THE SON OF GOD AND HIS ASSEMBLY
[p. 121] THE SON OF GOD AND HIS ASSEMBLY
Matthew 16: 6 - 18; Hebrews 2: 11, 12; Hebrews 8: 1 - 3; Hebrews 10: 14 - 22
The scriptures before us should awaken profound interest in the heart of every Christian, for they speak of the Son of God, and of the saints as forming what He calls, “My assembly”. Though Christ was cast out of the world nearly nineteen centuries ago He still has a place here, for His assembly is here, and in that assembly He has a place and a voice. In Christ’s assembly He is necessarily supreme, and this in a way that is exclusive of everything not of Himself.
I desire to say a little about the foundation on which Christ builds, the material with which He builds, and the character of the structure which results from His building. Then I hope to show how Christ’s assembly really gives character to the House of God.
Many at the present day seem to think that Christianity is a development of Judaism, but there could be no greater mistake. Christianity is the introduction of what is wholly new and altogether divine in the Person of the Son of God. We are slow to get hold of this. We do not readily perceive that “the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Matthew 16: 6), and human sentiment (verse 22, 23) are things of which to beware. But if we savour the things that be of men we are far from the savour of “the things that be of God”. The leaven of the Pharisees is human religiousness, and the leaven of the Sadducees is human intellect working in connection with divine things. Both are to be dreaded and shunned as elements ever opposed to what is of God, and human sentiment is no better in result, however well it may appear on the surface. In contrast to these the confession of [p. 122] a divine Person come in flesh into the world is the Rock on which the assembly is built. When Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”, the Lord said to him, “Thou art Peter [a stone], and on this rock I will build my assembly”. It is impossible for the power of evil to prevail against a structure founded on that blessed Person and the confession of Him. “The gates of hades shall not prevail against it”.
The first and second chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews correspond in great measure with what we get in Matthew 16. The Person of “the Christ, the Son of the living God” is brought out there in a wonderful way, and we also get what answers to “My assembly” (chapter 2: 11, 12). It seems to me that Christ’s assembly is to the House of God what the inner shrine was to the temple, and that it corresponds with what is spoken of in Hebrews as the sanctuary. It has not to do with testimony manward so much as with service Godward. But this I hope to touch upon presently.
The full revelation of God has come out in Christ the Son. This gives Christ an altogether unrivalled place in the estimation of every one who has been taught of the Father! Godhead glory shines out in Him before our adoring hearts! I do not speak of this merely as christian doctrine, but as something which has become a very great reality to us. It is our deep joy to know the blessed God revealed in His beloved Son. God has spoken to us in the Son, and He would have us to look at the wonderful record contained in the gospels in the intelligence of the Holy Ghost to see the revelation of Himself in it all. God has set Himself forth here; He has spoken in the Person of His beloved Son in order to win the hearts of His poor fallen creatures.
Then whatever came out in the life of Jesus here was uttered in a far deeper way at the cross. What a telling forth of God’s heart was there! The death of the Son of God is the mighty voice of divine love to man. The ruin, need,
[p. 123] guilt, and condemnation of man the sinner only serve as the dark background to show in stronger light the love that would reach him and bless him in spite of it all. When all were in utter darkness and ignorance of God He spoke in that amazing hour of Calvary, so that He might be known and loved and worshipped by all who have ears to hear what He has told of Himself in the Person of the Son.
The revelation of God necessarily carries with it salvation for man. God has spoken to us in the Person of the Son (Hebrews 1), and the “great salvation” began to be spoken by the Lord (Hebrews 2). Salvation is man’s inheritance according to the grace of God. The portion of men in God’s mind is to be “heirs of salvation”, and those who despise their birthright are profane persons like Esau, entirely alienated from God. Salvation for man is bound up with the revelation of God because that revelation has come out in the way of redemption. The heart of God was toward man, but certain terrible questions stood in the way. Sins, death, and the curse seemed to bar the blessing of man, but the Son has removed them all out of the way. “When he had by himself purged our sins” He “sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1: 3), and men can now find salvation in the knowledge of God.
