CHRIST AND THE ASSEMBLY
J. Collie-Smith
John 12: 24; Genesis 2: 18, 20, 23
It was a wonderful moment when it could be predicated of a divine Person that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. That was a great moment, for it was God Himself come into this scene, and John, looking at the Lord Jesus here in time, speaks of Him as the Word.
No doubt, it was a designation which was the outcome of reverential affection on the part of the disciples, not exactly an official title, but I believe the outcome of their intimate knowledge of Jesus here as the One who was the entire expression of the mind of God. He had come in and out amongst men in that condition, in the most ordinary circumstances of life; but wherever He was or whatever He was doing, He was the expression of God, that is, the mind and heart of God were brought to light in Jesus here.
John gives us some exquisite touches in regard of the Person of Jesus; on the one hand guarding jealously His deity, and on the other giving some beautiful touches in regard of His humanity, for His coming into manhood did not bring about any deterioration in His Person.
John shows us Jesus sitting on a well-side, wearied with His journey. He sat just as He was there; but He was no less in His glorious Person than God Himself. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John 1: 1. That Person is seen moving about as presented in this gospel, and every feature that came out in Him was really an expression of the Father; that is God as Father, for John delights to speak of Him in this way. After companying with His disciples at the close of that pathway, in answer to an enquiry as to the Father, He could say, “he that has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14: 9), that is, the features that came out in Jesus were identical with the features of the Father. There was no discrepancy. Although He was here in flesh and blood condition, He was in every way what He said; “Altogether that which I also say unto you”, and here in those conditions of humiliation He declared the blessed God. He had come here for the effectuation of the will of God; the great thoughts of divine counsel. He had come here to effect those counsels; but as here in flesh and blood those counsels could not be effectuated until the Grain of wheat fell into the ground and died. The Lord already, in chapter 9 of John’s gospel, in making the ointment with His spittle, had conveyed to the blind man in anointing his eyes, that the condition in which He was found here was a temporary one. The man must be relieved of the thought that Jesus would continue here in that condition. So, as you are aware, he was sent to the pool of Siloam to wash and he came seeing; the sequel to that, as seen towards the end of the chapter, shows that he apprehended the Son of God in the glorious condition in which He is the Sun and Centre of another world.
But the Lord Himself shows, in the verse which I cited, that.in the condition in which He was then, spoken of in scripture, in Hebrews 5, as “the days of his flesh”, there could be no expansion, there could be no enlargement, nor could there be the effectuation of the will of God and the securing of His great thoughts, without this loneliness in which He was found being terminated. I doubt if we can gauge this intense loneliness which that unique order and condition of humanity imposed upon the Lord Jesus here. We sometimes sing—
‘Love in Thy lonely life
Of sorrow here, below’.
He was alone because of who He was and because of the condition in which He was found, a Man of an entirely new order, a Man out of heaven, “the second Man”, but in a condition which was provisional and which terminated, because it was in the mind of God that the Lord Jesus, “the grain of wheat”, should fall into the ground and die, in order that there might be much fruit corresponding in character and order with Himself.
Whilst, no doubt, the Lord has the present dispensation particularly in mind when He speaks thus, I believe that the thought is a very wide one and corresponds with the general outlook in John’s gospel, which has the whole scene in mind. So that I think we are right in regarding this passage as including all who are the fruit of the precious death of Christ. The Lord indicates here that as the fruit of His own precious death there will be a vast harvest which will fill the granary of God, for I do not believe that God will have anyone in His universe that is not of Christ’s order. You can only have Adam or Christ, and, depend upon it, God has excluded Adam in totality, he cannot have a footing in His world. So, I believe, the fruit of the Grain of wheat will populate the whole universe, so that God will have men of the same order as Christ. That is, in a general way, every family named of the Father, whether in heaven or in earth, will all spring from the Grain of wheat. But as I remarked, what the Lord had immediately in mind was the present moment, and we are entitled to take account of ourselves as the fruit of His precious death, many grains all like the Grain as to quality and as to characteristics. I would like the youngest to understand that our association with Christ is not in flesh and blood; it cannot be. He is no longer in that condition, it has been terminated. Christendom is
built up upon the fact of Jesus being here in flesh; it has not, like the blind man, been relieved of the thought that He would continue here in that condition. The loneliness which that imposed upon Him has been terminated. He has died and He has ended that condition in order that others may participate with Him in the new and glorious condition upon which He has entered. I believe that is involved in the Sanctifier and the sanctified being “all of one”, which is peculiar to the assembly. I do not think that any family will share in that, so that He is not ashamed to call us brethren. That, I believe, is a thought which will not be shared with any other family.
All that is intended to affect our minds, to affect us inwardly; and indeed, outwardly, and to free us in our spirits; so that we are freed from the pressure of death, and we are free to have part with Christ in the glorious order and condition of humanity in which we now know Him.
He has laid down the condition in which He was found here, but there has been no change in His Person. He is the same, the same Jesus indeed! There has been no change in His affections, but the condition has been changed. You will recall in the opening of John 17 how He appeals to the Father to glorify Him, in order that He might continue the glorification of the Father in the new and eternal condition upon which He has entered. I believe it is necessary to apprehend all that in order to be clear in our minds and in our affections, for our part with Him the other side of death. He is the ascended One. Mary had to learn that too; the Lord disallowed the revival of the old association, giving her to understand now that their links are wholly on spiritual ground, as Paul could say, “If even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer”, 2 Corinthians 5: 16. That condition is terminated, it is over, and I do not think we can
come to the truth of the assembly without taking that road in our souls. We cannot come to Christianity properly without the understanding that Christ has laid down the flesh and blood condition, nor can we come into the spiritual realm which is open to us now that He has gone there, making a way for us; the Spirit on our side giving us power in order to touch realities which lie outside the ken of man. All that is open to us, but I do not think it can be apprehended apart from the taking in of this great thought that the condition in which the Lord was here has been ended. The loneliness which that condition imposed upon Him is terminated. It was a unique condition! They were days never to be forgotten; I believe the days of His flesh are treasured in the affections of Christ, and they will be treasured in the affections of the saints. But they are in the past tense, and we are to know Him now where He is and in the new eternal condition upon which He has entered as glorified. All that, I believe, is the basis of the truth of the assembly, without which we cannot reach divine thoughts as brought to us in Christ, and the great thoughts of God in counsel.
Now that brings me to the passage in Genesis 2. Power was witnessed to in great variety in what was introduced; many living things of various kinds, and Adam in his intelligence was able to name them. No doubt they all suggested something of Christ, some features that would be brought in in Christ, because God had Christ in His mind from the very outset; He had nothing short of Christ in mind at any time. So Adam is able in his intelligence to name all these living things rightly. But as God took account of the situation, there was nothing in that universe teeming with life that could furnish a companion for Adam; there was no counterpart for him. God took account of that. He saw that it was not good for man to be alone. He said, “I will make him a help-mate, his like”—counterpart. So God proceeded to carry out this great thought, no doubt patterned on the ideal of His own counsels. It comes early in the history of His ways, before sin came into the world, and I believe we have in this passage in Genesis 2 a reflex of the mind of God in eternal counsels. So Adam is put into a deep sleep and God, during that time, takes the rib from his side and builds a woman. It is God’s great thought; Adam has no part in it beyond the fact that he is, so to speak, passive in the hands of God as He proceeds with this great masterpiece. But the woman is built and she is brought to Adam. Adam recognises immediately that this is something quite different from anything that had hitherto been brought to him; he perceives that this time it is something quite distinctive and something that he has to introduce new words to describe, and he is equal to that. So he speaks of the woman as “Ishshah” and himself as “Ish”, indicating that now there is the expansion of himself, that he is no longer alone, the loneliness has been terminated and there is a companion, his counterpart. He says, “This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this shall be called Woman, because this was taken out of man”. She was out of him, so that actually she was the increase of himself; and, no doubt, she met every divinely created feeling in the heart of Adam. I do not believe there was a feeling in his heart that was not fully met in his counterpart, because the word counterpart would, I believe, mean that. So Adam has now before him one who is out of himself, one who is like himself, “his like”, and one who can gratify every wish, every feeling of his heart and mind.
All this, dear brethren, is but a reflex of the mind of God concerning Christ and concerning the assembly. It is not that the marriage bond is adopted as an illustration of this great thought;
the truth is that the marriage bond is patterned on it. The marriage bond as seen in Genesis 2
and elsewhere is really the outcome of what God had in His mind in regard of Christ and the assembly. I believe, that when divine Persons went into counsel and arranged that One of the Persons of the Godhead should come into manhood, the incarnation really involved the assembly. I do not think it was an after-thought, for the idea of the man necessarily covered the thought of the woman. It is a great thought, dear brethren, which requires the Spirit in order to understand it. It has been said by another, that it comes close to inscrutability. The apostle speaking of it in the passage in Ephesians 5: 32, says, “This mystery is great, but I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”. A great mystery! Whilst the Spirit enables us to understand it, we cannot compass it; whilst the Spirit gives us spiritual feelings in relation to it, so that we can take in the thought and enjoy it by the Spirit, yet at the same time, the element of mystery still remains, it continues, because of the greatness of it. It is not beyond us in the sense that we cannot understand, because the Spirit will enable us to take it in, that the assembly as a spiritual entity is united to Christ. That is the truth, so that the Spirit is required to take in the thought of union. It lies outside the ability of the human mind to penetrate the truth of it, and it is well that it is so because we are shut up to the Spirit who loves to come in on our side to lead us into the depths of God. I believe this great statement is included in the depths of God, “and the two shall be one flesh”. So we are enabled by the Spirit to drink in the truth of it, and I would urge the youngest here not to rest satisfied without a spiritual understanding of this great matter, because it is the distinctive truth of the moment, it is the distinctive light of the day; it is the light that shone around Paul, it is the light that entered into his ministry, the light for which he suffered. He served and suffered to establish it, and his prayers in the prison were, no doubt, in regard to assembly light, assembly feelings, and exercises. We may regard ourselves as an answer to those prayers in some measure, for his prayer, I believe, reached right down to the end, and what a favour it is to be in a day in which this light is shining—its radiance, its glory, the glory attaching to Christ the Head of the assembly, and the woman for His glory, for the woman is the glory of the man.
This is all to be the exclusive property of those who form the dispensation of faith. Whilst I have suggested that the “grain of wheat” is wider in its application than those who compose the assembly, I am now speaking of something which is the exclusive property of the assembly. The feminine idea will go through into eternity, and it will be known only by the assembly. I have no doubt that Israel will enjoy the thought in the millennium as the earthly bride, but then that will only be provisional. When we come to the great eternal thoughts of God, going back into counsel and purpose, Christ and the assembly—the masculine thought in Christ and the feminine thought in the assembly—that is an eternal thought. It is also true that both the brethren of Christ and sonship will go through—these, too, are eternal. But what I have in mind, dear brethren, is to give you, if I can, some little impression of the greatness of Christ and the assembly, because if you miss that you miss the distinctive light of our day, no matter what else you may enjoy. You may enjoy the forgiveness of sins, you may enjoy justification, you may enjoy reconciliation, but if you do not touch the reality and power of the vessel for which Christ has delivered Himself up, which He loves, which He cherishes, which He ministers to and which He will
have as His eternal counterpart, I say, if you do not get that, well, you miss what is distinctive, what is special, what is peculiar to our own dispensation.
I would urge the young, particularly—do not allow time to slip past and to be engaged with trivial matters, things which are passing, and allow the great thoughts of God in respect of Christ and the assembly to slip by without your having contact with them in a spiritual way, because all this is intended to enter into the formation of our souls. God will have the assembly for His pleasure, and you can depend upon it, it will not be an artificial matter; there will be formation, the vessel will be built, constructed, formed by God Himself—the Spirit, of course, entering into it. All the discipline, the sorrow and the suffering related to time, what in themselves are provisional things, are put under tribute to the eternal, so that God will have the assembly as His great masterpiece. There will be no discrepancy in it, there will be no shortage, no deficiency; His great thoughts will be fully answered in that vessel.
Now you, if you are a believer, if you have the Spirit, are an essential part of it, a component part of that vessel; it will not be complete without you, and, if so, how important then to get a spiritual apprehension of it. I beg of you not to go on without getting a spiritual touch in regard of this great matter, because the assembly now is about to wind up its history here; it has not very far to go, and time will lie behind and it will be eternity. It will be the tabernacle of God with men. God will dwell with men; but I believe it will be through the medium of the assembly. “The tabernacle of God is with men”, Revelation 21: 3. God will dwell with them.
So if we touch in some little measure the richness, the greatness of God’s original thoughts in connection with Christ and the vessel of His choice, then I believe there will be spiritual substance imparted to our souls which will survive the break-up of everything here, and which will be carried over into its permanent eternal dwelling.
‘Where God Himself vouchsafes to dwell
And every bosom fill’.
Address at Croydon
1949