LIVING STONES (2)
[p. 223] LIVING STONES (2)
It is of the deepest importance that we should know what it is to come to Christ as the Living Stone. It is clear that this is something beyond the soul’s first apprehension of Christ as the Source of blessing in grace, for those who come to Him as the Living Stone have already “tasted that the Lord is good”.
In the case of the poor man who was befriended by the good Samaritan we see an illustration of what it is to taste that the Lord is good. The goodness of the Samaritan could not be measured by the need and distress which he relieved; it could only be measured by the fact that he expended all his own resources upon the subject of his grace. We can only measure divine goodness and grace by the greatness and resources of the Person who brings it to us; that is to say, it is infinite.
The Son of God came here to bring the infinite grace of God to man, at all cost to Himself. We learn the immensity of grace, not by thinking of our need, but by thinking of the One who has brought it from heaven in all His own greatness and wealth. It is a fine start for us if we have tasted that the Lord is good. There is One that we can count upon, even in our deep need, and destitute, as we are, of any claim upon His goodness. The Lord is good; He is great — yea, supreme — in grace. He exercises His mighty power and expends His infinite resources in the perfection of grace towards men.
Having tasted that the Lord is good creates an appetite for “the pure mental milk of the word”. Immediately following the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10 we are told of Mary, who, “having sat down at the feet of Jesus was listening to his word”. She desired “the pure mental milk of the word”. We first taste that the Lord is good, and [p. 224] that His inexhaustible resources have become the supply of our deep need. Everything to meet our necessities is in Him.
But, having tasted this, we next desire to be nourished by that which will feed our souls in the knowledge of God, and make us acquainted with all that is in God’s will. We desire the pure mental milk of the word, that by it we may grow up to salvation. It is by having our souls nourished in the knowledge of God that we grow up to deliverance from all that is evil and of man. We grow up to the apprehension of our place according to God’s will, as those who are called to be in association with Christ. There could be no greater deliverance than to pass from the flesh, and the world, and all that is evil here, into a circle where our souls are nourished in the knowledge of God, and we become conscious of association with Christ in that new and divine world of which He is the Head and Centre.
It is very blessed to see that, in making Himself known to us in grace, the Lord establishes a personal link between Himself and our hearts. He puts the link there first from His side in the perfection of His grace. And then our hearts are tested as to how far we are affected by that infinite grace. The Lord looks for response to Himself; He looks for the awakening of “desire” in our hearts. The normal effect of having tasted that He is good is that we “desire earnestly the pure mental milk of the word”. This “desire” comes out beautifully in Mary (Luke 10). The Lord could say of her, “Mary has chosen the good part, the which shall not be taken from her”. Response was awakened in her heart, and this was very grateful to the Lord. She chose that good part, and He charged Himself with the maintenance for her heart of what she desired. He said it should not be taken away from her.
There is immense encouragement in this for every heart in which the same holy desire and choice have been wrought, even though it be in feeble measure, by the grace of the Lord. The principle on which He acts is plainly stated in Psalm 37: 4, “Delight thyself in Jehovah, and he will give thee the desires of thy heart”. If responsive desire and delight in Himself have been awakened in our hearts — if the knowledge of God has become the choice of our souls — we may be assured that the Lord will secure to us what we choose, in spite of all adversaries. He will give us the desires of our hearts. But, beloved brethren, let us not forget that we are continually tested as to whether we really desire and choose that which is of God and His beloved Son. We are tested as to whether we are prepared to come to Christ as the Living Stone — as to whether we love Him enough to come to Him who is cast away indeed as worthless by men, but who is with God chosen and precious. This coming to Christ is not so much a matter of faith, but of love. It turns really upon our affection for Himself.
To illustrate what it is to come to Christ as the Living Stone, I will refer to several familiar scriptures. First, let us read Mark 6: 47 - 51 and Matthew 14: 27 - 31.
I cannot enlarge much on the setting of this wonderful incident, but I may remark that the murder of John was at the moment the true index of coming events, little as the disciples — full of the proclamation and powers of the kingdom — thought so. The cities of Israel must be left for the present; the desert place, outside everything recognised by man, is the place where faith can rest, and grace can work. But even there, when grace works, man misinterprets all its designs and will make the Worker king. When He perceives this He departs into a mountain “himself alone” (John 6: 15), having sent His disciples to “the other side”. This indicates that nothing of God’s will was going to be established in connection with men as in the flesh, or even with Christ after the flesh. There must be the crossing over to “the other side” — a figure of resurrection. As risen from among the dead, Christ is outside the whole order of things connected with man in the flesh. We have a figure of this in His walking upon the water. He was introducing Himself to His own [p. 226] in a new condition — a figure of His risen state.
