must have a right to it. The idea is well enough known in these parts: if gold is found, how readily the land is purchased in order to acquire a right to what is there. It may take years to get the gold out, but the right is there. So the Lord has acquired a right in that field. You see, therefore, that we have no option in these things, the option is His. He has a right to buy and having done that, He asserts His right to you. That is what He is doing, and has been doing in the gospel all these centuries; and He will have a full result.

Then there is an additional thought, as I said. After the Lord found the treasure. He is said to be “seeking”, going beyond what He has found. He is looking for something even better. He is seeking as a connoisseur of pearls, looking for goodly ones. That is what is in ^[p. 287] mind in Rebecca. Her name signifies that she was attractive, not surely by mere physical beauty, but by moral beauty. It was there. The Lord had that in mind, and sold all that He had to acquire that one pearl of great price.

Now I want to show how this incident typifies the present dispensational position. The Lord, we are told, led His disciples “as far as to Bethany”. He was received up, as Luke tells us, from Bethany. It was the Jewish position. “They ... returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God”. They were not yet the assembly publicly; they were just His disciples — known to be such, but not yet formally detached from Israel, from the Jewish position. He brought them, dear brethren, to the place of love, to Bethany. It is the remnant position, the true remnant of Israel, where love was, but it was not yet Sarah’s tent. Isaac, we are told, led Rebecca into Sarah’s tent. He led her in. The disciples went to Jerusalem, and were there praising and blessing God with great joy, but it was in the temple: it was very near the idea, but not fully. The Lord had in mind that these disciples should take on something more than being just His disciples, and so Luke, when he employs his pen the second time, makes no mention of Bethany, but tells us that the Lord presented Himself to His disciples living; then it says that He assembled with them, and that He spoke to them about the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of Israel. It was a great universal thought that He was speaking about. He was received up as they were speaking, “they beholding him”. They were to see that wonderful movement called the ascension, not yet His own act, for it says, “a cloud received him out of their sight”; and they returned to Jerusalem; but they go to the upper room. The upper room does not refer to Sarah’s tent. It is a new thing. From there they went to the temple, but they were learning, and they broke bread in the house. They had caught the thought that the Lord’s supper was a family matter. They were getting on to family lines, and so it is that in the households (which includes all believers’ households) the family thought finds a place, and grows. In the apostle Paul’s ministry it was developed, and household baptism came into evidence for the first time. It would enhance the idea of the household: it was a place for children, a place for family affections, but in opening up the truth of the Lord’s supper, Paul says, “Have ye not houses to eat ... in?” The Lord’s supper belongs to the assembly: “When ye come together in assembly” — that is the thought here. Paul brings in the Supper in a new way. He says, I received it from the Lord. It came in from the Lord. The Lord had gone into heaven, as we are told in the early part of Acts, but a great deal has been added since He was received up. Luke merely says He was received up, but Paul speaks about His being received up in glory, and about His having a body of glory, and His coming to change our bodies of humiliation like unto His own body of glory. From all that glory scene the Lord speaks about His supper, and about His thought as to it, for it has come to us not exactly in the words of Luke; there are additions and subtractions, but there it is, come down from that scene of glory, handed over by the great minister of the assembly, so as to be enshrined in the assembly; for that is the place for it.

Now all that enters into this position. Rebecca is led into Isaac’s mother’s tent, but the union had not yet taken place. The union comes under the apostle Paul’s ministry, if you understand me. I hope I am not speaking about what you do not understand. Union belonged to the apostle Paul’s ministry, and so it is that as Rebecca was led into the tent, Isaac took her. The name Rebecca means attractiveness, and typically the assembly was becoming more and more attractive down here. It speaks in Canticles about the king being held in the galleries (Song of Songs 7: 5) or “The king is fettered by thy ringlets” (New Trans.). That is the attractiveness ^[p. 289] of the assembly. Under the teaching of Paul it becomes increasingly attractive to heaven, and is not Christ entitled to value what is attractive? Must He always fall back on His divine, sovereign love, that can exercise itself apart from loveliness in its object? Surely not! Surely no lover of Christ would say, He will love me anyway! No! I want to be lovely. The Lord has an eye for loveliness; He is seeking goodly pearls.

