THE STABILITY OF GOD'S PURPOSE
THE STABILITY OF GOD’S PURPOSE
2 Corinthians 5: 14 - 21; 2 Corinthians 6: 1 - 18
FER There is a kind of progress in these chapters which is remarkable. At the end of chapter 1 we have the stability of the promises in the Son of God. Chapter 3 is the ministry of the new covenant and chapter 5 is the ministry of reconciliation. The immense importance of this is to give stability to people. Everything hangs on the stability of God’s purpose. The promises of God cannot lapse at all — whatever promises there are “In him is the yea and in him the amen”. Everything has its confirmation in the Son of God who is preached.
DLH In Galatians you get the same point referred to. The promises to Abraham were confirmed before of God in Christ.
FER Quite so. Everything for man depends on the stability of God’s purpose. In chapter 1 we have the great fact that the promises are confirmed in the Son of God. In chapter 3 we get a point further, we find the terms on which God can be with believers. The great point there is that grace is commensurate with glory, because it is founded on righteousness.
DLH Would you explain ‘grace commensurate with glory’?
FER The measure of grace is the glory of the Lord. The glory of the Lord is the testimony of God’s grace, founded, not on human but on divine righteousness, and the consequence is it is commensurate with glory.
Ques Does that come out in “was raised again for our justification”?
FER No, it is because He is at God’s right hand. Christ in glory is the true expression of God’s grace — grace is commensurate with that — the fact is you cannot measure it. It [p. 167] is immeasurable.
DLH Then we get the ministration of righteousness and the Spirit.
FER Yes, “The Lord is the Spirit”. To apprehend the ministry you must apprehend the Lord. Everything is tested by glory. It is really the setting forth of all the value of the cross.
DLH Is not the glory of God, too, connected with another Man and not this man?
FER That does not come out quite in Romans there (chapter 3), you get God’s attitude toward everybody determined — abundance of grace but it is only believers who are in the good of it.
Rem Our chapter carries us on to the full display of things.
FER It does, but it brings in another principle — reconciliation, which is not the attitude of God, but the divine purpose. There is only one man, every other has been removed that that one may remain, that is reconciliation. “If one died for all, then were all dead”. The only one really raised is Christ. He did not die to revive Adam’s race.
JN What is the force of the end of verse 16?
FER All after the flesh was gone, and therefore the apostle saw the death of Christ to be the end of every order and kind of man.
Ques The ministry of reconciliation is of all importance?
FER It is the stepping-stone to the church. It is a great thing to apprehend, that all were dead, and Christ died for all because they were all dead, that they who live should not live to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again. Man has gone entirely, he has lost all that makes a man after the flesh.
DLH It is quite clear that a dead man is gone.
FER Christ did not die to revive him — Christ revived but He left all other men in His death. We live now to Him, and if a man takes that ground he [p. 168] gives up two things, will and character, and if I give up these two things, what is left? Nothing at all.
Ques Does reconciliation belong to those in new creation?
FER It belongs to believers. The great point is to believe it. In Romans 5 Paul takes up the two men, Adam and Christ, by one man came death, by the other (Christ) came justification of life.
DLH Say a little more about will and character.
FER If you have five million men in London, there are so many wills but in the death of Christ every man is gone, so that there may be but one will — the will of God which is Christ. If you live on Him, it means the complete surrender of your will, and the effect of that is, it brings in one will and then there is only one, however many men you may have, when all have the will of Christ. It brings in the headship of Christ, not as head of the body but head of every man.
DLH And character is closely connected with will.
FER If you accept His will you have to take His character. You get it in Matthew 11. The Lord takes completely new ground. Man was proved to be insensible to grace, and Christ retires into the revelation of the Father. Then you get, “Come to me”. “Take my yoke upon you” gives you the character. The supersession of all varieties of men by one Man is the ministry of reconciliation. “If any one be in Christ”, that is reconciliation.
Ques It is His will that governs you instead of your own?
FER That is the idea of living to Him. When a man lives to himself, he lives in the exercise of his own will. When he lives to Christ, he lives to His will.
JMcK In what way does the love of Christ constrain us?
