WALKING IN DIVINELY PRESCRIBED CONDITIONS
[p. 54] WALKING IN DIVINELY PRESCRIBED CONDITIONS
My thought is to seek to point out the advantages of walking in divinely prescribed conditions, and I shall take the liberty of referring to these conditions as embodying God’s covenant. Whenever God is pleased to make a covenant, that covenant involves the conditions in which those are set with whom, or in regard of whom, the covenant at any given time is constituted. Moreover the privileges consequent upon the covenant depend upon the observation of the conditions on the part of those who are set in them.
Now, whilst God has not made a covenant directly with us, the assembly, nevertheless the conditions under which the assembly was inaugurated were involved in the new covenant; in other words, the assembly was established in the world under the conditions involved or set forth in the new covenant. The apostle Paul took the ground of being a minister of the new covenant. He said that God had made him, with others, a competent minister of the new covenant, “Not”, he says, “of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life”, 2 Corinthians 3: 6. “The Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”, 2 Corinthians 3: 17. In other words, as I understand it, the apostle and his associates in their ministry established the conditions under which the assembly was inaugurated, as it has come to us in this world.
I refer to that at the outset to get an understanding of the conditions in which the early christians were set. As I said, the apostle took the ground of being a minister and that was in the spirit of the covenant. Then he goes on to explain that the Lord is that Spirit, and in order to understand the expression,
[p. 55] you must understand the gospels. The gospels present to us the Lord, so that when you read the gospels and understand them, you say that is the Lord. So the apostle says, “The Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. In other words, the apostle brought in not only a system of doctrine, but the “Spirit of the Lord”. He brought into this world, I might say, into the gentile world, the Spirit of the Lord, and what followed upon that was that the gentile believer and the Jewish believer were set in relationship with one another in a spirit of liberty. That is what the apostle James, as I understand it, calls the “Law of liberty”, so that christianity was established in the world in the Spirit of Christ. It was established in the law; it was controlled by the law, but that law was the Spirit of the Lord which was liberty. I conceive that to be, in a brief way, the conditions under which the early christians were set. James, as I said, calls it the “Perfect law of liberty”, James 1: 25.
I wish to come back to that, but, first of all, I go to the Old Testament in order to show that the advantages of the covenant, or the advantages of the conditions in which God was pleased to set up man at a given time, were only enjoyed as the conditions were complied with.
Now, take Adam; you remember the remark of the prophet Hosea referring to Israel, “They like Adam have transgressed the covenant”. From that we can gather that, in the mind of God, He established a covenant with Adam. He placed Adam here on earth under certain conditions. Adam was set up under certain conditions; they were briefly expressed. Adam was put under law, but the Spirit of God calls it the covenant, and we may dwell upon it with interest. There was a being deriving all that he was morally from God. All that he was morally he derived from God; and, as deriving from God, there [p. 56] was that which answered to God, and so placed him in conditions, in circumstances, which in every way enhanced his relationship with God. The environment was calculated to enhance his relationship with God. Everything tended to promote interest in, and love to, his Creator. Consequent upon that, God came into the garden.
You may perhaps have difficulty as to divine Persons moving towards you, but I just call attention to it as the scripture presents it. God came into the garden. He was not there always, but He came in, not in order to discover the sinner, Adam, for the scripture does not present that. “The Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day”. He came into it at a moment which would be most advantageous to Adam, for I need not remind you that the elements had no effect upon God. If the cool of the day referred to anything, it referred to Adam. That happy relationship between God the Creator and the being whom He had created was in God’s mind, so He came in and walked in the garden in the cool of the day and He called for Adam. There was the creature to whom God had imparted that which was intended to answer to Himself, and God looked for response. There would have been a full answer on God’s part to man as under covenant conditions, and as abiding in the covenant Adam might count upon the divine presence, upon what I may speak of as divine visitation. One may easily infer that these would continue, as God would vouchsafe His presence to Adam in the garden. Instead of having response from His creature, He found Adam hiding.
