THE BOND OF THE COVENANT
A. C. Craig
Ezekiel 20: 34–37; Ephesians 4: 1–7; Colossians 3: 12–15
I wish to refer to the bond of the covenant, the uniting bond of peace, and love which is the bond of perfectness. I thought that reference to the bond would be perhaps of special value. I suppose I am not alone in thinking that, oftentimes, that which binds us is fragile. It should not be. We belong to the greatest unified system that has ever been, and we begin with that.
What keeps us together should not be tenuous or fragile; nothing should come up that would in any way bring in separation or division or cleavage. Somebody perhaps says something or does something and somebody gets offended. What a serious thing to give offence! Yet offence can be taken by no intention on the part of the giver. There were those offended down here with the Lord; He would not wittingly give offence but what He said was refused by them. It is a serious matter, He said, to give offence, “But whosoever shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were profitable for him that a great millstone had been hanged upon his neck”, Matthew 18: 6. It is a serious matter to give offence, but too, there is no known reason for anybody to take offence. If I give offence wittingly, my will is at work, but if I take offence, it would be my pride that would be hurt or something of that nature.
There is nothing that should come up that anybody should take offence. We are all partakers of the divine nature, that is a very good start.
So I want to say something about the bond that binds us, the bond of the covenant. God said to this prophet in chapter 13, These people of Mine are building with untempered mortar; four times He mentions it. That is to say the bond was wrong. Now, nobody needs to go much wrong with a bond in building, the
ingredients are very simple. Yet these people were building with untempered mortar. It would never stand. He said, the rain will come and wash it out. We should not build with untempered mortar. I want to show in these three allusions to the bond that there is something that will stand no matter what may come up in our histories, and in our working out of things together. As I have said, somebody takes offence and says, I am not coming back any more; or, something happens at the other end of the world, opinions are taken, judgments formed, and eventually there is a division. Brethren, these things ought not so to be. What is the matter? The bond. God has introduced something that is sure and firm, and nothing can prevail against it (Matthew 16: 18). It is a very remarkable chapter this, in Ezekiel, seven times over God says, “I lifted up my hand”. Think of God adopting that attitude with His people who were so rebellious. He says that they rebelled against Me in Egypt; they rebelled against Me in the wilderness; they rebelled against Me in the land, that is all in this chapter, but, He says, “I have lifted up my hand”. If you go to court and take the oath, you lift up your hand. Abraham lifted up his hand before the king of Sodom came with his blandishments.
After Abraham rescued his brother Lot, the king of Sodom appeared. He said, you take the property I will take the souls. No, said Abram, I would not take one thing from you, “I have lifted up my hand to Jehovah, the Most High God, possessor of heavens and earth”, Genesis 14: 22. That action of lifting up his hand is determinant, it is not casual, it is determinant. You think of God taking up that attitude about His people, and He speaks about His name’s sake four times in the chapter. Whatever may happen God has His honour to maintain. If He has committed Himself by lifting up His hand, He has His own honour to maintain irrespective of my failure and my lack of interest. He is working for His name’s sake. Your sins are forgiven for His name’s sake, that is a good start. He is determined to carry things through, so He says to this people, “I will bring you into the wilderness
of the peoples ... And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant”. This will be true of Israel in a day to come, this is how God will operate to bring His people into unity. There is so much cleavage and division in Israel but God will bring them into unity under Christ. The two sticks will be in the hand of Christ brought into one. God has the power to do it, and He would have that amongst us, beloved brethren, it is of Him that there should be unity.
So He passes this people under the rod. Do you younger people know what that means? That is what a shepherd did when he was going to count his sheep, he caused them to pass under the rod. That is very touching, how the sheep in the flock came up, passed under the rod individually, he counted them, he would say that is mine. He would take account of them passing under the rod. He would take full account of us in our individuality. Do you believe that, that the blessed God is taking account of you individually? After all it must begin that way, if there is to be unity with two people or twenty people or two hundred people, it must begin with what we are individually. If a person takes offence for instance, and says I am not coming back, you see there is a deficiency there, and God would take account of our condition and what we need to pass through and come into the bond of the covenant. It may be that He has to discipline us. The shepherd would know each sheep and take account of its requirements. It is very touching to me. In how we pass under the rod, the Father takes account of us, what we require to help us. Think of His discipline; think of these days in which we are, and the Father’s love entering into His care for His people in that way. As passing under the rod it would mean that He is taking account of us and our needs, and it may be discipline, but in it all and through it all there is the Father’s hand and the Father’s love.
