THE BODY OF LIGHT
[p. 299] THE BODY OF LIGHT
The body of light is one of the traits of the new company on the earth. I was speaking yesterday of the heavenly character of things. Now I want to show you what the new company is here. From the end of chapter 10 to the end of chapter 18 of this gospel you get the traits of the new company. I present this to you, the body of light, as one of the traits. The first trait is the word of God and prayer; these we have in chapter 10: 39 to 11: 13. The second great trait is the body of light. A body “full of light” is not the right idea. The idea is a body of light. In the original there is only one word, and that means the body is luminous. It does not say that the mind is luminous, but the body is luminous. I can give you no better illustration than that of a glow-worm. The whole body is luminous. That is the subject I desire before the Lord to call your attention to, and I count upon Him to make it intelligible to you, divinely intelligible.
The point in verse 33 is, the candle has been lighted. In the previous verses we get two types of our Lord which it is most important to connect together. One is Jonah, which gives us in type the sufferings of the Lord; the other is Solomon, which is the glory of the Lord. These two properly make up the light. That is the light. The light that was lighted was not to be put under a bushel. You must remember that the same words in another gospel may not mean the same thing. Scripture never repeats itself. Now the Lord has a people upon earth, and the character of that people is, they are light; that is, an expression of Himself; as Paul puts it in Philippians 2, “Ye shine as lights in the world”. Light is [p. 300] the first trait of the new Jerusalem. “Her light was like unto a stone most precious”; and what marks the administration of the assembly in the millennium is what marks it in the eternal state.
I desire now to draw your attention to the light. I am sure the more you enter into the mind of the Lord here in presenting this trait of the new company the more you will understand the blessedness of it. The great point is, that if you have no part dark, the whole shall be luminous. It is not full of light as a tumbler is full of water; nor is it the mind full of light; it is the body luminous. “You glorify God in your body”. Your body is the Lord’s; it belongs to Christ for the earth, and it is to be transparent, a light for Christ on the earth. It is to be the Lord’s servant, a body of light, having no part dark. Why are we not more luminous? Because there is some part dark; and the saddest part of it is that you do not know what your dark part is, and when you do; you rather conceal it; you do not expose it for removal; you try to hide it. The “foolish woman” says, “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant”. We often enjoy something in secret that is obscuring the light. Thus the dark part is concealed. We think no one sees it, forgetting that it really hinders the shining out of the light. Hundreds of people like something they would not let another know anything about, but “all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do”. What I am speaking of is the hindering of the light. The compromise with one’s family, and society, and many other things, are all at work hindering the expression of the light. We all fail here.
Well, how is the luminous body brought about? You will find there is a twofold action in the word, and this double action produces it. You have no hand in producing it. I do not mean that you are an automaton, that you are not interested in it; you are thoroughly interested when you really desire to [p. 301] be a light for the Lord, and it is according to your desire for it that you will he blessed. There are two actions, and I turn now to the first action which we get in 2 Corinthians 3: 18. It is uncommonly easy to speak to souls who are exercised themselves, because they know what you are at, and they are going in company with you. The difficulty in ministry really is to acquaint souls with what the word of God presents, and it is not effectual unless you learn it yourselves. Many a person knows this passage by rote quite well. I ask, Do you really know what it means? Did you ever prove it? I will read the passage correctly: “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image”. Now this is open to all. The wonderful thing is, all this is the gospel. It is the gospel of the glory of Christ. The gospel is now come out in its fulness. You find in the next chapter it is the light that comes out from the glory; the light comes down from the height, and comes to the most distant spot, because God has been perfectly glorified in the most distant spot. In Acts 9, I see a man going on his way and a light from heaven arrests him in the moment when he is most adverse, most distant from God. A light comes from the top down to the very bottom; there it arrests him; he falls to the earth, and he hears a voice. That is the Lord!
Now I know where the light comes from, and I am drawn to the light; not like Isaiah, who shrank from it. What then? Surely a great transformation has occurred. You have dropped the uncomely clothes; you have found yourself in divine righteousness, in the light of Him who has accomplished everything; you come in knowing that He has accomplished everything; that now “might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord”. Now you can look up to the glory of the Saviour. As the cherubim overshadowed the mercy [p. 302] seat, so now every ray of the glory of God shines in the face of our Saviour. It is not now looking upon Him as down here, glorifying God in the most distant spot, turning death into an occasion for glorifying God. All that is blessedly true; but now my Saviour is crowned with glory and honour. I look at Him there; my heart is drawn to Him. A Man brought glory to God, and, as has been said, God is indebted to Him for glory. That Man is my Saviour.