The apostle Paul came out in the Lord’s due time. He appeared when the perfection of the assembly was required; the day had arrived in heaven for it. Isaac took Rebecca; there was a formal action on his part. It is here the bridal thought comes in, not earlier. It was as she was led into Sarah’s tent that he took her. It was marital; but you never get any marriage transactions in a public sense in the Old Testament. Things are kept as simple as possible, for all is awaiting the glorious nuptials between Christ and the assembly: when “the marriage of the Lamb is come”. That day has not yet arrived, but union takes place before that, and it is as in Sarah’s tent that you get the transaction: “He took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her”. All is perfectly orderly spiritually. It is in the order of one, two, three, for everything must be so in divine transactions. He took her, and she became his wife, and he loved her. Is that not orderly? Paul’s ministry has come in here. It is not that the Lord did not love the Pentecostal assembly; He did, but it required greater formation, beautification, the impress of heaven. Paul brought that out, so that gradually but surely it became more and more attractive, and Christ loved it. Rebecca is said to signify what captivates; and the assembly became that peculiarly under the apostle Paul’s ministry. I am speaking in this way so that our hearts may be drawn into the thoughts of Christ as to what He sees in His counterpart — the assembly.

Can we not afford to Christ that right? — to have such an admiration for what is delightful to His mind, that it ^[p. 290] is captivating to His heart? It eclipsed the position of Sarah. It is a heavenly Man and His bride here, in union, in testimony. Dear brethren, what a position we are in! That is the dispensational truth. It is not to bring out that Israel failed, that it murdered Christ — that is not what Sarah stands for. It is to bring out that the position of testimony is held in a greater way than she could have held it; for it is Christ known in heaven, as He appeared to Paul. Paul was caught up there: “caught up to the third heaven”, he says, as far as that, and then “caught up into Paradise”. He had some conception of what was there, and of what was needed for Christ. He kept it in his heart for fourteen years, but how much it would affect his ministry! I would like to leave the impression with you of what the assembly is here, as in Sarah’s tent — the tent, as it were, continuing; once graced by Sarah, but now more then ever by Rebecca, as the wife of the heavenly Man. It is a heavenly Christ, and a heavenly assembly in testimony here.

Peter’s vision (Acts 10) is brought in immediately as Paul comes on the scene. It is to make way for the full scope, for the setting out of the mystery — the assembly as united to Christ. Ephesians teaches us that we are “raised up together” — that is not with Christ, but with one another, for that is the point there. I do not want to go without the brethren, I love them and want them there too. He “has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together”, we are told (Ephesians 2: 6). Then the epistle brings out what is down here, that is, the habitation of God. The apostle says, “Ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone”, Ephesians 2: 19, 20. Then he says, “Ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”, so that as the result of the work of ^[p. 291] God among the gentiles is brought in, the full thought of God comes to light.

I am saying all this that we might understand the magnitude of the position. John’s ministry comes in reflectively, bringing to us the glory of the heavenly city, the bride of Christ, so that it might shine upon us now, and shine out from us.

Now the leading of the Spirit runs parallel with what I have been speaking about; for in order to understand the assembly as Rebecca, how captivating she is to Christ, we have to understand what the members of Christ are; and sonship necessarily underlies the beauty that shines in the collective aspect. She comes down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Think of being in that which is the residence of the glory in heaven! She comes down with it, she has it. That is how John helps in what I was saying; and sonship, and our being led as sons, is to bring out how it works, how the captivating features appear as the sons are set in relation to God and to one another in sonship; and in relation to Christ and to one another as brethren. To the Galatians Paul says, “Because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”, Galatians 4: 6. Peter had not spoken about that. We do not get a word from Peter about sonship until he is about to put off his tabernacle. It belonged to Paul to develop. Peter knew about sonship, for the Son of God was disclosed to him, but he did not speak about it, showing how perfectly these great ministers were controlled by the Spirit. They did not say all they knew. If Peter was free to say all he knew about Christ as Son, how much he could say! but as he was about to put off his tabernacle he speaks about it and in the most glorious language. He speaks long after Paul’s ministry had come out: “When we were with him on the holy mount”, he says. In Romans, Paul works it out.

Dear brethren, we are apt to be very doctrinal and theoretical in these matters, but that will not do for ^[p. 292] the apostle Paul. He is clear enough as to doctrine, but he is concerned that we should know the things inwardly. There is the building inward. As everything is cleared; first the question of sins in Romans 1 - Romans 5, then the question of sin, up to chapter 7; he brings in the Spirit, and you find the Spirit mentioned very much in chapter 8, something like thirteen times from verses 4 to 17. God is impressing us with this, that the Spirit is here, and that room is to be made for Him. I come to realise that there is such a Person; I realise it by the effect He has on me: He sheds abroad the love of God in my heart, (Romans 5: 5) a great service. In this chapter it says, “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free” (chapter 8: 2). It is not only the Spirit, but the law of the Spirit of life. We have to understand the word “law” here contextually, as indeed all words in Scripture. This law sets me free; it is an experience. We must have experience, or our christianity will be merely theoretic. Experience is the thing now, and so we are told what the mind of the Spirit is — it is “life and peace”. If you get a little experience of life and peace, even for an hour, you prove that you have the Spirit. He is available to me here. “If, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live”. You cannot do that by your own will power. We are to be a testimony here in this world; that is what we are left here for: we are to be here in power as sanctified, using the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body. How otherwise could we do it? Let anyone try to do it by his own power! It is only by the Spirit. The light comes in, that the culprit, the flesh, has been condemned, and now you execute him. The sentence has been passed, and by the Spirit I keep him under control, mortifying the deeds of the body, and so I live.