What He has in mind is that we might come into the bond of the covenant. Young
people become sick, young people are taken away, older people are taken home; affliction comes on people in middle age, brothers who are available to the Lord for service, something comes on them and they are handicapped all their life. What a heart He has as He passes us under the rod.
May our hearts be moved by these activities of the Father, it is as if He says, I know you and I want to improve you. You are Mine; I have redeemed you, you are Mine, and you are in My hand. I say that for the comfort of those who are called to pass this way of discipline. God’s hand is in it, a loving hand that we might come into the good of the bond of the covenant.
You think of the covenant that we spoke about today, an everlasting covenant made with David. The bond of the covenant is Christ. We come into the bond of the covenant and get to know Christ, that is 2 Corinthians, I want to refer to that. In 1 Corinthians which we have had today, it is a question of the order of the house; the house is to be in order and suitable for God. In 2 Corinthians it is what is accomplished by way of ministry; that is a very important matter that there is ministry proceeding according to God. The first great item is the ministry of the new covenant, and that was based, I doubt not, upon the state arrived at by the Corinthians. They had put the man out and they were to bring him back in, and once they brought him back there would be the evidence of the effect of the ministry of the new covenant. God is bent, beloved brethren, on unifying us, that is a great point, so into that service comes the ministry of righteousness and the ministry of the Spirit. All this belongs to the bond of the covenant. This is God’s matter, it is what He is doing; what the Spirit is doing to bring us into unison with Christ. These are great things, the ministry of righteousness and the ministry of the Spirit. It is not now that righteousness is demanded from us, that is the old covenant, that failed where righteousness was demanded. The law was a perfect code of righteousness, for man; there was nothing
wrong with the law. Paul said it was righteous and good, but it demanded righteousness. In the new covenant where you get God saying, I will, He ministers righteousness, He does not demand it He ministers it.
I would like to introduce the thought of grace here; we have peace and love in the next two scriptures, but this is grace. Paul said to the Corinthians, Show grace to him, assure him of your love. That is all the new covenant, that is why Paul is free to introduce it in ministry, assure him of your love lest he be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. All this belongs to this line of things, it is based upon the forgiving spirit, and based upon what had been established amongst them. I think it is very wonderful this kind of spirit, that we can proceed into the thought of the benefit of the new covenant so as to unify us; that is what I hope to bring out in connection with the new covenant. We have the forgiveness of our sins, and the Spirit communicated, these are the terms of the covenant. I am not giving you anything new, you can read all this in the ministry, and I hope you read the ministry. You younger brothers, if you mean to be anything at all in the local meeting, and generally, you will have to read the ministry. The terms of the covenant are the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Spirit.
The Lord brought the woman of Luke 7 into the bond of the covenant, also the woman of Luke 8. First of all the woman of Luke 7—“Thy sins are forgiven” (Luke 7: 48). Then the woman of Luke 8, she touched His garment and virtue, power, went out from Him, that is like the gift of the Spirit. These are the terms of the covenant, and the Lord would bring us into that.
But the prime thought in the covenant is that we might be like Christ. The Spirit of God is set on that, that we might be like Christ, like Him in glory. We all take on the same image. There is oneness, as beholding the glory of the Lord we are changed into the same image from glory to glory. That is not only like
Christ; we shall be like Him, every one of us will be like Him, but this is also like one another, the same image; there is unity, unity in glory. What a thought this is, beloved brethren, that God has before Him to accomplish! Lying behind it all is His discipline, and all that He brings in, it is all in view of there being the same image as we behold the glory of the Lord. I hope it is attractive to you, the matter of the bond of the covenant. What a price has been paid for the establishing of this. The Lord Jesus has been raised in the power of the blood of the eternal covenant (Hebrews 13: 20). These things are intended to affect us, and cause us to submit ourselves to Him, and to behold His glory. It is very exercising to behold His glory. What do you do with your time? Value your time and your energies; spend more time with the Lord; spend more time in His presence. This does not only belong to the meeting, it goes on in the meeting, but it goes on elsewhere as well; so that you take on His image, the Spirit of God transforming you, you become like Christ. That is the point there; the Lord is that Spirit, He is the Spirit of the covenant; He is the bond of the covenant. You come into contact with Himself personally. It is not like being transmitted from one to another; you come into direct, immediate, personal contact with Christ. Get into your closet and spend more time with Him. Watch your time; watch yourself you younger people. I warn you watch your time and watch yourself.