Then there is another thing — the rights of God are all taken up in His beloved Son. There are two things in this connection — the inheritance and the throne. God has appointed the Son “heir of all things”; He will take up His inheritance in the Person of the Son. Then the throne — the rule of God — will also be taken up in the Son, so that God’s inheritance may be filled with order and blessing under His rule. The glorious Person who is great enough for all this, and the knowledge of Him by the Father’s work in souls, is the Rock on which the assembly is built.
When we come to Hebrews 2 Christ is viewed more on our side. He presents in Himself all the great and glorious [p. 124] characters which were set forth in typical persons of the Old Testament. God was pleased to make certain men prominent in Old Testament times in order to set forth in them something of what Christ would be. It was only an outline, but Christ fills it up.
For instance, Psalm 8 is quoted. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet”. Adam was a figure of this, as head of creation, with everything put under him, but Christ fills it up in a far deeper way than was ever true of Adam. Christ is the true Head, and everything in God’s universe is put under Him, though we do not yet see this actually brought to pass. In the meantime “we see Jesus ... crowned with glory and honour”. Solomon was figurative of this; no king had glory and honour as he had, but Christ is the true Solomon. Then He is the Captain of salvation; that answers to Joshua. Joshua was the captain of salvation to bring the children of Israel into the land, but he was only a type; Christ is the great antitype and reality; He leads the “many sons” to glory.
Then in verses 11 and 17 Christ is the true Aaron — the One who makes reconciliation, and the Head of the priestly family. In verses 12 and 14 He is the true Moses to declare God’s Name to His brethren as Moses made known Jehovah’s Name to the children of Israel (Exodus 6: 1 - 9), and as the One who brings God’s people out of the house of bondage that they may be in relation to the House of God. Then we read, “In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee”. In this He takes David’s place. David gave a voice to God’s praise in the midst of Israel, but David — though a wonderful figure — was only a failing man after all. Christ in perfect devotedness to God has occupied every place between the [p. 125] throne of glory and the dust of death, that He might fill all things with the praises of God. Ere long He will be the Singer of praise in a reconciled universe, but at the present time He sings God’s praise in the midst of the assembly. Then in verse 13 He is the true Abraham — the Head of the family of faith. This wonderful divine Person, known in souls by the Father’s work, is the Rock on which the assembly is built.
I desire now to turn for a few moments to the consideration of the material with which Christ builds. This is a great and interesting theme, because it brings before us the whole subject of the Father’s work in souls. The Lord said, “Thou art Peter” [a stone], indicating that Peter was a bit of the material with which He would build His assembly. Peter got this character in two ways; first, by divine calling, as we see in John 1:42. “When Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone”. Then in Matthew 16 he is addressed as Peter — a atone — in consequence of his confession of the Christ the Son of the living God, and this confession is attributed not to Simon’s discernment but to the Father’s revelation.
All saints are living stones for Christ’s assembly by divine calling. That is what we are in the thought and intention of divine Persons. But we have to become living stones characteristically, if I may so say, and the Father’s work is essential to this. Peter was a kind of pattern man: he confessed the Christ the Son of the living God by the Father’s revelation; but no doubt he had afterwards to reach what was involved in his confession in the history of his soul. We often get things first as divine light, and then we have to be brought into the spiritual reality of them by the work of God in our souls. These two things must ever be kept in view — what we are by God’s calling, and what we are by God’s work. The first is all that is in God’s mind for us;
[p. 126] the second is the measure of our experimental entrance upon it. The first is altogether divine and perfect; the second is often very imperfect, because the Spirit is grieved and the work of God hindered.
A beloved servant of the Lord, now with Him, used to speak of Matthew 14 and 15 as being the soul’s education for the assembly. We learn by the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist that lawlessness and lust are in the ascendant in the world and will not tolerate any divine restraint. Jesus departs into a desert place; He leaves the ordered system of things, where lawless lust refused God, and in the desert He heals the sick and feeds the hungry multitude. As the righteous One He withdraws from all the lawlessness that is here, and as the gracious One He attracts need to Himself and satisfies the desire of the needy. He becomes the resource of needy man, outside the world as a lawless system. Each of us has to learn Him thus.
