THE ASSEMBLY FOR GOD’S PLEASURE
Genesis 24:1-4,10,22-27; Matthew 13:45,46; Acts 20:28
We have been occupied with how the Father loves the Son and how the Son loves the Father, and I have been thinking about how the assembly is the product of that love.
In Genesis 24, a scripture which speaks in type of the Father and the Son, all that Abraham did was done out of love for his son Isaac. He said to the servant who was over all his house and over all his wealth, “thou shalt go … and take a wife for my son Isaac”. Abraham was thinking of his son. At this time, Isaac was dwelling in the south country, but it was in the heart of Abraham that Isaac would need a wife, someone to fill his heart. Abraham loved his son whom he had waited for. Isaac was the son he had asked God for, and for whom he waited a long time, to the point where he asked God what He would give him, seeing that he was childless and that the heir of his house was his steward Eliezer (Gen.15:2). Abraham had waited a long time until God blessed him with Isaac. Speaking very carefully, God had waited a long time before Christ came into the world as a Man. And when He came, the Father already had in mind that Christ would find a bride, that He would find a wife. It was in the Father’s heart that that would be so. The Lord said, “They were thine, and thou gavest them me” (John 17:6); it has been said that those that the Father gave to the Son were the nucleus of the assembly for Himself3. That came about because the Father loved the Son. A great feature of eternity will be that Christ as Man will be there in satisfaction with His bride, and it will be because the Father loves Him. The servant went out with precious articles of adornment, which belonged to Abraham, but would become the proof of his love for his son Isaac, because a wife was secured for Isaac and she was adorned. These articles involve the thought of purchase and cost.
Matthew 13 says, “Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls; and having found one pearl of great value, he went and sold all whatever he had and bought it”. Christ has done that! This is different from redemption, for the assembly as such is not redeemed. The difference between redemption and purchase is this: redemption is necessary because it involves our moral history, it involves re-establishing the rights of God, it resolves interruption of relationships: all of those things needed to be corrected and re-established by redemption. But purchase involves desire; it has in mind the obtaining of something that is precious. So this merchant in the parable had a desire in his heart. It represents the Lord’s desire that He would have a companion. But what was the reason? We sometimes think of Christ’s desire for an answer to His heart, and rightly so, for He desired something for Himself, but why did He want such a vessel for Himself? Because Christ loved the Father: He had said prophetically, “in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee”, Ps.22:22. As well as the assembly as a bride for Himself, He had in mind the assembly as a vessel in which He could sing the praises of God. These praises as led by Christ will be sustained for the pleasure of God; that is an expression of the Son’s love for the Father. So the merchant found this pearl of great value and “went and sold all whatever he had and bought it”. The greatness of the purchase price was according to the love of the Son for the Father. There is a glorious vessel now that exists and is the fulness of Christ, a vessel in which the divine love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father, is known.
I read in Acts 20 because, as we take account of the assembly as a vessel of praise, and as we see it for all that it is for divine Persons, that involves our responsibility as believers. The sign that we understand in our measure the love between the Father and the Son is that we will value what they value and we will hold what they hold, and it will be precious to us. So Paul says, “Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”. The cost of what was secured by the Father and the Son because of their affection for one another was the blood of Christ. Do we value that, beloved brethren? Do we value what it was that Christ’s blood was shed? Do we value what it was for God that the blood was shed to make that purchase? Do we value the love that the Father has for the Son and the Son for the Father, that we would “Take heed … to all the flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”?. Beloved brethren, if we love God, if we understand something of the love that lay behind this purchase, and if we understand, as far as we are able to, the cost which was involved, we will care for the assembly of God. That does not mean that we will keep it in a legal way, but we will love the assembly which Christ loves, we will love it because the Father loves it and we will hold on to it and care for it as something precious to ourselves also.
May it be so for the Lord’s name’s sake.
Terry W Lock
Three words given at a meeting for ministry, St Ives
27 September 2021