I was going to say about the deficiency that we exhibit sorrowfully when we take offence, do not take offence, count on what you are and your links with Christ to maintain you. I would suggest to you that you watch your diet. If there is a deficiency it is in the diet. I give you two good chapters that provide a perfect diet, and that is Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. There is red meat and white meat, but the best of all I would suggest to you is what is represented in the fish. People do not eat enough fish. God has suited every creature to its environment, and there is no
creature more suited to its environment than fish. I am speaking to the young people, and the danger they get into in offices and in factories; you want to be careful, eat fish and you will have fins and scales, that is the idea spiritually. Fins are for propulsion and scales for protection. There is no creature, I would think, able to get out of the way quicker than a fish; a fish is startled and it is gone, you cannot trace it. Young men, flee youthful lusts; watch your body. Do not experiment with drugs and what not—flee youthful lusts. I am speaking to you as one who is older, one who knows. Then the scales mean you are able to protect yourself. If you feed on fish you develop scales for protection. A young sister in an office, with her comely dress and deportment, long hair, and quiet demeanour, all speaking loudly to others, needs to protect herself. Scales belong to a fish, they are not implanted. I think that would help us in this matter of having no deficiency. If there is offence taken, it is because one is deficient in one’s constitution. I commend to you the proper diet to feed on. The Spirit will help you, and will build up a resilience against what you may have to come into contact with.
So there is this matter of being united in glory, looking on the Lord with unveiled face. It is in contrast to Moses, he had to put a cover on his face because the children of Israel were not able to look on Moses’ face, because they were deficient; there was no proper work of God in them. But as coming into the bond of the covenant we get the forgiveness of our sins and the gift of the Spirit, there is a constitution there for taking on the glory. So we can look on the unveiled face of Christ. What a privilege! Spend more time in your closet.
Now we come to this matter of the unity of the Spirit—“the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace”. What elements are introduced by way of ministry for our strengthening and building up, and the
maintenance of normal conditions. Paul says, “I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you therefore to walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye have been called”. He goes back to the end of Ephesians 2 where we have the citizens, that involves the city, and we have the temple, and we have the habitation. All these thoughts are introduced at the end of chapter 2, and chapter 4 is the continuation of that; chapter 3 is a parenthesis involving very wonderful ministry, but chapter 4 links with the end of chapter 2. So he says, “I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you therefore to walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye have been called”.
Think of what it is to belong to this wonderful system of things, a city and a temple and a habitation! All this is in our minds, therefore, it helps us to walk according to our calling.
What a calling it is! What sovereignty enters into it! What grace enters into it! What love enters into it! It goes on to speak of that, “bearing with one another in love; using diligence”, this is our part, “using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace”. I want to draw your attention to that—the uniting bond of peace. There is a good footnote in Mr Darby’s translation to the word ‘bond’. It is not only the bond itself which is the Spirit, we do not need to keep the unity of the Spirit by itself but we need diligence to keep the uniting bond of peace. It is an active matter, this is our side of it. The unity of the Spirit remains intact, but we are responsible for using diligence to keep it in the uniting bond of peace. The unity of the Spirit known publicly amongst believers depends on this bond-together, this drawing together one to another.
Beloved brethren, what room is there for anything coming in between? There is to be such a bond with us that nothing can come in between. I am pleading with the dear brethren. I think you will agree with me that things are too fragile, we get offended too easily with one another. It should not be. What a system of things we belong to, that God has called us to, the privilege of it. O, that you and I more appreciated that;
His city, His temple and His habitation. Let us therefore maintain what is proper to it in the uniting bond of peace. There is a certain affinity in the members and we are drawn to one another. You say, What is that then? First of all that is the divine nature, that has a certain impelling force. You hardly ever have a family breaking down, criticising one another, they all stick close to one another, that is only a poor feeble illustration. How much more therefore in this order of things that we belong to, this heavenly order. God would use ministry to help us in that regard. Things stand according to the Spirit, but we have our responsibility—use diligence—do not take offence; it all begins with some personal feeling or something like that. What is that in contrast to the greatness of the things that we belong to?