Then He walked on the sea to the disciples whom He had sent “before him unto the other side”. He made Himself known to them in a power and supremacy that could attach to none but the Son of God (see Matthew 14: 33). Peter recognised that the Lord could not only walk on the sea Himself, but He could empower Peter to walk there too. Nothing would satisfy the ardent affection of the disciple but to be in association with the blessed One who attracted his heart. The truth was not yet made known that “He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one” (Hebrews 2: 11), but Peter anticipated it in his affections. It is affection such as this which constitutes one a living stone for Christ’s assembly. The soul under the power and attraction of the Son of God is prepared to leave everything that is suited to man naturally, in order to be in association with One who has become its supreme object! How much we know of that attraction, and how much we possess of the ardent affection that thus responds to it, let each heart answer for itself!
[p. 127] Then in chapter 15 the Lord exposes the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, and shows the impossibility of anything for God coming from such a defiled source as the heart of the natural man. But if there was nothing for God in the heart of man, there was everything for man in the heart of God, and this appears in the healing of the daughter of the woman of Canaan, who had not the slightest claim to anything, and again in the healing and feeding of the multitude. How blessed it is to be thus turned altogether away from man to God! No one is prepared as material for Christ’s assembly until he comes to this. “The leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” clings to one until by a divine work in his soul he turns altogether from man to God. It would be a pity if we deceived ourselves by supposing that we knew all about this. Most of us, perhaps, are only beginning to see the necessity for this great conversion, and how much is involved in it. Thank God if we have got so far!
Do not be deceived by orthodoxy. The Pharisee was orthodox to the backbone, but he would ally himself with the free-thinking Sadducee in opposition to Christ! Christ is the only one who is of God and for God, and the introduction of Christ means the setting aside of man in the flesh altogether. Neither the Pharisee nor the Sadducee will hear of this for a moment, and hence they are ever in deadly hostility to the Christ of God. If anything has place in our souls which is of man, whether it be ritualism, rationalism, or human sentiment, it is a point of weakness which Satan can attack and overcome. But if we are brought in the consciousness of our souls to realise that everything of man as in the flesh has been set aside in the holy judgment of the cross, and that everything that is of God and for God subsists in Christ, there is no point of attack furnished for Satan. He finds nothing in Christ that he can work upon or overthrow. The assembly, as built by Christ, is composed of those who are in the life of Christ by the Spirit and who own [p. 128] no other, and therefore the gates of hades cannot prevail against it. Satan can overthrow everything that is of man, but he cannot prevail against what is of Christ.
The Lord said to Peter, “Thou art Peter [a stone], and on this rock I will build my church”. There is something in common between a stone and a rock; a stone is a small piece of the same material as a rock. Peter was a bit of the Rock, and that is what saints are. As taught by the Father to appreciate Christ, and to turn from what is not Christ, we are of kindred nature with Christ. “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified, are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Hebrews 2: 11).
If we look around in the world we see that people generally have little or no interest in Christ; His things are dry and unmeaning to them. But there are hearts that thrill with joy in the sense of His blessedness and love. What makes the difference? Just this, that it has been well-pleasing to the Father to reveal something of that blessed One to babes (Matthew 11:25). It is infinitely better to be the smallest, feeblest babe, to perceive the greatness and glory and love of Christ than to be the most honoured person in the world without any appreciation of Him. It is good when Christ can say to one, Thou art Peter — you are of kindred nature to Myself! Of course it is necessarily so if He is our life, and in the Spirit we own no other. The Father has taken us up to bring this about in us. If Christ has thrown self and the world and man in the flesh into the shade in the estimation of our hearts it is clear proof that we have been the subjects of a divine work. It is as being such that we are material for Christ’s assembly — divinely formed material for a divine structure. The Christ, the Son of the living God, is now before us, and the consciousness of belonging to Him and being of Him puts us in spirit outside things here and in moral separation from man in the flesh and his world.