But I pass on to another covenant; I pass over to Noah. Although there was a most remarkable covenant made with Noah and his sons and the beasts of the field, and with the earth, the Scriptures do not open up to us what Noah and his sons and [p. 57] family might have enjoyed. They do not open that up to us, because, as in Adam’s case, so in Noah’s, directly he was set up here under the terms of the covenant, he completely failed, so that the full bearing of the consequence of the covenant, or what it involved, is not brought out.
When we come to Abraham, God is free to open up to us both by light and actual fact what His mind is for His people. Now, we have here the thought of sovereignty and power, “I am the Almighty God; walk before me”, I want you to take that in. Here is God opening up to Abraham the light of His power. Abraham was to walk before God; that is a divine thought, to walk before God. Now God enters into covenant with Abraham at once, and that was the covenant of circumcision, I cannot enlarge on this covenant, the peculiar blessings consequent upon the observation of the terms, but Abraham answered to the terms, he was circumcised, his son Ishmael, all his males, and all his house. He brought the truth of circumcision into his house; he was equal to the terms of the covenant. Next, following upon that, he was in his tent door and God visited Abraham! A wonderful moment! I take it to be the supreme moment of his history; his house and all that he had were answering to the conditions, the acknowledgment of it being seen in circumcision, and he received a divine visitation.
Now, I want you to ponder these things, that God should vouchsafe to us His own presence, as we walk in the observation of the conditions. No one with spiritual instinct could fail to delight in the picture in Genesis 18. God made a covenant with Abraham, and with becoming activity on the part of Abraham, he was circumcised from the flesh, for the flesh never pleased God. His activities, and those of Sarah in the presence of God, were in every way in keeping with the occasion, and then we see how [p. 58] God associates with Abraham. He lingered with him. The angels went to Sodom, but God lingered, and He said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing? ... For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him”.
I pass on to Israel. The next covenant that we have is what God proposed to Israel. Having taken them out of Egypt, He brought them to Himself upon eagles’ wings. Think of that, eagles’ wings! “I have borne you on eagles’ wings”. What interest there was with God at that moment! It was when Israel was young. “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son”, Hosea 11: 1. It is upon youthfulness that divine love found an outlet. “I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth”, Jeremiah 2: 2. What delight God had with Israel! “I have borne you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself”. I now make a proposal to you, “If ye will ... keep my covenant, then shall ye be my own possession out of all the peoples” and then I can place you anywhere, “For all the earth is mine”. But, He says, ‘I want you to understand the terms of My covenant’. That is Exodus 19. Exodus 20 contains the terms of the covenant, and at the close of that chapter, we have the same principle established, as I have already pointed out. The Lord says there, “In all places where I shall make my name to be remembered, I will come unto thee, and bless thee”. God would come to His people. The fact is this, the very highest blessing is the presence of divine Persons. What could exceed it in the soul’s enjoyment? What could exceed the consciousness of the presence of divine Persons? “In all places where I shall make my name to be remembered, I will come unto thee”. These were the terms offered to Israel in connection with the covenant, I am not dwelling on the dark side in all these cases, for the divine end was never reached. The fact is, we never [p. 59] reach anything except on the principle of what is new. It is always on the principle of what is new, some new thing that God brings us into. As I have been saying, the apostle Paul takes the ground of being a minister of what is new, and I believe the best way to understand the covenant is to understand Paul’s ministry.
Referring to the passages read, I would remind you that the Lord spoke these words at the Supper. These sayings of the Lord all took place on the occasion when the Supper was instituted and I want you to bear that in mind. Whilst John does not give us the covenant in any formal terms, what he does give is the spirit of it; that is the great thing. What I have especially before me is that we might get some impression of the spirit of it. The apostle says, “The Lord is that Spirit”. Whilst Matthew and Luke refer formally to the covenant (the Lord said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”) John gives us the spirit of it; that is the important feature. I do desire that our souls would lay hold of the spirit of it. The apostle says, “The Lord is that Spirit”, and if you want to get that and understand what it is, you have to read the gospels and study John 13. There you have the Lord; I say, ‘That is the Lord’. You understand what I mean? A man does something beneficial, he does something that is advantageous to the people, and we say, ‘That is the man’. Now John 13 is the Lord.