Mark that word, “He comes to them walking on the sea, and would have passed them by”. He presented Himself to the little company in the boat. In His precious grace He approached them that He might establish a link between Himself and them. But in doing so He put them to the test, as to how far there was response to Him and desire after Himself in their hearts. He did not force Himself upon them, but He presented Himself in a new and wondrous way to them that the state of their hearts might be tested. He “would have passed them by”.
It is ever thus. The Lord is always the One to move first. Any desire or movement after Him which is awakened in our hearts is but the response to the love in which He graciously presents Himself to our souls. There are two lines of a well-known hymn which express the thought of His drawing and our response:
‘Lord, Thou hast drawn us after Thee,
So let us run and never tire’. (361:1)
Sometimes we think we are seeking Him, and that He is slow to manifest Himself to us. We are like the bride in the Song, when she said, “I sought him, but I found him not; I called him, but he gave me no answer” (Song of Songs 5: 6). But why was this? It was because He had knocked and sought admission without securing a suited response from her. She had said, “I have put off my tunic, how should I put it on? I have washed my feet, how should I pollute them?” When He drew near to her in love she was too indolent, too studious of her own ease and comfort, too satisfied with her own state and circumstances, to respond to Him. Then, when at last she did open to Him, it was only to find that He had withdrawn Himself and was gone. It was not that He was indifferent, but she had to learn the bitter consequences of her own indifference. She had to learn to judge the indifference with which she had slumbered and been at ease without [p. 227] His company. If we have been indifferent, it may be for years, to every approach of the Lord’s love, we cannot expect that the moment we begin to have a little desire after Himself, we shall be at once in the full blessedness of His company. He loves us too well to spare us the exercise and the humbling of heart in repentance that we need. That which has caused the cloud and the distance has to be judged. Often there is a kind of sentimental desire after the Lord, fostered by religious poetry and the like, where there is but very shallow exercise as to the true state of the soul, or as to worldly links and associations. Souls would like to have spiritual joys without self-judgment, or separation, or holy exercise, but it is never the Lord’s way to vouchsafe this.
We may be assured that the Lord is never indifferent, and if there is the smallest germ of true desire after Himself in our hearts, it was He who originated it. Any exercise we may have to pass through is in the way of necessary self-judgment, or to detach us from things or associations that would hinder our spiritual prosperity.
The Lord presented Himself to the little company in the boat, as I have said, to test their hearts. It is as though He would say to them, ‘What place have I in your affections? Is there a heart amongst you that will choose to be with Me, even though it has to leave everything suited to nature and the flesh in order to reach Me?’ And, beloved brethren, this is the great question at the present moment for our hearts. The Lord is outside everything here. On man’s side, He has been utterly rejected — cast away as worthless; and on God’s side He has been raised from among the dead and is God’s chosen and precious One in resurrection. Now, have we affection enough for Him to come to Him in His out-of-the-world place — to come to Him as the Living Stone?
There was but one in the boat who responded to the Lord in full and fervent affection, but in Peter we see an example of the affection which rightly pertains to those who are called to be “companions of the Christ” (Hebrews 3: 14). He said,
“[p. 228] Lord, if it be thou, command me to come to thee upon the waters”. He was prepared to leave the boat — that is, to quit every natural support and every association according to the flesh — that he might be with the Lord. And at the Lord’s word, “Come”, he went down out of the ship, and “walked upon the waters to go to Jesus”. Affection for Christ in Peter caused him thus to respond to the grace in which the Lord had presented Himself. It was Christ who attracted him; his one thought was, “If it be thou, command me to come to thee”.
But Peter had to learn that his affection was not enough to sustain him in a path that lay altogether outside the sphere of man according to nature. We may start out with a measure of true affection for the Lord, and in the very consciousness of our affection for Him we may lose sight of the necessity for profound self-judgment. We may suppose that that which grace has wrought in us will sustain us, but we have to learn that nothing but the personal succour and grace of Christ can maintain our souls in conscious association with Himself. Our strength and resource in coming to Him as the Living Stone lie in Himself, and in the priestly grace wherewith He succours our weakness and need.
It says of Peter, “Seeing the wind strong he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught hold of him, and says to him, O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?” Peter had not within himself grace or power for the path on the water, though he had affection for it. He had to learn the need for the outstretched hand of Christ to succour and sustain him. This is an important and blessed lesson, because it casts us continually upon the living grace of Christ. However fervent and devoted we may be, we have to learn that it is only by the succour and grace of Christ that we are maintained in true response to Him. And just as He charged Himself with the maintenance for Mary’s heart of what she desired, so He charges Himself [p. 229] with the succour and support of the disciple who chose the good part of being with Him on the water. In each case He is the first to put the link there, if we may so say, and it is He who maintains and succours the heart that makes choice of Him. Precious priestly grace! How it assures and encourages the heart!