FER Nothing would bow you to Christ [p. 169] except His love.
DLH It is attraction.
FER It subdues.
Ques Is this in connection with the ministry?
FER Yes, he could say he was beside himself, it affected the apostle all round.
DLH The language here refers primarily to the apostle.
FER He is setting all before the saints to affect them by it.
DLH You see it all exemplified in the apostle to begin with and that acts upon us.
FER Yes, no person was ever subdued to Christ that did not have His will except by love. Many a devoted man began by intelligence, even in my experience, but found that it was not effectual.
R In what sense did He die for all?
FER It was the expression of divine love. He came into that place where all men were, the place of death, “God commends his love toward us”.
Ques Does it not bring out God’s righteousness too? If there had been one of us living Christ would not have died.
FER I do not know, His death proved all dead. I find a difficulty in dealing with a hypothesis, it is very difficult to carry it through.
JMcK Unless there is really affection for Christ I am not prepared to accept this.
FER Yes. In Matthew 11 the Lord retires into the revelation of the Father. The mighty works had produced no repentance, man is not affected by the grace of God, but He says, ‘I will reveal the Father’, so that is not simply that you bow to His will but you have taken His character meek and lowly in heart. Until a person is affected by the love of Christ, I do not think he will accept His will. His love becomes the motive power. In the Lord’s supper, it is the supper that gives impulse to the affections of the [p. 170] saints; it is the death of Christ that gives a fresh impulse.
WJ It was the love that gave Paul judgment, was it not?
FER I think so, the love of Christ constrains us. A man is not anything until he is under the love of Christ down here. There are so few men. One sees a parcel of children, dwarfs, but very few men.
DLH You are speaking of persons who have grown up into some stature?
FER Yes, men in Christ. You see plenty of big men after the flesh, men of imposing power whose motives are not very grand sometimes, but if you have done with that kind of man you want to see another man of another order. You want to see the man animated and governed by the will of Christ, one who has taken His character — who is meek and lowly in heart — having learned of Christ. That is the making of a man.
DLH And in the world he would be no man at all.
FER No man at all, and yet greater than any man here, superior to everything.
Ques Is that the force of “When I became a man, I had done with what belonged to the child”?
FER He is speaking rather differently there. Before you put on the new man, you get the renewing of your mind, which is very important.
Ques What is the enlargement in chapter 6?
FER They were constrained and restricted by worldly influences. I have no doubt he was speaking abstractly about reconciliation, but the Corinthians were not in the good of it. They were doing their utmost to save themselves. Real enlargement is that a man gets free from the influences down here.
WJ When it says later on, “I shall ... spend and be utterly spent for you”, is not that [p. 171] good measure?
FER He was completely superior to the treatment he received from them. They had not contributed anything to him, and more than that, they were even allowing questions among them as to his apostleship.
Ques Do you connect character with reconciliation?
FER Yes, you have to take Christ’s character. Every man has been removed to leave Him alone. It is all in Him. There is no reconciliation outside of Christ.
Ques. How far does it go?
FER Everything has place before God in Christ.
Ques Has it reference to Leviticus 16?
FER It starts there. Everything will be reconciled in and through Christ, but in the meanwhile we have received it.
WJ Apart from it you could not enjoy the revelation.
FER No, and you will never touch the church if you do not understand it, not really; Paul stops at reconciliation in this chapter. In Romans he does not go beyond it, and in Colossians he passes by it to come to the church. There is no difference between reconciliation in Romans and Colossians. In Romans the whole thing is brought to a point, he gives you the idea of reconciliation. You have the complete conciliation of good and evil, everything after Adam is removed, and the last Adam, the real One abides. In Colossians he introduces reconciliation in this way to the church.
Ques How do you apply verse 19?
FER Up to the time of the coming of Christ, God was dealing with man on the ground of responsibility, Jew as Jew and gentile as gentile, but when Christ came God’s platform was changed.
DLH It is expressed in the words, “When the fulness of the time was come”.
FER Yes, the whole ground was changed, it was “on earth peace, good pleasure in men”. The eye of [p. 172] God was on one Man. God was in Christ and all He had to say to man was, “Not imputing trespasses”; Christ was under God’s eye. The cross brings about the explanation of it — it was by reconciliation, we have now more light about it. In the cross every man is removed.