If I look at the history of a soul, the first thing is forgiveness. The effect of forgiveness when known to the soul is to beget a measure of love. You see this in type in Jonathan, and in the woman of Luke 7, but that is only love for service rendered. Do not stop there! As sure as you stop there the day will come that you will be tested, like Joseph’s brethren, who were living on Joseph’s bounty for seventeen years without having learnt the love that did the service for them. The apostle says, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us”. If I know His love nothing will suit me but Himself. You get that beautifully exemplified in the case of Peter, Luke 5; “they forsook all and followed him”. The Lord would rather have your company than your property. The Spirit of God is within you, and He would occupy you with an Object. Your heart has an Object. It is not only that your Beloved is yours, but you have learned this wonderful thing, “I am my beloved’s and his desire is towards me”. That is the finish in Canticles, as any of you know who have studied it. What is the consequence? My heart is towards Him. It is not a question of effort. I know how easy it is to deter people by that. The moment you are in the presence of the Lord, you are dismantled. Self can have no place there. It is one of the most significant things that we find all through the Old Testament, that the Lord, when He comes to speak to any one,
[p. 303] comes with such a glare of glory so that they are dismantled. The effect of His presence is to remove what would interfere with the action of Himself. This is one of the traits of the new company. I have said that the traits are to be found in chapters 10 to 18. Look at chapter 17. Of the ten lepers who were healed, nine of them went on to the priest, to ritualism. One came back and fell down at the Lord’s feet; self was dropped. There is not one of us who does not know this if we travel on the road. The day when you touched but the hem of His garment you were relieved; you knew it. But when you fell down before Him and told Him all the truth, what did you wake up to? I must take a new course. Ah! exactly. Then it is that you find that there is no place for you in the flesh. That is a great moment. I drop self altogether. You never can face glory otherwise. Do not talk of being occupied with yourself! “No flesh should glory in his presence”. You are never occupied with yourself in His presence. There could not be a shadow of you there. You may be occupied with yourself afterwards, and that very often happens. In principle it was the same with the apostle, as he tells us in 2 Corinthians 12, he did not know whether he was in the body or out of it. You could not know up there; how could you? Self has no place in His presence. It is monstrous to think that what Christ suffered for could have a place in His presence.
Well, beholding “the glory of the Lord”; what next takes place? You are changed. The word here translated changed is only used four times in Scripture. Twice it is translated, transfigured. In Romans 12, it is transformed. Here it is changed. The true meaning is transfigured. Do I know when I am transfigured? No; I do not. All I know is, I have been occupied with the transfiguring power. Moses did not know when his face shone; so with me, I [p. 304] am not conscious of the effect that is seen in me; I am only conscious of being with the Lord; and without effort I take a new course. Beholding the Lord’s glory, I am transformed into the same image from glory unto glory. Instead of the glory repelling, which it did until God was glorified, it now transfigures me. The blessed Lord was transfigured before them on the mount; His face shone as the sun; His raiment was as the light. The character of this transfiguration with us is that the body is luminous. I do not see the effect in myself, but others see it. I can own that a different course is preferred.
Here let me remark the difference between this and what we have in Psalm 73. There we find a godly man, who really did not know how to reconcile things, as he looked at them here, until he went into the sanctuary, and then he saw all clearly. We all know something of that experience; it is a poor thing for us if we do not; for the experience of an Old Testament saint went as far as that. But now we are in the church, and there is a very great difference between a servant and the heir. “The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all”. In the Psalm your judgment is changed. That often happens, thank God. You form a judgment, perhaps a good one in a human sense, but when you go to the Lord and get near Him your judgment is changed, and you see you were not wise; just as a judge might give a very elaborate judgment and then it may be all reversed in a higher court. But being transfigured is a much greater thing than that. It is not only that your judgment is changed, but you yourself are transformed.
