"ALL OF ONE" (AN ADDRESS AT BRIXHAM 23 MAY 1924)
“ALL OF ONE” (AN ADDRESS AT BRIXHAM 23 MAY 1924)
This scripture helps us as to the relation in which Christ stands to the assembly as Head, and as to the gain which the assembly derives from having such a Head. It will be remembered that in instituting the Supper the Lord took a place on our side. That is, He gave thanks; He appropriated for His saints in thanksgiving all that was involved in His body being for us. I understand that to be what He does as the Sanctifier. Chapter 10 of this epistle tells us that we are “sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once”; the “offering” suggests the blessedness and perfection of what was presented to God in His body. It is not only the removal of all that was contrary to God — we know that He effected that — but the bringing in of what is far greater than what He took away. When He says, “This is my body, which is for you”, it involves the accomplishment of all the will of God, so that we might be set apart from the world and from all that we derived from Adam, and identified with all the perfection that has come in for God’s pleasure in Himself.
Then He has also brought us to know God as revealed in love through His death. This is new covenant blessing. It is in apprehending the import of this that we understand what it is to be sanctified, and to be all of one with the Sanctifier. In truly eating the Supper we are nourished and cherished afresh in the state and affections of the sanctified company. And in this way we are found morally suited to Christ as Head. He can take a place on our side,
[p. 171] and call us His brethren. In that circle He is reverenced, and looked up to with affectionate subjection. What a character that gives to the joy of the assembly!
Just a word as to the way in which the assembly knows the new covenant. The Lord Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you”, Luke 22: 20. I should like every christian to consider how Christ knew the love of God. He knew it in a sorrowing and suffering heart, and that gives character to the way in which the assembly knows it. Israel will know the love of God in millennial conditions; there will be neither adversary nor evil occurrent; they will be surrounded by a scene of perfect peace and joy. But Christ knew the love of God in sorrow and suffering, and we know the love of God in the midst of a scene of desolation and sorrow — a scene that is darkened for our hearts by its rejection of Christ. The conditions here are those of tribulation and grief, but in the presence of these things we taste the love of God in a sweetness that surpasses what will be known in millennial blessedness. Then let not sorrowing hearts be discouraged; the sorrows and trials give peculiar character to the present time, and it would not be well for us to escape the sorrow and lose the blessedness of being all of one with Christ on that side. The night of His delivering up gives character to the whole of this period. The real sorrow of the assembly is that Christ is not accepted here. The Lord had many sorrows here, but what He felt most of all was that there was no room for God here. The sorrow of the assembly is that there is no room for Christ here; men see no form nor lordliness in Him. But grace has wrought so that there are those who appreciate Him, to whose hearts there is none so lordly as the Christ of God. We have this wonderful and glorious Person — this lordly One — as our Head, and we are all of one with Him.
The effect of coming under the influence of what is [p. 172] presented to us in the loaf and the cup is that we get the consciousness that we have a Head who has sanctified us. He has set us apart from the world, and from all that we were as in flesh that we might be enriched with all the blessedness of Himself. Then we are regarded by Him as His brethren. He says, “I will declare thy name to my brethren”. We are familiar with the setting of that wonderful word in Scripture. It comes in Psalm 22 after the deep sorrow of the sin-offering has been passed through, and the Lord has come forth in resurrection. Everything that was contrary to God having been judged and removed in that offering, all that God’s name means in the blessedness of full revelation can now be declared. He has been glorified in death, and a company has been sanctified by being brought to participate in the fruit of Christ’s body being given for them and of the love of God as revealed through death. It is to a sanctified company that the Father’s name can be made known — a company that was in the Father’s purpose, the fruit of sovereign love. It is not that the Lord declares the Father’s name afresh on each occasion when His own come together, but the company is there who can enter afresh into what has been declared by the Lord in resurrection.
The declaration of the Father’s name has been made so that the love which rests on Christ the Head may be in the saints. This is something more than the love of God to men in new covenant character, a love that took account of all that man was, and met it all through death, and brought out what God is in relation to it. But this is a love of complacency — the love that rested upon the Son in manhood. The declaration of the Father’s name involves the making known the relationship that subsisted between Himself and the Son in manhood — the making known of the love which belonged to that relationship. This was the culminating point of the Lord’s prayer. “I have made [p. 173] known to them thy name, and will make it known; that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”, John 17: 26. That love was not only to be known objectively, but was to be in the saints, their consciously known and enjoyed portion.