Then the chapter also says, “If the Spirit of him that has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in you, he that has raised up Christ from among the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies also on account of his Spirit which dwells in you” (verse 11). All these operations ^[p. 293] become familiar as we are with God, and then we come to this significant verse, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (verse 14). That is, the Spirit is recognised and given His full place. We find it set out in the types. In Exodus 17, at the smitten rock, the Spirit is typified in the water that came out, but it does not say there, that the people drank. Of course they did drink, but it does not say so, as if God is calling attention to the feebleness with which young believers appropriate the Spirit. When we come to Numbers 20, in spite of Moses’ disobedience the water flowed, and they drank. So today, in spite of the disobedience of those who are in public charge, the ecclesiastics, as we might say, the water flows. Where should we be if it did not! In spite of the lawlessness that existed, the assembly drank, also their beasts; there was plenty of water, and there is today.

Then when we go on to chapter 21 we come back to the true Moses. The well is dug under his direction by the leaders, and they sing to it: “Spring up, O well”. The springing up is the point. You do not get it out of the rock: it is digging now, dealing with myself. Digging refers to my state. I see the value of the Spirit now, and I sing to it. From that point we find that typically the Spirit is leading. Israel journeyed from that point until they came to Pisgah, where they looked “over the surface of the waste”. We realise there, that in spite of the waste, God is leading us in; and how? By the Spirit. As moving in that way we are self-judged and self-denying, so that when we come together in assembly, we recognise the Spirit’s leadership, and move under that leadership. If one says, “Lord Jesus”, we recognise it; if one says, “Abba, Father” in the power of the Spirit of adoption, we recognise it, and move accordingly. If we do not, we are interfering, and the service is marred. As together in the assembly if I bring in the Lord Jesus after the Spirit of adoption has brought in the Father, I am interfering with the service. The sons of God are brought to light ^[p. 294] because of the way they move: they are led by the Spirit of adoption and say, “Abba, Father”. The most beautiful note that can enter and resound in heaven is, “Abba, Father”, and that is what sons say.

Just one more word before I close. The Spirit’s leading brings on to the ground of the assembly as the place of service God-ward. The assembly is the residence of the glory, but also the place of divine service, and in order that it should be effective according to God, we have not only the leadership of the Spirit, seen in brethren saying “Lord Jesus” by the Spirit, and “Abba, Father”, by the Spirit, but the Lord Himself comes in, for the Spirit ever makes room for Christ, whatever is in view, and the most exalted thought of leadership is that in which Christ has part. We are prepared for it by the action of the Spirit. These are exalted things, dear brethren, and perhaps difficult for the young to understand. It is a service suitable for heaven, and to go on eternally: nothing less than that.

The writer to the Hebrews says, “It became him [that is, God] for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings”. It is not that the Lord Jesus was ever imperfect; the idea is that He has taken another condition and that through suffering. The original word for “leader” here is used four times in the New Testament, and means a person who sets out a thing and exemplifies it. We must understand who our Leader is, and how He exemplifies things. It is a spiritual matter and only those in the Spirit will understand. We view our Lord in this way, as a Leader, perfected through sufferings. What a touching thought! He showed them His hands and His side. He showed them, that is the idea. The Spirit touches our hearts, but the hands and the side of Jesus should also affect our hearts. He is made perfect through sufferings, and now He is conducting this great matter, the service of God. When we come together in assembly we have to ^[p. 295] learn to give place to Him, and if the Spirit has His way the Lord Jesus will be given place, and then the service is God-ward, the God “for whom are all things, and by whom are all things”. The Son and the Spirit are engaged with one great matter: God is to be worshipped and served suitably now, as He will be eternally. It begins here, and goes into eternity.

The passage goes on to say: “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”.

The foregoing is what I had in mind. I hope you will be able to connect it in your souls, for no doubt most of you will follow what I am speaking about; so that the great service to Him “for whom are all things, and by whom are all things”, should be carried out that God may be worshipped in spirit and in truth.