THE ASSEMBLY THE OBJECT OF LOVE
I have in mind to say a little as to the great value of the assembly in the sight of God, to which we, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and as having received the Holy Spirit, belong; as that in which God intends to secure correspondence with every feature that He has found in Christ as a Man. I think if we take account of this, we shall see how great is the conception, something that we may well give attention to, and that to which all ministry and exercise are tending, and as we get the impression of it, it would induce with us all a desire to serve the saints in any way that is open to us. It may be that with some of us there might be no way open to us other than praying for them, but that is a service of inestimable value. I think if we once get the idea of the thoughts of God before us, it will induce with every one the desire to serve the saints with those thoughts in view.
You remember at one time in Jacob’s history, when he had left his father, he came to a place where there was a well, and a stone was upon it, and there were certain of the flocks gathered there, and Jacob was told that they had to wait until a certain time had arrived before the stone was removed, and then they could water the flocks. But then it says that Rachel appeared, and that when Jacob saw Rachel and the sheep, he rose up and rolled away the stone, and watered the flock; as though the moment that the brethren come into view, according to God, love for them springs up in the heart of every lover of Christ. The moment she came into Jacob’s view, he was made to feel. that the flock must be cared for, and hence he serves by love, and immediately rolled away the stone and watered the flock. I believe that is the principle, when once we get a sense of the greatness of the thoughts of God in relation to which we have all been called by divine grace, it will have the effect of making us feel that they are paramount, and in any way in which we may serve the saints in relation to them, we must do it. It is necessary, of course, that we serve in subjection to the Lord, but I am speaking now of getting a sense of the greatness of the thoughts of God regarding His people.
We have two great thoughts present in Scripture—“Jacob his people” and “Israel his inheritance”, the one suggesting that God has a people here publicly before men, with whom He can entrust His name, they can be trusted to represent Him rightly before men. That is the idea of ‘a people’; and then there is the idea of an inheritance, what they are peculiarly to His own heart as ministering to His pleasure in the joy and affection and intelligence of sons.
Well, now, the Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes, speaking by the Spirit says, “one man among a thousand have I found”. That is to say, I think we may gather that in some way or other the Spirit had given him an impression, anticipatively, of Christ. “One man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found”. He was still left without the feminine answer to the one Man among a thousand that he had found. His ministry in the book of Ecclesiastes was confined to that which was under the sun, but it needed the raising up of Paul (of whom the Preacher, I suppose, was a foreshadowing, for the word means “former of assemblies”), whose ministry commenced with a light above the brightness of the sun, to introduce the feminine answer to the “one man among a thousand”. I think if we consider the Lord Jesus in the gospels, we shall get an impression of “one man among a thousand”. You get a distinct impression of it when you take account of the words from heaven, the Father’s voice, at the occasion of the baptism of Jesus, how the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form as a dove upon Jesus, and there was a voice from heaven saying, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”. It is as though God would leave the impression with us that His eye had been watching with supreme interest all that had appeared under His eye in the thirty years of the life of Jesus. He had been One amongst many; to the outward appearance He had moved in and out in the ordinary circumstances of human life, but the Father singled Him out, and said, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”. He was one Man among a thousand to God. He was the One who commanded the attention of heaven in all that He did in every stage of human life, to that moment when He was found there at the age of thirty years, including a period of which we know little save as the typical books in the Old Testament and the Psalms throw light upon it, that period of eighteen years between the ages of twelve and thirty; how often we refer to it! At the age of twelve, the Lord Jesus is found as having a sense of responsibility and having His Father’s business in His heart, and yet in every way blessedly subject to the circumstances which God had ordered for Him; and from that point until the age of thirty, eighteen years of apparent obscurity, content with His Father’s ordering, the humble circumstances of life in Nazareth and the carpenter’s shop; but all the time cherishing the will of God, His Father’s business, in His heart. I say, dear brethren, those eighteen years of quiet contentment, subject to God’s ordering for Him, must have been fragrant to God, just as the subsequent three years of devoted public service were equally fragrant.
John gives us an additional touch in his gospel, in recording the baptism. He says, “I beheld the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and it abode upon him”. He gives that additional touch, as though he would impress upon us, that now God had found in Jesus One where He could rest in undisturbed satisfaction. I want to follow it for a moment, in order to get an impression of what God found in the Man Christ Jesus, because I think I can see, in the life of Jesus here, those two lines which have been suggested, when they are applied to His people—the “inheritance” and the “people”. I can see in the life of Jesus, on the one hand, that He ministered to the heart of God unceasingly. Think of the pleasure that the Father found in Christ as a Man here, affording all that He could look for in man, responding with all the intelligence and affections of a Son; but then on the other hand, He had in Jesus here One who perfectly set Him forth before men; never once was the glory of God allowed by Jesus to be dragged in the dust; so that at the close of His pathway He could look up to heaven and say, “I have glorified thee on the earth”. What must it have been to the Father’s heart to have one Man among a thousand in Jesus, who could look up to heaven and say, “I have glorified thee on the earth”. God had been perfectly glorified in all the movements, all the actions, and all the words of Jesus.