Sometimes it pains me the things that are accepted and acted upon. They do not belong to the tempered mortar. We want links that belong to the household of God; we want links that belong to the Spirit and flow from the divine nature. I hope you get this thought as to how we are drawn to one another; the footnote will give you the idea, it is the practically uniting in fact, as amongst men on earth, so that we are drawn to one another—“the uniting bond of peace”. It is said quite often. We do not have peace at any price; we are not speaking about that, we are speaking of what is normal in a scene of contrariety, a scene of difficulty. God would say, There is a little spot down there in Kirkcaldy, I can look at my people there and I can draw attention to them, they are all drawn to one another; there is nothing allowed in the crevices, nothing allowed to bring in cleavage in any way; they consider for one another, they are marked by love and good works, and all lowliness of mind, all these things are in operation. No matter what it is that comes up, in assembly matters or in assembly judgment, there should be nothing allowed on my part that would in any way make for a cleavage.
These things are normal to the divine system.
I go on to Colossians just to finish. There we have, “love, which is the bond of perfectness”.
This is what is proper to the new man. “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved”, that is what we are according to the calling and according to what God has wrought. Do you think of yourself—in that way?—“the elect of God, holy and beloved”—Is that how you regard yourself and regard your brother and sister? Is that how you look at them? Certain features are developed which are proper to the new man, and the new man is for down here. These are two great ideas that are brought forward in Paul’s ministry, the body and the new man. Everything that God established before had failed right from Adam down, the kingdom and everything else had failed regarding Israel. God will revive it and carry it through in the millennium; there is nothing that God introduced that He will not revive in that sense. He will bring everything in under Christ, and cause it to flourish in the day to come, as far as Israel is concerned. But Paul had certain specialities in his ministry and these were two of them, the body and the new man. You do not find them in the Old Testament; these belong to Paul’s ministry. Paul develops in the Colossian and Ephesian epistles the greatness of the divine work, that we are His workmanship. The body goes through into eternity, but the new man is for down here, he is to come into expression. God is going to perpetuate Christ morally down here as long as the testimony continues, and that comes out in the features of the new man.
Now it says here, “having put off the old man” (Colossians 3: 9). Adam was not the old man; God did not create the old man; Adam was the first man; Cain is like the old man in moral features. Abel was a remarkable man, he represents the second Man, he was a man of character; Adam was not that. Adam was a figure of Him to come but Abel was more than a figure, Abel was a model. Cain slew Abel, that is like the Jew who put Christ to death. Christ is the second Man out of heaven but the Jew slew Him. Then it is as if God said, All
right, that is what you have done with Him, the second Man out of heaven, I will bring in someone else to take His place. So in the scripture in Genesis 4, Seth comes in to take Abel’s place. God would say in the type, You have put My Son to death, the second Man out of heaven, I will have Him again in character in My people down here. Seth represents the new man, his name means ‘appointed’. Now the new man does not take the place of the old man, although the old man has to be put off before you can put on the new man, but the new man does not take the place of the old man, the old man is gone, removed. The new man takes the place of the second Man, the new man takes the place of Christ in character. So Eve said,
“God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, because Cain has slain him”, Genesis 4: 25. Beloved brethren, we are here in this world, expected to come out in the features of the new man in testimony to God, like Christ, taking His place in character down here. It is a very wonderful privilege that we can have the features that Paul runs over here, and they all belong to Christ Himself but are reproduced in the new man down here. I trust we will be attracted by that.
Then, “to all these add love, which is the bond of perfectness”. All these wonderful features of Christ that He exhibited down here can be taken on by us, held together in perfect unity, that is the point, the bond of love to bring about perfect unity in the grace of Christ—“love, which is the bond of perfectness”. That is like the girdle of the sons of Aaron, they had their high caps, and their vests, and other garments, and round them went the girdle that held everything in place. It is a very important matter, dear younger people that you know how to control yourself and hold everything in place, and that by the bond of perfectness. It is most important that we have these things in place, that there might be the expression of the features of Jesus down here, the second Man out of heaven. May these things help us that we may not be easily offended, which
develops, as I tried to say, into something worse, and something worse still. What we want is these matters in place and to have this mortar that holds all together in perfect unity, and agreement in view of the divine pleasure. May it be so for His name’s sake.