I will give you one or two examples of this. Look at Acts 7: 55. Stephen is a sample case. He saw the glory of God and Jesus. All his thoughts and interests had been connected more or less with the earth, but now, he sees Jesus in the glory, and he [p. 305] turns round a different man altogether, a thoroughly changed man; transfigured. It is not a question of his judgment being changed, but he himself is transformed. His body is luminous. The body is the Lord’s; we should glorify God in our body. The words “and in your spirit” have been put in, but that shows that the copyist did not understand that it is in my body that Christ is to be magnified. It is not how I preach, but how I act; therefore when Paul speaks of himself, when writing to Timothy, he says, “thou hast fully known”, not “my doctrine” only, but my “manner of life”, 2 Timothy 3: 10. Peter says, that “they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives”. If your body, your appearance here, is not in keeping with what you announce, you weaken what you announce; because it proves you are not mastered by it. I know this practically myself. In times gone by, I have often had a gleam of light, and have run away with it, and been extreme about it. It had not mastered me. You must be not only an expounder of truth, but an exponent of it. And you must have a straight course. The world would have you amiable, glossing over everything, in no way separating the precious from the vile; that is not of God. I cannot be the same to two brothers. I see one going on thoroughly for the Lord, and I long to go on with him; but another who is not so, I may be interested in him deeply, but I cannot be the same to him. Saints do not sufficiently understand that word, “have no company with him”. That was said with reference to one who was doing no great wrong; he would not work. No doubt if we were more in the activity of divine grace ourselves, we should be more straight in our course and faithful to the Lord. We heard yesterday of a man zealous for the Lord, Phinehas. That was a wonderful example.
Now let me go on. Another thing comes out in [p. 306] connection with this, which is also exemplified in the case of Stephen. The moment you are in the first action of the Spirit; that is, occupied with Christ, you know that the Holy Spirit is your power and now comes out the other action. As you are by the Spirit set for Christ, God by discipline clears you of everything which hinders this occupation, and thus hinders the expression of the light. He removes the hindrance. Perhaps you do not know what the hindrance is; but God knows, and He removes it. There are the two processes; one is, you are attached; the other, you are detached. You get both completely in the case of Stephen. He, full of the Holy Spirit, was absorbed with Christ in glory, and eventually cleared of everything here that would hinder that blessed occupation. These two go hand in hand; I am attached and detached by divine power. It is not that I get rid of the flesh in glory. The flesh is not allowed there at all. No flesh can glory in His presence. But when you come out of it, you may be like Paul, who was given a thorn lest the flesh should be puffed up. The flesh is not gone. But God by discipline comes in and keeps you straight; He gives a thorn to keep the flesh from acting. If you study Paul’s history carefully, you will find that many a hard day he endured before he wrote the epistle to the Ephesians in the prison at Rome. We do not understand the wonderful way God is bringing us up to this. He is not bringing you up to a thing you have not possessed; but the Spirit having shown it to you, He removes hindrances out of the way that you may know it continually. Many a time I have thought, when I heard a person praying, If you get an answer to that prayer there will be a severing of things here. Do not be sorry for it; you are gaining more than you lose. Do not be afraid of the discipline; God only removes what hinders. The apostle says, “We which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh”.
Well, we were speaking of the Lord’s presence and the wonderful effect it has. Look at Mary Magdalene in John 20. She was desolate, and felt it was insupportable to be here without the Lord. John went home, Mary is inconsolable, because she did not know where Jesus was. The Lord likes love. The question to her was, Where is He? The Lord sees this; He appears to her and speaks to her! What a change takes place in her. She can leave Him now and go at His bidding with His message to His disciples.
I will give you one more illustration. I believe many read the Scriptures and yet do not enjoy the Lord; they do not get into His presence; they are not transformed. Look at the disciples going to Emmaus; Luke 24. They had heard the most wonderful exposition of the Scriptures. He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. I am sure there are many here who would have liked to hear that exposition. I believe it is not given to us that we might study the word for ourselves. I do not see among the younger brethren of today the study of the word that there used to be. We used to study every word and write upon every word in private; and there is consequently little freshness in the ministry; it reminds one of that word, “no rain”, although they were in the land; Deuteronomy 11. There should be the sense, I have learned that word for myself. It is not being able to describe it, or to put it in dispensational order; but having that word for myself from the Lord.
Well, to return. Here was the most wonderful exposition of Scripture; but these two disciples were not transformed by it, though their hearts burned within them. They were attracted to Him, and asked Him to come in; then He manifests Himself to them [p. 308] at the breaking of the bread. Now they rise up the same hour and go to Jerusalem. A few minutes ago it was too late to go further, but now they go all the way back to Jerusalem, and there they find Him. Did He tell them He was going there Himself? Not a word of it. But there they go, and there they find Him; His presence had transformed them. We know this ourselves in some little measure. Sometimes in prayer we get a sense of being near the Lord; then we get His peace; “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding”. You cannot tell how it came, but when you get near Him you get it. You did not get it from Scripture. The Scripture tells you of it, but you have to prove it. You get near to Him and make all known to Him yourself. It is not like having a petition sent up through the Secretary of State, or the like; but that I have communicated it to the Sovereign myself, and I know that he knows it. In English we have to put two words, ‘made known’, in expressing this; in the Greek there is only one word, but the meaning of that word is, ‘I told Him myself’. It is not a question of getting an answer to a petition, but that I have made all known to Him, and the result is, I am in divine tranquillity.