I have no doubt it was as the ascended One that the Lord built His assembly. “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God” (John 20: 17). This was the message He sent by Mary after He had made Himself known to her in resurrection. He had secured the living stones, and now He placed them in a new and wondrous association with Himself outside the whole course of things here. His death had severed all their links with the world, and now He opened up another scene before them, in which He placed them in association with Himself in the presence of His Father and His God. It is as being in this holy and divine association with Christ, morally outside and apart from everything that is of man in the flesh, that Christ’s assembly subsists for His pleasure. He has secured a sanctified company of brethren, “all of one” with Himself before the Father. Brought into His life and into His relationship, to have part with Him in the Father’s love — sons with Him who is “the firstborn among many brethren” — His assembly shares His place and glory as the risen and exalted Man. What an immense compass of blessing and privilege is brought before our hearts if we ponder the fact that we are Christ’s assembly — appropriated in a peculiar and special way as His own by the risen and exalted Man!
Then if we participate in His life and place Godward we are also His assembly for His service and interests here. “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20: 21). He was here altogether for the Father; we are to be here altogether for Christ. As of His assembly we know and own no man after the flesh. We belong to a circle where “Christ is everything and in all”, and where we lose sight of all national, religious, and social distinctions. We only recognise Christ, and His saints as having Christ in them, living in His life. We have no one to consider or think of but Christ, no interest but Christ’s, nothing to display but Christ. We are outside everything selfish and sectarian;
[p. 130] we, as in the flesh, have disappeared, being not only dead with Him but buried. As quickened with Him and risen with Him we live in His life, and are His assembly. Beloved Christian, let this thought take possession of your heart, and see if it does not make the things of earth very small for you! You belong to a circle where Christ is everything as object and in all as life, and no other man has any recognition. You are of Christ’s assembly.
Ever since that resurrection day of John 20 Satan’s energies have been put forth to hinder saints from getting a true appreciation of the greatness of the Christ, the Son of the living God, and from getting a divine appreciation of what it is to be His assembly. Satan knows that if these blessed realities were known by the Spirit in our hearts there would be something there against which no power of evil could prevail. What is of Christ cannot be overthrown by the gates of hades. May our hearts be thoroughly arrested and held by the power of this great fact, that we are called to be of Christ’s assembly.
Turn now to Hebrews 3: 1 - 6. “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a Son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end”. We have already seen that Christ is the builder of His assembly, and in the scripture before us He is spoken of as the builder of God’s house. God in the Person of the Son is the builder of His own house, and when [p. 131] it is built the Son is over it. This suggests a close correspondence between Christ’s assembly and God’s house, as viewed in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Christ is in relation to the House of God in two characters, of which Moses and Aaron were types. He is Son over God’s house, and in this He takes the place of Moses, and He is also the “great priest over the house of God” (Hebrews 10: 21) — the true Aaron. He orders and maintains everything for the pleasure of God in His house. It must be clear to everyone that if Christ has an assembly He will certainly maintain in that assembly everything that is of God and for God, so that in Christ’s assembly everything is maintained that is proper to the true and blessed character of God’s house.
Christ the Son is supreme over the House of God. He is the only One who has authority there — the only One who can appoint and order whatever has place there. Everything that has not its source in the word of the Son is in one way or other the outcome of the action of man’s will, and it has no place really in the House of God. For Christians to act in their own will in connection with God’s things is like the sin of Dathan and Abiram, who rebelled against the authority of Moses. Christ is the true Moses, and it is a serious thing to rebel against or slight His authority.
Then in Hebrews 8: 2 He is spoken of as the “minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man”. The service of God is all ordered by Christ in this character. There were holy vessels of old in the sanctuary; we read of five thousand four hundred “vessels of gold and of silver” brought back from Babylon when those returned to Jerusalem who had been in captivity (Ezra 1: 11). The saints as sanctified ones are now the holy vessels. We are set apart in all the efficacy of Christ’s death, and brought into association with Him as risen, so that we may be holy vessels for the service of God in His sanctuary. We are morally formed as holy vessels by being brought [p. 132] into the knowledge of God according to that declaration of His Name which has been made by Christ in resurrection. It is most blessed to see that there is a circle where the Son of God is Minister; to see this gives us a great thought of the assembly — it helps us to realise what He meant in saying, “My assembly”
He ministers to the satisfaction and joy of God His Father, and there are two sides of His ministry. First, He has declared His Father’s name to those whom He has sanctified by His death. He has made known God’s name in all its blessedness as known by Himself. We know the Father by the One who has glorified Him, and on whom His affections rest. He has brought out all the Father’s glory and He is the Object of the Father’s love. How the consideration of this takes us outside the circle of our need, and carries us into the circle of the Father’s love! He said, “I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17: 25, 26). It is in this way by the ministry of the Son that we are morally formed as holy vessels for the sanctuary. If the Father’s love, and Christ the blessed Object of that love, are in us we are morally qualified for the service of God in His sanctuary. But it is by the ministry of the Son that this is brought about; He is “the minister of the sanctuary”; He orders everything in that holy circle.