Address at Kirkcaldy, 6 March 1993
THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SON OF GOD
D. Robertson
I desire to speak from this passage of scripture. The apostle first of all speaks about the Son of God. Paul’s soul was filled with the knowledge of the Son of God. After his conversion it says that “he preached Jesus that he is the Son of God”, Acts 9: 20. One would long to have, in some increasing measure, an understanding of Paul’s apprehension of the Son of God. I believe it is basic to the understanding of Christianity. It was not that Paul, who at one time had been a Pharisee, and lived the life of a Pharisee, had merely changed to another religion; but Paul apprehended the glory and blessedness of the fact that there was a Man living in the presence of God in liberty and in response. What a wonderful apprehension for a man to have in his heart! I believe it is the very kernel of Christianity, the glory of the fact that there is a man living in the presence of God in perfect liberty, perfect joy, and in perfect response to the heart of God. It says that Paul preached Him, “he preached Jesus that he is the Son of God”.
It was a fact and Paul knew it. Then he also says, “the Son of God, who has loved me”. That affects the heart, that the apostle should be able to speak in such a way personally of Christ’s love. “The Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for
me”, Galatians 2: 20. I trust all of us here can say that, “the Son of God, who has loved me”. I read in a book, I think it was by Mr Stoney, where he said as to that statement of Paul’s, it would mean that He loved him before His death, I mean before Christ’s own death. For make no mistake, Paul would be in Christ’s heart just as you were in Christ’s heart. Also He loved him as He died. Think of Christ loving you as He died! “The Son of God, who has loved me”, and He loved him as in glory. What a Person! I trust we all can say, “the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”. If you cannot say it, it is not too late to come to know it.
I believe the Lord Jesus Christ is available to us at this time, that we might come to know Him, and know Him personally as Paul knew Him.
In this chapter, he speaks again about, “the Son of God, Jesus Christ, he who has been preached by us among you (by me and Silvanus and Timotheus)”. There is no one else to preach about apart from the Son of God. He presents Him here as the great centre of the divine system. In fact, as Mr Darby says in the note, He is presented as the One who is the verification of all divine truth. God does not need the formulae of men to support Christianity. Christianity is supported by the fact of a Man living in the presence of God, the Son of God. I would like to attract your heart to Him, especially you young people, one would long that God might use the word to attract your heart to the Son of God. Think of Him! Think of God looking at Him at this very moment! He is there in the presence of God, just as actually as we are here. Christ is there as a Man. He is living in the light of the full shining of the favour of God towards Him, and responding to it in holy liberty. Oh, what a gospel! It is about “the Son of God, Jesus Christ, he who has been preached by us among you”, and he says the word “did not become yea and, nay, but yea is in him”. Everything is established in that glorious Person. What led Paul to write this was that the Corinthians obviously thought that he was prevaricating.
they thought Paul was telling lies. He said he would come, and he had not yet come. Paul says, ‘No, I am not governed by that kind of thing. My life is governed by the fact of the glorious Son of God in the presence of God’. And he says, “our word to you is not yea and nay ... but yea is in him”. Oh what a word that is!—“Yea is in him”. May it enter into our souls with some fresh power and some fresh meaning today—the light of the glorious Man up there. A Christian poet said,
‘Marvel not that Christ in glory
My inmost soul path won,
‘Tis no star that guides my pathway,
But a light beyond the sun’.
How wonderful is the Son of God’s shining in your heart! Have you some apprehension of His glorious position before God? He is filling the heart of God with satisfaction; that is the Son of God, and God means that Person to fill your heart. The blessed Man who fills God’s heart is the Man whom God intends should fill your heart and mine.
Then he says, “Now he that establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God”.