You will never become acquainted with Christ save in that way. You must get at the spirit of the thing; and where that is — the Spirit of the Lord — there is liberty. Did you ever see love bound up? Love always finds an outlet. The apostles show the activity of divine love here, and it was never shut up. It always found an outlet, and that is what the gospels bring to us. The more you know of the Lord, the more you love and understand the spirit of [p. 60] the covenant. So the apostle James says, “So act, as those that are to be judged by the law of liberty”. How do your actions stand in the light of that? Suppose you measure yourself in the light of the apostle’s word. He says, ‘Now you are to act as those who are to be judged by the perfect law of liberty’. Well, you have no need to wait for the judgment seat of Christ. The perfect law of liberty is the code of christianity. It is the present code of the people of God. The apostle says, ‘The Lord is the Spirit of it’. The covenant of John 13 — ponder it, that is the Lord, that is what He is, look at Him — He lays aside His garments, He takes a towel, basin and water. That is the Lord. Whatever the thought is, that is the Spirit of God’s way of presenting Christ to us. You see what I have done, “Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet”. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you”. How do you love? How are you going to answer to the perfect law of liberty? There it was in Christ. “As I have loved you ... love one another”. What happy terms, what blessed terms are those under which we are placed! The Lord Jesus presents to us the spirit of it. We are to be formed according to that. The apostle says, “We all”, that is, each one of us, “looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face”. What is that glory but the expression of what He is? He who carried out the divine will here, that is the Lord! “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face”. What is His glory? His glory was the effectuation of the divine will. He was the spirit of the covenant. “We all ... are transformed according to the same image”. We are in correspondence with one another. We are all made alike. It is His mind to bring us into correspondence; that [p. 61] does away with all social distinctions. We are brought into correspondence with Christ and with one another. It is the perfect law of liberty which does the levelling. If we are glorying, we are all happy, we are glorying in that which God has done for us. We are brought to correspond with Christ and with one another. There is no discrepancy between you and me. The divine mind is to bring us into correspondence with Christ and with one another, so that there is no discrepancy. You have nothing to boast in more than I. We are brought into correspondence by the glory of the Lord.
John 13 intimates the terms of the covenant in the spirit. The Lord puts things on the true basis, according to the divine basis. “If ye love me, keep my commandments”, and then He unfolds the same principle that I pointed out earlier. We may say, there is nothing said about the covenant in John, nothing said about the Supper, but there is something really greater than the outward form, there is the spirit of the thing. The outward form is of little account apart from the spirit of it. Elsewhere, the Supper is formally presented to us and also the covenant, but John gives the spirit of it. The Lord presents it, and we are put into correspondence with it now, “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter”. I do not dwell upon this. He then says, “I am coming to you”. Now, that is what I want to dwell upon for a moment. He says, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”. Now, take that verse with the preceding one about the Father coming and the Son coming; you can clearly see that you have the same principle established that appeared in the garden of Eden, that appeared in connection with Abraham, and also with Israel. As you serve Him in the terms of the covenant, you have the divine Presence. No one can [p. 62] undertake to exhaust a subject like this; I only want to suggest things to you, I would hesitate to define. All that ministry can do is to present impressions or thoughts for you to work out. You will find out first of all, without any conditions being stated, the truth of the word, “I will come to you”; secondly, that He comes to the individual and manifests Himself, and thirdly that He and the Father come to visit you. I want you to take notice of that active verb. We ought not to hesitate to allow divine Persons to use active verbs, that is — to come.
In maintaining or observing the terms of the covenant, we can depend upon blessing. Such is that which God vouchsafes to His people in this day. In other words, the present moment is a provisional moment, there is nothing final or permanent. It is a provisional moment in view of testimony. The time for eternal blessing is coming; we have it now in measure, and in the meantime we have all that is necessary to sustain us. For the Lord to come to us is one thing, for Him to come for us and receive us to Himself is another thing. To “come to” or “coming to” us is the provisional side of things.