All that God had found in Christ as a Man, He intends to secure in His body, the assembly; every feature that is found for His pleasure, whether the answer in sonship to the Father’s heart, or the maintenance of the truth of God inviolate before men, He intends to secure in the assembly. How well we may be engaged with all that Jesus was as a Man after God’s own heart, as in the gospel of Luke, and then all that He was as the Son, as in the gospel of John, ministering joy to the Father’s heart, the perfect antitype of David and Solomon. When we come to the book of the Acts, we find that Paul is going over, with the elders at Miletus, all his ministry among them. It had secured at Ephesus for the time being a full answer to the thoughts of God concerning the assembly. The assembly at Ephesus was in the joy and power of first love, and while it was thus maintained it would also maintain all that was proper to the assembly of God in that city.
I refer to Paul’s address in Acts 20 in order to touch on the constructive ministry by which the result was brought to pass. It is said of David that he fed God’s people according to the integrity of his heart, that is, purity of heart marked David, and as thus having the mind and will of God in his heart, he would feed the people with intelligence and skill and patience, according to the need of the moment; and that involves a constructive ministry, such as we see in this chapter in the Acts. But then ministry by itself will not be effective, and that is a most important thing for us to understand in every place where the Lord has set us together. Ministry by itself, though it be good and accurate and intelligent for the need of the moment, will not by itself effect the desired result. Hence the apostle in this chapter is careful to show us that, interwoven with his ministry there was a service of self-sacrificing love on his part. The assembly has come into being as the outcome of the supreme devoted love of Christ, and it is indeed the object of that devoted love now, He is even now sanctifying and cleansing it by the washing of water by the word, it is the constant object of His devoted love. But then that love is to find its reflex in those who care for the saints, so that they take on the character of shepherds, and we all know that shepherding involves devoted selfsacrificing service.
Beginning for a moment with the ministry. The apostle goes back to the very first day at Ephesus. “Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you”. He brings in his manner before he brings in his ministry, that is to say, the very first impression the saints at Ephesus got from Paul was that of love. It is well that we should start with that impression, that the assembly is the object of love that serves. Nothing will so produce the desired results amongst the saints as for us to get an increasing sense that we are the objects of the service of the love of Christ. The gifts referred to in Ephesians 4 are given by the ascended triumphant Christ, who first descended in love into the lower parts of the earth, and the object, the ideal, to which all true ministry is working, is “until we all arrive”—not one brother or one sister is to be left out of this, according to the mind of God—“at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”. That is what God has before Him, the perfect answer to the one Man among a thousand, the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ. Think of the fulness that God found in Christ, think of the measure and stature there was in that Man. All the work that is going on at the moment, all the discipline too is that God is going to secure what the Preacher in Ecclesiastes sought but did not find—the woman, the feminine result that corresponds with the one Man among a thousand.
The apostle starts at the very beginning in regard of his ministry; he reminds them that he had testified repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. I suppose there is probably not one here who at any rate cannot go thus far. You are marked as a result of the gospel having reached you, by repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It may be some here are still at that point, not realising much more than that the grace of God has reached you; in being justified on the principle of faith, you have become conscious that you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It may be that you have little idea that the grace of God having reached out thus, it is with these great thoughts of God in connection with the assembly in view. He has given you your part in relation to it. God wants us to be maintained in the attitude He brought us to at first, learning to judge what He has judged. Having faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, we come under His control, and who could possibly desire to be under better control than under the hand of the One who has given Himself for us?
Then the next feature is that Paul had testified the gospel of the grace of God. How important it is, the Scripture says, that we should be established with grace, not with meats. The apostle had emphasised that, after the gospel, the initial word, had had its effect at Ephesus, and there were souls marked by repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. He testified the gospel of the grace of God according to the blessedness of the thoughts of the heart of God. You know how the Galatians were in danger of departing from grace, they were placing themselves under bondage, seeking to improve the man in the flesh that God had judged and set aside in the cross of Christ, seeking to attain to something on those lines, and the apostle brings in the highest thoughts of the grace of God to counteract it, “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law, that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship. But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”. How good it is to be established, dear brethren, in the sense of the grace of God! A true sense of the grace of God will not make us careless in regard of sin, we all know that before we could receive sonship, before we could receive the Spirit of God’s Son, Christ had to die and bear the judgment. Are we going on with that which cost Christ the sufferings of the cross, which cost God all it meant for Him to pour judgment upon the head of His Son? The apostle in this very chapter in the Acts speaks of the assembly as being purchased by God with “the blood of his own”. The sense of divine love expressed in that way should have a powerful effect upon us, as creating with us the desire to be apart from all that necessitated the death of Christ.
The apostle then speaks of having gone preaching the kingdom of God. This is a most important feature of the truth, for it involves that I on my part come under the practical sway of the Holy Spirit—a divine Person here—and it is my blessing to be in the sphere where He has sway. It will result in formation according to the thoughts of God, in spiritual progress, and in things not being purely objective, purely light to us, and thus save us from unreality; for there will be a subjective answer in me individually to that which has been presented to me objectively in the grace of God. The Spirit is always true to Christ and His precious death, indeed the control of the Spirit for the believer is spoken of as the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”. It delivers you from the law of sin and death. The Spirit will always maintain our souls in the appreciation, on the one hand, of the death of Christ, that great necessity, and on the other hand of Christ personally, a Man who is in the presence of God and in whom we have received life and blessing. The Spirit, as engaging us with Christ will form us after Christ.