We have been speaking about the glory of divine operations. It is well to remember that none of us could put ourselves in Christ; God does that. It is a divine operation, and that bows the soul with a sense of the greatness, the sovereignty of God. I believe the understanding of that is essential to satisfaction, to understand God’s sovereignty with relation to yourself. Now it is true that God puts every Christian in his rightful place in the light of sovereignty. As you come to that, it means that you are satisfied with that place. You are not aspiring for someone else’s place, you are not on the line of rivalry, you are glad and thankful for the place that God has given you. That is sovereignty. In fact it never ceases to fill your soul in holy wonder, that He has given you a place at all. But the truth is that He has given you a place that belongs to no other person. The knowledge of that fills the soul with the deepest satisfaction. Then
you can look at other Christians, as we are doing here in this room at this time, and you are satisfied with the place that God has given them too, and you can appreciate it. So when they speak in the assembly, or when you speak together in the home, you are satisfied that they can impart an impression of Christ that you do not have, because it is their impression of Christ. So the thing works in the local setting where we are all made to drink of one Spirit.
How wonderful that is! It is an area of satisfaction where persons are able to sit down together in the enjoyment of Christianity. We have all been given to drink of one Spirit. You could not think of rivalry being included in such a circle. It bespeaks the most wonderful contentment. One yearns and longs more for it; the more you know it, the more you want it.
This kind of thing is known in our local gatherings. Most of us come from very small companies these days, and yet these are the possibilities. Though set together in conditions which publicly are feeble and frail, and even physically the brethren might be feeble and frail, yet the point comes where you touch something in the power of the Spirit, and it is satisfying.
We “have all been given to drink of one Spirit”, 1 Corinthians 12: 13.
Paul goes on here to speak about the Spirit. He says, “he that establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God”. “In Christ” is the new position that God has for men, but God also has given a power that is equal to the new position. That is how I understand the teaching of the book of Acts. You get the new place, and the new power, and the power is equal to the place. Now that gives you confidence, not confidence of a fleshly kind, but holy boldness that God means to sustain you in testimony here. He has not taken us to glory yet, but He will do so. He will take us all to glory, every blood-bought one, but He means to sustain us here in the testimony for Christ. The power for that is in the Spirit and the power is equal to the new place. What a wonderful thing that is!
So it says he “has anointed us”. That is the first feature that Paul speaks of here, anointing is for testimony. It relates, I think, to the period of suffering. I think what shines in the testimony, beloved, is the Spirit of Christ in suffering. I was affected by a reference I read in the ministry of Mr James Taylor some time ago, when he spoke about the saints in suffering.
It may be an isolated saint suffering for Christ, and he said that not even the sight of an angel sitting on top of the rolled away stone is greater to heaven than the sight of a suffering saint.
Think of God looking down and seeing a saint suffering for the testimony, suffering for the sake of the name of Christ. The anointing is there, it is shining. The first ingredient in the holy anointing oil in the tabernacle was the myrrh (Exodus 30: 22–25). Scripture is always very careful to show that things must be kept in their proper proportion. No other ingredient had to supersede the quantity of the myrrh. I say that because I believe it is in suffering that the anointing shines. The whole Christian system is anointed. In the type, Moses was to anoint the whole system, the tabernacle and all that was in it. It is the glory system, it is anointed, it is of God. How gloriously the things of God shine! But you remember that when Moses came to the altar, he anointed it seven times (Leviticus 8: 11), as if to say, if you want to see the anointing shining in its brilliance, look at the suffering Christ. How it shone as He came down from the mount on His way to the cross. We spoke of that earlier, of His departure, which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. He came down the mount to suffer, to die, and how the glory shone! Now it is no longer shining in Christ personally down here, but it is shining in His saints, and God has anointed us for testimony. We do not need any dignity which this world confers for testimony. We need the Spirit. The Spirit is the power for testimony.
The next thing is, “who also has sealed us”. That is another wonderful service of the Holy Spirit, it is God claiming the Christian as His own property. I would like
to encourage every saint here today, and especially the young people, that God has sealed you by His Spirit, and in doing that, He has marked you off as His own property. You could never think of God sealing something as His property, if it was not valuable to Him. You are valuable to God. Then we are “given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts”. The earnest in this respect is greater than the thing that we are secured for. The Spirit must be greater than the inheritance.
The anointing is for testimony; I believe the sealing is for God, and the earnest is for the believer’s enjoyment. How wonderful this is! How comprehensive the Spirit’s service is! I feel I have touched it very simply, but oh, that we might know something of it, particularly this last feature; how refreshing it is to be amongst the saints and have the earnest of what we will yet enjoy in eternity. It is all known in the blessed power of the Holy Spirit. God has anointed us, has sealed us, and has given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. May God bless the word.
