THE ASSEMBLY'S DISTINCTIVE KNOWLEDGE
THE ASSEMBLY’S DISTINCTIVE KNOWLEDGE
Hebrews 10: 16; 1 Corinthians 11: 25, 26; 2 Corinthians 3: 1 - 18
CAC Any thought of God that may have been introduced in connection with Israel acquires a peculiar excellence and glory if seen connected with the assembly. This would be true of the new covenant, which is dependent on the revelation of God. God has revealed Himself in the glorious Man at His own right hand. That imparts a heavenly lustre even to Old Testament thoughts. The Old Testament hardly develops the heavenly side. We do get plain intimations there that Christ would be set in heaven — “Sit at my right hand” (Psalm 110: 1) for instance, and the fact of His ascension in Psalm 68 — but the blessed effect of Man having a place in heaven and the full revelation of the glory of God in that Man hardly appear in the Old Testament.
Revelation is a necessity on the part of divine love. One has a feeble sense of the intense yearnings of the heart of God to be known by man in all the blessedness of what He is. It was a cherished delight of the heart of God, and we ought to be moved by that thought. None of us will move effectually in our spiritual course till God becomes God to us according to the blessedness of revelation. God as God is set upon obtaining a character of appreciation and response at this present moment greater than He had or ever will have from any other family. The universe of bliss will be God known and responded to, and what will characterise it is what is in the assembly now.
Ques The writer in Hebrews introduces the covenant and later goes on to say, “Let us approach” (Hebrews 10: 22). Does that indicate response?
CAC Yes, it indicates a character of things now which [p. 150] will not be known by Israel even in the world to come. It is not developed in the epistle to the Hebrews, but you have a people capable of approaching. The true privilege and blessedness of the present moment are that there is a capability for approach, for appreciation and for response to God which will never be found in any other family. There is no distinction between the families on the side of revelation but there is on the side of capability of approach and response; and the church as a family has the highest character of capability for appreciation and approach. It seems to me that the privilege of this present moment in relation to the knowledge of God, and approach to Him, of intelligence of His mind and entrance into His love, is so great that it might well move our hearts with intense desire. God has Himself removed, in regard to imputation, everything that might have been a restraint; He has dealt with questions which would have restrained the affections of His people. Liberty is connected with the new covenant very blessedly. Man was with God in the Person of that blessed One, and before God in all the holy light of what God was as known in love.
Rem There was the fullest knowledge of God with the Lord. That does not surprise us, but it is marvellous that God by His Spirit should be seeking to produce in our hearts what is after the pattern of what came out in the Lord Jesus Christ as Man.
Ques Would you say that revelation is fully made good to us in soul history, but capability has to be formed? Does it lie behind the thought of John 4?
CAC God would have revelation to be known, not merely by the preaching or by accepted statements in Scripture, but by the witness of the Spirit, so that we have in our hearts the spring which flows from the love of God. Such is the love of God that He must have believers in the light of revelation.
Rem A soul is not ready to respond to the light of revelation until it has been established [p. 151] in redemption.
CAC Yes, we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. In expiation the conscience is perfectly relieved — “Thy sin expiated” (Isaiah 6: 7). Redemption gives the thought of what is for God.
Rem On the great day of atonement the blood was put on the mercy-seat.
CAC It seems to me that the blood on the mercy-seat is the highest conceivable presentation of the value of the death of Christ — the blood on the gold, meeting the divine glory infinitely and eternally. It is so immense that it lies behind everything. You could not have the blood on the ground as the basis of all the ways of God with men apart from the blood on the gold glorifying God in the highest as to the whole question of sin. The whole system of heavenly things stands with God in the value of God glorified.
Ques Do you distinguish between the presentation of the covenant in Hebrews and in 2 Corinthians?
CAC Yes, but we have often been told there is great correspondence between the two scriptures. It is important to recognise that the calling does not differentiate between different souls: it is “we all” in 2 Corinthians 3: 18. The calling makes no difference between one believer and another: the question is how far we have entered into it. Would not entrance into the holiest give us a very great capacity?
Ques Do you connect entering into the holiest with beholding the glory of the Lord?