You remember one occasion in the gospel of Luke when the Lord said to His disciples that there were some standing there who should not taste of death until they had seen the kingdom of God. After the Lord had said that, the disciples would be in expectation as to what the kingdom of God was like, and when Peter and James and John were selected by the Lord to go up with Him on to the mount, they would have in mind that they were going to see the kingdom of God. The Lord took them up into a mountain, and they saw Jesus praying, and as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance became altered. They saw a Man marked by dependence and they would get an apprehension that that was the view which the Lord was giving them of the kingdom of God, that power comes on those lines; not in word, as the apostle says to the Corinthians, but in power. “Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?” The Spirit would engage us with Christ, and as the Spirit is given place to, we will be formed after Christ, and understand the great importance and value of prayer; how the Spirit of God will link Himself with a praying man, how He delights in that kind of man, and our power according to God is connected with dependence and prayer.
If we are not practically in the kingdom of God, we are not of much value in the assembly. You remember the Lord in Acts 1, assembling with the disciples, spoke to them of the kingdom of God, as though to emphasise that practical subjection to the Spirit of God is of all importance if we are to have our part suitably and as pleasing to God in the assembly. All this ministry, and the resulting exercises, are in view of our fitting into our place in this great conception of the heart of God, of securing in the assembly a subjective feminine answer to Christ, and so the apostle says, “Wherefore I witness to you this day, that I am clean from the blood of all, for I have not shrunk from announcing to you all the counsel of God”. As he led on the Ephesians with this constructive ministry, he had come to a point when he was able to show them all the counsel of God, the immense thoughts of the blessed God, that He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. He has marked us out for sonship.
Think of the great thoughts of God that we should minister to His heart’s pleasure, to be before Him in sonship, and that there should be a vessel capable in a future day of coming down from heaven from God, having the glory of God. Even at the present time there should be a vessel held in fidelity to Christ, like the virtuous woman at the end of Proverbs, in whom the heart of her husband can safely trust and who represents God. We have been called by the gospel with this in view. Is it not worth our while to give ourselves wholly to it, and see that our exercises are shaped by these great thoughts of God, that we should learn how to pursue them? One is conscious of one’s own smallness of measure in these things, but I do see this; Christ is the great ideal before the heart of God, and all ministry to the saints is working to that end, “until we all arrive at the ... measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”. He intends to secure an answer to His own heart in sonship in myriads of the redeemed, and He intends to secure a vessel in which He can be perfectly expressed, as He will be in that day, when the holy city will come down from heaven, having the glory of God; not only as reflecting it, but having it, as being formed herself in the divine nature; and hence all our exercises at the present time, of what value they are, as we take them up as promoting this great work in the souls of God’s people.
Now with all this in view, the apostle had not only ministered the truth intelligently and constructively, but he had served them in self-denying love. God is love, and love has found perfect expression in Christ; indeed, the Scriptures say, “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us”. It is there we get a true expression of love, of what God is, “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”. The fact is that what has come into expression in Christ is now to be formed in the assembly; so that in the assembly God can be expressed, and the assembly has to be built up in love. That is why things do not go smoothly, we often wonder why there are so many difficulties in our different meetings, and why there is so much opposition to the truth, but what is it all for? It all calls into play the practical exercise of love, so that in result the saints are formed not only by what they hear, but by what they see of the practical expression of love in their very midst. The apostle says, “Ye know how I was with you all the time from the first day that I arrived in Asia, serving the Lord with all lowliness, and tears, and temptations, which happened to me through the plots of the Jews”. The Ephesians from the very first day had before their eyes a man who, suffering in love, was prepared to go to any length in order that the Ephesians might get the gain of what was in the heart of God for them.
In the close of the chapter it says, they “fell on Paul’s neck”. We can well understand that they ardently kissed him, they had had love in their midst for three years. “Yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my wants and to those that were with me. I have showed you all things, that thus labouring we ought to come in aid of the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive”. Do we really believe it, beloved? One tests oneself—do I really believe it? It is more blessed to serve, more blessed to take the place of going down beneath others and of serving them. The Lord Jesus said it. The apostle says, we are to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”.
As I was saying, I believe all the exercises that arise in different places—I am not ignoring, on the other hand, the responsibility of those from whom they do arise, and we do well not to ignore it, we see things happening in different localities—it makes you feel that while the Lord is very patient, you cannot go on disregarding the Spirit’s ministry with impunity, and the subjective answer to it which is called for; the Lord may bear with it for many years, and the saints may bear with it for many years; but if we do not judge ourselves, the sword of divine government falls and the person is cut off from the testimony. But whatever may arise amongst the saints, it becomes an opportunity for love. Love never fails, and as the saints are built up, accompanied by the service of love, the result will be that the assembly comes into view as presenting the features that correspond with the Man among a thousand.
place and date not given
From Words of Grace and Comfort 1935
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