Address at Birmingham, 28 October 1988
FOUR LIVING CREATURES
J. Renton
I have been exercised, dear brethren, regarding these living creatures. There are the twenty-four elders who would represent persons who were the subjects of the purpose of God. But the four living creatures are symbolic, it would seem, and they are very closely linked with the throne, they are almost part of the throne, in the midst of the throne and around the throne, four living creatures. I suppose the four living creatures
would suggest the way in which God has secured His purpose. God’s purpose belongs to eternity; before God made time, or began to use time there was His purpose; we have that in Ephesians 1, “according as he has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation”, (Ephesians 1:4). Before Genesis 1: 1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, there was God’s purpose. The heavens and the earth were not God’s purpose. God’s purpose had persons in mind before that; and the creation of the heavens and the earth were to be the means of securing His purpose. So these twenty-four elders I suppose would represent persons who, like ourselves, are the subject of God’s purpose before the world’s foundation, and that belongs to eternity, “from eternity to eternity thou art God”, Psalm 90: 2.
His purpose belongs to eternity, and is in view of His eternal pleasure, but He made time, and came into time, and worked in time that His eternal purpose might be secured.
Now I just want to say a few words about these living creatures. The first is like a lion; we read of the lion that he turns not away for any. That is, God has never been diverted from His purpose; He has never needed to modify His purpose, never needed to adjust it, nor alter it.
What His purpose was before the world’s foundation is what He is going to accomplish without any addition or subtraction. What He purposed at the beginning before time began is going, to be secured; that is the idea of the lion. He is not going to be diverted; evil came in but God is not diverted, and does not modify or alter His purpose. His original purpose is going to be secured. That is the lion; it belongs to the throne, it belongs to the working out of God’s purpose, but it comes into His ways.
The second living creature like a calf. A calf has a steady tread, a firm tread; it suggests the working of the unhurried way in which God secures His purpose in time. Again to refer to Genesis 1: 1, “In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth”, that was at the beginning of God’s operations with His purpose in view. Then it says, “And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep”. Apparently some evil power was operating; we do not know how long it was between verses 1 and 2; geologists and others tell us that it may have been many, many years.
No doubt Satan fell and his angels in that period. It suggests the unhurried way in which God secures His purpose. God can wait—He made time and uses time; whether we can say verse 2 is time I am not sure, “And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”. How long that continued we have no idea. Why did God allow this to happen? It is because He was in no hurry, there was no haste—“from eternity to eternity thou art God”. With Him one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. He is never diverted as suggested in the lion, but He has patience to work things out because He has in mind what is to be very substantial, not like what men build up sometimes quickly. He has something substantial in mind that is going into eternity, therefore God is unhurried about how He secures His purpose. There, is this long gap between verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 1, and then you get four thousand years of God dealing with men in the Old Testament. It again speaks of the unhurried way in which God steadily secures what He has in mind. Then there have been nearly two thousand years in the securing of the assembly. There is no haste with God. He has in mind something very substantial, not something that is easily shaken, but something that He has in mind in view of eternity, something substantial for His pleasure and glory eternally. So there is the calf, it belongs to the throne, it is part of God’s ways. The lion suggests that He never deviates from His purpose, and the calf that He is unhurried in how He secures His purpose. Men are in a hurry, God is not in a hurry, He secures what He has in mind patiently.
Then you have the third living creature having the face as of a man. I suppose it refers to intelligence, I suppose it refers to wisdom. Think of the wisdom that has entered into God securing His purpose in time, and what resource of wisdom there is in God effecting His purpose. Paul wrote, “O depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways!”, Romans 11: 33. It all ends in glory to Him, glory eternally. It says, “how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? ... For of him, and through him, and for him are all things—to him be glory for ever, Amen”. The face of a Man speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ, the face of a Man in whom are all the riches and glory of wisdom.
Then finally there is the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. When the times comes there is no delay. There is no haste in God’s ways effecting His purpose, but when the moment comes for action there is no delay. Take the matter of judgment for instance, in Babylon, in one hour the judgment comes. There is the rapidity with which God can operate when the time comes, but meantime He patiently and unhurriedly in wisdom pursues the securing of His purpose. That is God—“from eternity to eternity thou art God”. It enlarges God in our thoughts and leads to the worship of God Himself.