Peter walking on the water in the fervency of his affection for Christ is a blessed sight, but he was not allowed to return to the ship without having been made deeply conscious that the grace and power that sustained him on the water did not reside in himself but in Christ. The consciousness that we are thus dependent upon His priestly grace and succour keeps our souls in lowliness, and at the same time it binds up our hearts with Him in peculiar affection. He not only becomes attractive as the goal to which we press on, but we realise that His love is the strength of our hearts in the way to that goal, and the support of our souls when we have reached it. We cannot do without His priestly grace.
Now let us pass to another scene where we may discern what it is to come to Christ as the Living Stone. Read Luke 24: 28 - 36. The two disciples who were going to Emmaus had tasted that the Lord was good. They had known His mighty deeds and words; they “had hoped that he was the one who is about to redeem Israel”; they had so tasted His grace that they were sad to have lost Him. Hence He could count upon “desire” in their souls for “the pure mental milk of the word”. “And having begun from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”. He nourished them by interpreting the whole mind of God concerning Himself as made known in the Scriptures. They had looked for an intervention of God’s power on His behalf in this order of things. But it was clear in the Scriptures that the Messiah must suffer and die, and that every purposed blessing of God must be made good in resurrection. In unfolding all this to them He was leading them along a moral road which ended in the [p. 230] revelation of Himself to them in resurrection.
God had taken His own way in infinite power and grace, though it was a way which not even the disciples appear to have anticipated, in spite of the plain words of the Lord on more than one occasion. Redemption had been accomplished, and now God was acting in His almighty power entirely outside the whole course of things in this world. God had begun the history of an entirely new world, by raising up Jesus from among the dead. He had thus laid the foundation for a vast structure of grace and glory that should subsist in the power of new creation entirely outside this world, and beyond the range of sin and death.
The Lord fed the souls of the two disciples with “the pure mental milk of the word” as He brought before them from the Scriptures the necessity for His sufferings and entrance into His glory. He was leading them away from the earthly hopes which they had cherished, and from the whole system of things connected with man in the flesh, to God’s resurrection world of which He was Himself the Centre and Sun. He was preparing their hearts for the revelation of Himself to them as the risen One. He was leading them on to the knowledge of Himself as the Living Stone.
He thus presented Himself to His two disciples though in a veiled way, and then after making their hearts burn He applied a test to them as He did when He would have passed by those who were in the ship. “He made as though he would go farther”. He put their hearts to the test; He would not be an unbidden Guest; if they did not choose to have Him He would pass on. How perfect and blessed are these actings of divine love! And let us remember that it is even so with ourselves. The Lord approaches us, and presents Himself to us; He puts the link there, as we have said, from His own side. But then He looks for response; He looks for the answering choice of our hearts; He looks that we should constrain Him to abide with us.
The two disciples answered to the test. They did not know [p. 231] Him as yet, but He had nourished their souls with what was of God, and they were prepared for more. “They constrained him, saying, Stay with us ... . And he entered in to stay with them”. He had nourished their affections that they might respond to Himself, and then in His breaking of the bread “their eyes were opened, and they recognised him. And he disappeared from them”. This was not the Lord’s supper, but it was a significant figure of His death. It was in the appropriation of that which was a figure of His death that their eyes were opened to know Him in resurrection. It is by His death that He has opened a way for us to come into association with Him as the risen One. We have to appropriate His death as the end of ourselves, and as the end of every hope connected with the flesh, in order to come to Him in resurrection as the Living Stone.
Thus far the Lord had been dealing in priestly grace with His two disciples as individuals. But the moment they apprehended Him as risen from among the dead, they instinctively realised that they belonged to the assembly of His saints. They felt it impossible to isolate themselves from the company of His saints. The lateness of the hour, the length of the journey, all the natural difficulties of the moment ceased to weigh with them. They had found Him and known Him outside everything here, and they must be with those who were His own. “And rising up the same hour, they returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven, and those with them, gathered together, saying, The Lord is indeed risen”.
The disciples had been scattered by His death, according to the scripture, “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad” (Matthew 26: 31, from Zechariah 13: 7). But they were gathered by His resurrection; it was the knowledge of Himself in resurrection that brought them together. We can see here in pattern the building of the spiritual house. They came to Christ as the Living Stone, and in coming to Him they found themselves outside everything [p. 232] connected with the social, political or religious life of the world. It was a small company, and composed of individuals of very little account in the estimation of men, but it was a company in the secret of God’s pleasure — a company of those who found their joy and the bond of their fellowship in the knowledge of Christ as risen from the dead.