CAC The glory of the Lord is that He is Mediator of the new covenant. He is the One who brings it to us unimpaired in all its faultless blessedness. There is One who is equal to the bringing out of the love of God and all the thoughts of the love of God, so the One who brings it to us is equal to it; He endears Himself to our hearts as His glory shines upon us. In entering the holiest it is not exactly the Mediator that we see but the Ark of the covenant. We see Christ there as the One in whom everything is realised and substantiated. He is the revelation and the perfect answer to [p. 152] God in Man, and secures the divine pleasure eternally. It is a very effective contemplation and does not leave persons as it finds them.
Rem I suffered a good deal in my young days from being told to be occupied with Christ without being told something of Christ to be occupied with.
CAC Yes; the fact is the Christ we are to be occupied with is a glorious and infinite Person. Every aspect of moral worth and beauty is concentrated in that Person. I do not want the mere word, I want the reality of the moral worth in that Person presented in detail to me. Every perfection in manhood and the fulness of the Godhead are there; they are too big for me to contemplate as a whole; therefore the beauties of Christ are detailed from Genesis to Revelation, so that our feeble hearts can fix on one and another and another. There is an endless field of unspeakable delight. These beauties of Christ are essential to the glory. Every moral excellence in Him qualifies Him to bring the knowledge of God to us in its fulness and perfection.
Ques Are the personal and official glories seen in the holiest as well as the moral glories?
CAC The ark of the covenant involves all that Christ was in manhood; so I think it involves His moral, personal and official glories. In the ark the shittim wood represents all that is incorruptible; every part of the glory of Christ has that character, and it all qualifies Him as Man to be covered with the gold; the full display of the glory of the blessed God is in that Man.
Rem When Solomon built his house he overlaid it with gold and bespangled it with precious stones.
CAC Yes, the jewels indicate the perfections of Christ; the gold of Parvaim is His proper divine glory as One adequate for the display of God to man.
Rem Ministry is to lead us to gaze on the Lord, but it does not take us to the holiest.
CAC Do you mean that we only go to the holiest as a [p. 153] consequence of priesthood? It is never supposed that ministry will do unspiritual people any good. We only get the benefit of it in the light of self-judgment, and a self-judged person is no longer unspiritual.
Ques Is that why you suggested that scripture 1 Corinthians 11?
CAC It was on my mind that we should apprehend the distinctive character of the new covenant as known in the assembly. The revelation, having come out in Christ and by the death of Christ, can never be less than what it is. You can never throw a shadow over that revelation, but there will not be the same capability in Israel or in the world to come as might be in the assembly today. Israel will never have the same capacity, and they will never go into the holiest. There would be extraordinary spiritual development if persons went into the holiest. The youngest and feeblest believer is encouraged to go in in all the infinite value of what is presented to us by the Lord. There is a system divinely instituted; we have to do with a faultless system of blessing which is divinely established. We are invited to come to it, but it calls for personal approach — “Let us approach”.
Ques Would entering the holiest affect us in view of the assembly?
CAC I do not think we can properly assemble apart from having been in the holiest. There is a great difference between coming together and assembling together. In 1 Corinthians 11 the saints only came together, and they may come together for the worse; but if the saints assemble as in the blessedness of what they have contemplated in the holiest, what a character of things would be there! It is possible to pass through the veil, leave behind all of the flesh, and come to the region of what is spiritual. It is a movement of soul through the veil, and God invites us to make that movement. If I pass through the veil, I come into a region where there is nothing but what is spiritual, and where the soul is [p. 154] free to contemplate all the will of God and the love of God realised and substantiated in Christ. Passing through the veil is the way in. In John 6 we eat the flesh and drink the blood as the way out, but in Hebrews 10 we pass through the veil; it is the way in.
Ques What do you mean by the way out?
CAC The way out of all that is natural and connected with me in my material existence in flesh. The Lord presents to us in the Supper His body given for us, and His blood as the blood of the new covenant; that is in keeping with all we have been considering. The new and living way was the revelation of God in love as brought to us in the death of Christ, but then we have to put our foot down on it. It is a question of moving over that new and living way, the way He has dedicated. Have we utilised it, have we travelled on it? It is a way paved with love. Have we known what it is to put down clean feet on that unsullied way? Christ has come by Calvary’s cross to one like me that I might move over that new and living way into the presence of God.