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh, 13 April 1993
CHOOSING
A. J. Gaskin
How graciously God deals with His creature, not in an arbitrary way but giving him scope to exercise his intelligence, and this usually involves the making of a
choice in the circumstances in which he is placed. Paul sets out in chapters 1 and 2 of the epistle to the Romans the general principles on which God deals with men, for God has not left Himself without witness as verse 20 of chapter 1 clearly shows, and verses 6 to 16 of chapter 2 show how justly and righteously He will deal with mankind on the principle of good and evil. This involves the matter of choosing and imposes a certain degree of responsibility on the chooser.
The circumstances in which Abram and Lot were placed in Genesis 13 made it necessary for them to separate as a result of their many possessions. It is a sad affair when earthly riches make it impossible for brethren to walk together for Abraham had to say, “for we are brethren”. So Lot chose “for himself” all the plain of the Jordan, and it says, “he dwelt in the cities of the plain, and pitched tents as far as Sodom. And the people of Sodom were wicked, and greater sinners before Jehovah”; this was where Lot’s choice led him. But then it says,
“Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan”. He did not choose for himself, but was content to live where God chose for him to be.
Moses, in Deuteronomy 30, had brought the people to the very border of Canaan and was about to lay down the responsibility with which God had entrusted him, and knowing their fickleness he makes a final appeal to them to make the right choice. He sets out life and death, blessing and cursing, and says, “choose then life”, for God always delights in presenting the positive side of the truth which is found in Christ; for He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”, John 14: 6.
Joshua takes up the same theme in his last appeal to the people and exhorts them to, “choose you this day whom ye will serve ... but as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah”, Joshua 24: 15. It is important to choose rightly, but also to resolve to continue and to dedicate our own sphere of influence to the Lord and His
interests.
Solomon was given an opportunity by God in 1 Kings 3 to ask something for himself, and he chose wisdom. But it was in connection with his relations with God’s people and in this he asks for an understanding heart. How important in all our dealings with our brethren to be preserved in love amongst ourselves. We are so liable to treat one another without much understanding, when we should know how to have an “understanding heart”.
One of the finest examples of making a choice according to God is referred to in Hebrews 11: 25. In his early life under God’s ordering Moses had every natural advantage, and as Stephen said in Acts 7: 22, he was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in his words and deeds. From other accounts he would have appeared to have been a great military leader, besides being a prince as the son of Pharoah’s daughter. But in Hebrews 11: 24 it says, “Moses when he had become great, refused to be called son of Pharaoh’s daughter”. Refusing on the one hand, he deliberately chose on the other, not fame and glory, but to suffer affliction along with the people of God. In this he had no so-called prospects, he aligned himself with a nation in slavery and outward degradation, but the Scripture says, in what we may call New Testament language, “esteeming the reproach of the Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt”. We can readily understand that God chose Moses to be a deliverer and leader of His chosen people through a “howling wilderness” to the land He had chosen for them.
In the New Testament we have an outstanding example of a choice by a woman whom the Lord commends. Mary, like Martha, could have been careful about many things, but the Lord said she had chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her (see Luke 10: 42). She took her position humbly at His feet, and
what wonderful words they were which came from the blessed lips of the Lord Himself! May we ever find time to listen to what He would say.
Let our hearts be freshly attracted to the One that God has chosen, the One who was disallowed of men but by God chosen and precious (1 Peter 2: 4), and find our part with those who have been chosen in Him before the world’s foundation (Ephesians 1: 4).
Aberdeen
EXTRACT
I think that great stress is laid on what has been called attention to—the name. What is set out in “the name of my God” involves revelation, and “the name of the city of my God” involves every thought of God. What I understand by the city is that every thought of God is there, because the measurements would indicate there is nothing left out. One observes the way in which men leave things out and make things fit to suit themselves; but the name of the city, I think, means that the overcomer would have everything; nothing must be left out; the very smallest things must have their place. The city is thus a vessel that includes everything, not only certain things, but everything is gathered up there, and the overcomer in. Philadelphia understands that. He understands the special relation of the Lord, in what has come out in His name, with what is new. I believe His new name has reference to His relation to the assembly in what is peculiar to herself.
J. Taylor (Vol. 25, p.213)
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