Now the Head is seen in a new activity. In the midst of the assembly He hymns God, and the assembly is in accord with His singing. Sinners saved by grace can sing, and that song is heard in many places; but one would like to be familiar with a spot where Christ the Head can sing. He sings in the midst of those who are sympathetic and in accord with His singing. Have our hearts ever been thrilled with that song — His own response to the love of complacency and relationship in which He is with the Father? The thought in a hymn is the bringing out of the blessedness of the Person who is addressed in affectionate response, and, beloved brethren, let us remember that as the called and sanctified company we are “all of one” with Christ in that. There is no discord between the voice of the Head and the voice of the assembly.
Then in Hebrews 2: 13 we read, “And again, I will trust in him”. I take it that this is a quotation from Isaiah 8: 17, “I will wait for Jehovah”. Our Lord is the Head of a waiting company. He has become a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to Israel, and instead of the kingdom glories a period has intervened of the patience of the Christ. He speaks to Philadelphia about the word of His patience. Are we all of one with Him in that? Surely we are if we recognise His headship. And while waiting we trust; we are privileged to wait with quiet restful confidence in God. “He instructed me not to walk in the way of this people”, Isaiah 8: 11. Are we having our portion or city now, or are we waiting for it? Abraham waited for a city.
During this waiting time the testimony is bound up and the law sealed among His disciples. Our Lord is Head of a [p. 174] witnessing company. He is the Head of a worshipping company towards the Father; He is the Head of a waiting company in regard to all the conditions of this world where the kingdom of God is not established, and He is also the Head of a witnessing company amongst whom the divine testimony is bound up.
It may be pointed out that the word “disciples” is the same as “instructed” as applied to the Lord in Isaiah 50: 4. The assembly is “all of one” with Christ in regard of learning the mind of God. Think of His having the tongue of the instructed, or disciple, His ear wakened morning by morning to hear as the instructed! The true teacher is the one whose ear is open to be instructed. He was the instructed One, hearing from the Father and communicating to His disciples the things which He heard. His ear was opened “morning by morning”! Do not let us miss a day without having some fresh communication from God.
Mark what is said, “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples”, Isaiah 8: 16. This necessitates that things are to be firmly held, bound up and sealed. Beware of associations in which the testimony and the law are loosely held! Things all around us are rapidly changing — winds of teaching changing every hour. To stand for God in such times we need to know what it is to have the testimony bound up and the law sealed amongst the disciples.
“Behold, I and the children that Jehovah hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel”, Isaiah 8: 18. Is there not instruction for us in the fact that He says “in Israel”? It suggests that the distinctive place of testimony in the last days is amongst the professing people of God. Many are zealous for missions to the heathen! May God bless every such effort! But let us not forget that the Lord [p. 175] cherished the children as signs and wonders “in Israel” — that is, amongst the people of God.
If the testimony is to have divine value it must be the testimony of a company owning Christ as Head in the midst of all the lawlessness and confusion and human order which prevails. We are called to be “for signs and wonders” — to be so preserved in the consciousness of our association with Christ, and so under His influence, that what is of Christ may mark us. Signs and wonders would be something quite different from all that is around them. The spirit of Christ, the grace of Christ, the meekness and gentleness of Christ, His faithfulness, His obedience, His love — what signs and wonders are these! All this is involved in being “all of one” with Him. Professing christians often seem to aim at being as like the world as they can; such are not signs and wonders.
Isaiah 8 has a peculiar bearing today, for we are living in days when spiritualism abounds. This is clearly referred to here. “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto the necromancers and unto the soothsayers, who chirp and who mutter, say, Shall not a people seek unto their God? Will they go for the living unto the dead? To the law and the testimony! If they speak not according to this word, for them there is no daybreak”, Isaiah 8: 19, 20. Does not that describe the conditions of today? The testimony of God on the one hand controlling and regulating the family of witness, and on the other hand the testimony of the devil — people going for the living to the dead. The “daybreak” is near for that company which is holding Christ as Head. But for that other company which is drifting into the utter darkness of apostasy “there is no daybreak”.
May God give us holy and serious exercises that we may be found in the deepening recognition of Christ as Head! If we hold Christ as Head we shall hold the truth of the assembly, for the headship of Christ involves it. The great [p. 176] recovery of truth and the spiritual revival of the last century largely grew out of the fact that, by the grace of the Lord, a young man found his heart filled with the thought that there is a Head in heaven.