Then the other side of His ministry is, “In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee”. There is first the making known the Father’s name, and the formation of holy vessels by that revelation, and then there is a response. According to God’s Name so is His praise (Psalm 48: 10). The revelation is declared by the voice of the Son, and the response to it is also voiced by Him. Have our souls ever been exercised about entrance into a circle where the voice of the Son of God is heard? He sings in the midst of His brethren [p. 133] who form the assembly. If we are His brethren He is in us, according to John 17: 26 — “I in them”. His singing is the suited and divine response to the Father’s name and love. If we have a place in the sanctuary it is because we have been formed by the declaration of the Father’s name made by the Son, and we are there to hear how the Son praises in the Father’s presence, that we may sing as He sings. Do we know anything of what it is to be thus formed and filled by Him who is the “minister of the sanctuary”?
What would a company thus formed and filled be to the Father’s heart? It would be a worshipping company such as He seeks (John 4: 23). The Son of God presents His brethren in the sanctuary, all of one with Himself, for the satisfaction of the Father’s heart. May we understand better what it is to be His brethren, and to belong to the circle where He ministers. Then we shall know better the meaning of the words, “MY ASSEMBLY”.
In conclusion I desire to say a few words about Christ as the great Priest over God’s house. He is presented in that character in Hebrews 10: 19 - 22. This is in connection with our privilege of drawing near. God delights to have His saints near to Himself, enjoying the liberty of His house. He has not only manifested His love in the gift of His beloved Son, but He has given the Holy Spirit as the powerful Witness of His love in our hearts. We are assured by a divine Witness of the efficacy of Christ’s work, and of the unspeakable love of God as the source of all our blessing. There is not a cloud on the love of God, or a spot on our consciences to keep us from enjoying it. There is nothing to keep us at a distance from the blessed God, but everything to attract us into nearness to Him.
Everything connected with our old state and history was dealt with and removed in the death of Christ, but that is not all. The revelation of God has come out in the death of His Son, who came into death, not only to banish every cloud [p. 134] and remove every spot, but in order that there might be a way paved with divine love over which our souls might travel adoringly into nearness to God. It is “a new and living way”; it lives in all the blessedness of divine love, and Christ is the One who has opened it up. He had to remove in holy judgment all that we were, but in the very place where He did so He disclosed the depths of the heart of God, that we might live in the love of God.
The One who has done all this is the “great priest over the house of God”. He is the great Centre and power of attraction by which those who love Him are withdrawn from every rival influence and led into the blessed privilege of approach to God. He attracts those whom He has sanctified — His brethren — because they are kindred to Himself, and in being drawn away from everything else to Him they give spiritual evidence of being, in truth, His assembly.
It is as we “draw near” that we realise the blessedness of Christ the Son as the “minister of the sanctuary”. He leads our hearts into the holy love of God, and into the vast and glorious purposes of that love which find their Centre in Himself and their circumference in a universe of bliss filled by Him with the knowledge and praise of God. He thus secures a company in the intelligence of what is in the mind of God, and knowing the love of God, and therefore capable for the service of God in praise and worship. Thus the House of God is furnished with a company morally suited to its greatness. Nothing less than Christ’s assembly would be morally suited to the greatness and blessedness of God’s house. God’s house is filled, in the sense that there is a company there capable of entering into His mind and the thoughts of His loveable to trace adoringly the perfection of His ways in Christ — and thus able to give Him now the praise and glory that is due to Him. Those who thus fill God’s house are the sanctified company of which Christ speaks as “MY ASSEMBLY”.