To such a company He could manifest Himself. “As they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst, and says to them, Peace be unto you”. Let me put it to every heart that loves Him: Would you not rather be in the company of Christ and have the manifestation of Himself to your heart than belong to the most august assembly in the world? What is all the religious pomp and vain-glory of christendom compared with the blessedness of coming to Christ as the Living Stone?
Let me repeat again, it is Himself who puts the link there, from His own side, between Himself and our hearts. Then, if our hearts respond, His grace ensures to us the enjoyment of the good part which we choose. It was with hands uplifted in blessing that He was parted from His disciples and carried up into heaven. And in heaven itself His priestly grace is still active on our behalf to keep the link vital, so that we may not fail to enter into the privilege of our calling if in desire and affection our hearts respond to Him.
Now let us read Revelation 3: 20. “Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking; if any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me”. This scripture is deeply important because it shows the attitude in which the Lord Jesus stands in relation to the vain-glorious and self-sufficient profession of christianity. We find ourselves in the presence of a christianity which has become imposing and influential in the world. From the outward appearance of things we might suppose that Christ was in great honour here. The finest buildings in our towns and cities are professedly dedicated to His service, and everything that appeals to the natural man — eloquence,
[p. 233] music, ceremony, intellect, wealth — has a place and influence in the christian profession. Christianity is loudly extolled as the religion which has done most to emancipate and elevate man. Boastfulness and self-sufficiency reign. But where is Christ in all this? Has He any place in this man-exalting system of things?
In Revelation 2 and 3, we see the Lord’s judgment of everything that transpires in the assemblies viewed as in responsibility upon earth, from the departure from first love which characterised Ephesus to the self-sufficiency and utter indifference to Christ which marks Laodicea. There can be no doubt in any spiritual mind that Laodicea is very fully developed at the present time. There is much religious activity and pretension, and it turns to man’s vain-glory and self-complacency. But Christ is outside all this; He has no place where man in the flesh has a place. Yet the moment has not arrived for Him to spue the whole corrupted profession out of His mouth, and He presents Himself still in grace, if so be that amidst all the pretension some heart may be willing to hear His voice and to respond to Him. He stands at the door and knocks. He does not press Himself upon any, but He gives opportunity to any heart that will respond. As in the time when He “would have passed them by”, and as when He “made as though he would go farther”, so now He stands at the door and knocks. He puts hearts to the test as to whether there is any response to Himself. He seeks to put the link there between Himself and the hearts of His own. And if hearts respond to Him they find deliverance from the pride of man, and from the religious pretensions of the flesh. He presents the good part, and if any heart chooses it, He will secure it to that heart by His priestly grace.
Beloved friends, have we responded to Christ in hearing His voice and opening the door to Him? Are we conscious of a link with Him who is outside everything of this world and of man in the flesh? Have we come to Him as the [p. 234] Living Stone — the One who is cast aside as worthless by men, but is chosen of God and precious? If so, He will sup with us, and we with Him. In priestly grace He will enter into our weakness and need that He may succour and sustain us, so that we may not fail of entrance into that which is of Himself. He sustains us above our infirmity and weakness, that we may sup with Him — that we may enter into those things which are established in Him as the risen One.
In thus coming to Him, we leave behind what is of man, and are built up “a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”.
That is, as we enter into what God has brought to pass in Christ risen, we become competent to offer up spiritual sacrifices: to praise God, in the intelligence of what He is, and how He has wrought to give effect to His own thoughts of grace and blessing. We come into a region where God’s moral perfections are displayed, and where the wisdom of His ways can be seen. We find ourselves in spirit outside what is of man.
This is God’s way of bringing about His own thoughts as to His saints. In coming thus to Christ as the One who is “with God chosen, precious”, the saints manifest themselves as “living stones”, and they are built up a spiritual house.
They are bound together in the appreciation of Him who is the “corner stone, elect, precious”. His “preciousness” is before their hearts. “To you therefore who believe is the preciousness”. And Christ being thus in their affections, they do not lack material for spiritual sacrifices. They are rich in the knowledge of God, and delight to approach Him by Jesus Christ with the sacrifice of praise.
And not only are the saints made “a holy priesthood” for praise Godward, but they are constituted “a kingly priesthood” in testimony towards men. It becomes their privilege and high dignity to set forth the excellencies of Him who has called them out of darkness to His wonderful light. If our souls are in the light of God, the effect is that we be [p. 235] come characterised by what is worthy of God. We give expression to God’s moral excellencies in the midst of a world where He is unknown. We thus become marked morally as “the people of God”; we carry His impress upon us, and show forth His praise. That word becomes true of us, “This people have I formed for myself: they shall shew forth my praise” (Isaiah 43: 21).
May God’s beloved children know what it is to come to Christ as the Living Stone, so as to be built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood!