CHRIST LIVING TO GOD
I desire, dear brethren, to call attention to the present position of Christ as risen from amongst the dead, that He is living to God. That is a most absolute statement, “he lives to God”. All His activities in the assembly, all His activities indeed of every day, have God in view. He is living to God. That is a most wonderful thing to take account of, for the intention is that we should be affected by it so that, as it says, we reckon ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”, v 11. That means that there is a great system of life Godward, come into view in the assembly, which takes character from Christ and which He has brought in and is sustaining. He lives to God and now He secures us, the saints, as living to God. It is a most wonderful thing to think of. It is intended to lay hold of us that the Lord has nothing less before Him but considering for God in all that He is doing. He is very active indeed, as we know. We have spoken of His sympathy and His support and all His activities in relation to the saints, but all these things have God in mind. They have in mind that God should find pleasure in His people, and that His people should find their object in God, and that God should be continually served in their thanksgivings and praises. In this they are not only viewed in their individual capacity but it has in mind the assembly, as it says in the passage we read in Colossians, “and he is the head of the body, the assembly”; and then it immediately says, “who is the beginning, firstborn from among the dead”, Col 1: 18.
Everything for God begins with Christ in resurrection, and we are to take account of that, dear brethren, that this is the beginning of things for God. It is the end of things so far as man is concerned, his abilities and his power and so on; they all end in death. Our dear brother whom the Lord has now taken has had a long life, and it has been a life, I think we can say, dedicated to God and having fruit, too, for the pleasure of God, both in his service and influence and example, and in his family, too. That has been a life that is fruitful for God. That does not end in death. The good that has been sown in his lifetime calls for resurrection. Resurrection is a necessity, an essential thing. Everything that is of God wrought out in the lives of the saints, as taking character from Christ, demands resurrection. We are in the light of that and it is in resurrection that everything that is going to abide eternally for the pleasure of God will come into view. So this is not only a matter of light to us but it has already begun, because He is “the beginning, firstborn from among the dead”. This is something to lay hold of, beloved brethren, that resurrection is not merely an item of faith, but it is already an actuality in Christ. The resurrection world has begun in Christ, it has begun with Christ, and all that is to subsist for the pleasure of God is to take character from the One who is “the beginning, firstborn from among the dead”.
So that was what one was impressed with, beloved brethren. “In that he lives, he lives to God” is a most absolute statement, and it is to affect us all that the Lord in all His present activities and influence has God in view and what is for the pleasure of God, and then He Himself is the setting on of it in His manhood. He is “the beginning, firstborn from among the dead” (Col 1: 18), and so we have death before us, but in the light that there is a vast world of pleasure for God which has already begun in Christ risen from the dead. All those who have fallen asleep in Jesus belong to it and will be brought out of death to have their part in it. We “the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air”, 1 Thess 4: 17.
The resurrection will be more extensive than what relates to those that belong to the assembly. It will take in all the saints who have died from Abel downwards. What a moment it will be! the moment of the resurrection! And it will not be simply something that we rejoice in for ourselves or for those who have part in it, but it will also be because of what is there for God. He has had in Jesus here in flesh and blood condition what was infinitely pleasing to Him in every detail, but now that will be extended in glorious conditions in resurrection life, and there will be a vast company for the pleasure of God, and Christ is Himself the beginning of it. He sets the thing on; “he lives to God”. He would leave that impression upon us, I believe, that everything He is doing has God in mind, and He would have us take that on, too, so that we may learn through grace to seek to live and move here in relation to what is to subsist for the pleasure of God. May the Lord just leave that as an impression upon us, and help us for His Name’s sake!
ENFIELD
20th December 1965
From Ministry of the Word, 1966
At the burial meeting for Mr F E Shimwell
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