Ques What is the difference between the ministry and the word of reconciliation?
FER The ministry takes in the whole thing, the word is the word of Christ.
HCA Why are so few reconciled?
FER There must be a divine work in you to receive Christ. God presented grace to the world and they rejected it, but that does not alter God’s attitude, yet in the rejection of grace, it is certain, that if a man is to receive Christ, there must be a work of God in him, you can only get reconciliation by the work of Christ in a man. The presentation of grace — not imputing trespasses, was in Christ. Man’s conduct does not alter God’s attitude, what it brings out is that if a man is to receive Christ there must be a divine work. What God was doing when Christ was here was in anticipation of the cross, now we have the cross as a fact, and every man has been removed from God’s eye and Christ alone subsists. Man will not have grace, he talks about theology and free-will. Just fancy man having a free will. It is simply ridiculous, there is no such thing in existence in God or man.
Ques What do you mean by free-will?
FER It is a common term in theology. God’s will is governed by love. He has not a free will to do good or evil because of what He is. Free-will is that a man may do good or evil. At the beginning God put Adam in dependence, not in free will. It is wonderful to me that when Christ was here He took the ground that man shall live by every word of God.
DLH Man is only [p. 173] evil.
FER Yes, and it exposes him, it is stronger than him.
Ques What about “be reconciled to God”?
FER They did not accept reconciliation, they did not enter into God’s purpose. If the prodigal had asked to stay outside the house it would have been to have his own will. It is all very well for people to say these things are too high for them, that they cannot understand them, and that sort of thing, but I know very well what people want by that, it is simply that they want their own will and way.
Ques How would you urge that (reconciliation) now?
FER I would first urge it on myself and then on this company. If our wills were completely subdued to Christ and we had taken His character we should be more efficient as His servants. I do not think that God cares a single bit about a man’s externals. What He looks for in a man is the expression of Christ, not for outward appearance, or garb.
DLH If we realise that it will tell upon garb, surroundings and the like.
FER I do not doubt it for a moment. The practical effect upon a man would be that he would want to get out of sight.
WJ The whole body full of light, is that it?
FER I think so, no part dark.
DLH Could you say a word on becoming God’s righteousness in Christ?
FER In eternity God gives witness of His righteousness. It is very important to me. As a matter of fact, sin has come into the universe and the consequence of that is things are different from what they might have been had the question of sin never been raised. In the millennium and in eternity God gives witness to His righteousness. The witness on one side is the lake of fire, and on the other the saints [p. 174] in Christ — both are the eternal witness to the righteous judgment of God. Do you go with that?
DLH That is exceedingly good and true — that is what I think. Our becoming God’s righteousness is that we come out according to the thoughts of God, according to Christ.
FER You could not be a witness to God’s righteousness if you are not in accord with it. Everything must be perfectly suitable in order to be a witness of it. Righteousness is all based on the cross, “Him who knew not sin, he has made sin for us”.
DLH This is a verse upon which there has been an amount of controversy.
FER And because none of us understood very much about it.
DLH People were very anxious to have this as a kind of standing.
FER Such never get up to God’s thoughts. Standing has been one of the most pernicious things that ever was invented. It is a mould in which the truth has been cast among us.
DLH It worked like this, that every christian had become God’s righteousness in Christ.
FER I have often pointed out that the statement is abstract; Romans 5 is a fact.
DLH It gives you the divine intent.
FER I do not believe in standing, that is all.
WJ You object to the term?
FER I object to the particular form in which the truth is cast. I do not mind the true grace of God in which we stand. We all stand there, but a great deal more than that is meant by standing. You are dead with Christ, quickened with Him. Everything was made standing.
DLH People used to get vicious when they thought their standing was going.
FER “If any one be in Christ there is a new creation”, that is [p. 175] clear enough.
DLH I am not yet brought to the full results, but Christ having been made sin for me, that is the way to it.
Ques Why is verse 2 of chapter 6 applied here?
FER The apostle explains it in what follows. He gives it a present application.