I turn now to the other action. It is wonderful how God helps you by discipline. There are two kinds of discipline; one, when faithful; and the other for unfaithfulness. There is discipline on the body for unfaithfulness. “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you”. In Hebrews 12 you get the Father’s discipline, that we should be partakers of His holiness. I must speak very briefly on this point. I see the wonderful way in which it occurs. As soon as you are set for the right object, God comes in and helps you by discipline; and as your heart is led by the Spirit to Christ, He who knows the hindrance to the purpose of your heart, removes the obstruction.
[p. 309] You may be surprised at times at His way with you, but it is all to this end. Besides, there is a discipline not easy to explain even, the discipline of jealousy. God brings you perhaps to the very confines of death because you have been going on in a course of worldliness and unfaithfulness. But what God delights in is, to help you when you are set for the Lord, in order that your body may be luminous. The body is His, and He deals with you that it may be more distinctly for Him. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us”. As with Gideon’s men, the lamps were in the pitchers and when the pitchers were broken, the light came out. God’s thought is, not to get rid of the vessel, but to get rid of the will. If the will is got rid of, the light will shine out. That is practically the discipline that souls go through. Jonah is an example: he is called to serve; he goes off in self-will; then he is cast into the sea. He is brought to say, “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy”. Now God says, Do what I tell you. A well-broken horse will turn the way you wish. But all is not done yet. No, Jonah’s heart must be broken. This is done by discipline; the gourd dies. The first discipline was to break his will; the second, to bring him into God’s sympathies, to make him tender hearted. Then he is a servant fitted for the Lord’s use. Do not be distressed, beloved friends, at what the Lord may be bringing you through; you are not losing but gaining every step. It is that the life of Jesus may be manifest in your mortal bodies. Surely that is not to lose but to gain. We have not an idea of how God puts us through things. Do you think that you are sent into this world to be a father or a husband? That is the necessary discipline to fit you for God’s purpose. You are sent into the world to be a missionary for Christ, but the will must be broken. God only can bring this about; you [p. 310] could not; but walk with God, and He will bring it about.
Your discipline may not be like that of Jonah, who was thrown out into the sea; but learn it you must in one way or another. It may be like Job. Job did nothing wrong; yet he had to learn to say, “I abhor myself”. Nothing really breaks the will, but the sense of sin in God’s presence. Affliction in itself does not break the will. Never is your will broken till you come to say, I am disgusted with myself. Often have I seen people come out of affliction harder than ever; but when one comes to this: “in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing”, I have no confidence in myself, but because I am brought to God, I have full dependence on Him. This is what Job was brought to. Like the Syrophenician woman in Mark 7, she says, I have no claim on you, but you are too good not to give to me. When I take that place, I know that it is all grace, for I have come to the true estimate of myself and of God. I am in a state for grace. Like Jacob, when he was brought to the lowest point, with a stone for a pillow; then God comes to him and gives him a great revelation.
One word more as to this. I want to explain how it is that you are sometimes surprised by the way you are tried. Sometimes, after you have been enjoying the Lord greatly, some unexpected trials befall you. You see it with Abraham. When Isaac gets his right place in the house, the one who would be his rival (Ishmael) must go out. Sarah says, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son”. She was right. The Lord says to Abraham, “in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice”. Have not some of you known, that when you were really bright with the Lord, God has touched something that you thought to have saved, some idol? He knows this is the time for it to go; it must go today. It may not be that it is cut off by His hand, but He makes you sensible [p. 311] that death is on it. You could not roll in death, but He does. Do you not know in your history, how He has come in and made you sensible of death on your side, though never more conscious of the brightest day with the Lord? Have you never felt, after enjoying Him, that things here, that had been much to you, had lost their interest? It is not enough with God to fix your heart on what is most attractive; He must remove the hindrance to your enjoying it fully. The standard rose-tree appropriates everything that belongs to the briar on which it is grafted; so God appropriates all of me for Christ, my brains, my power, everything, it is all His. But not a bud of the old stem must be allowed. The gardener, in cultivating the rose to perfection, will not, if he understands his work, allow a single bud upon the briar. There is no similarity whatever between the stem of the rose-tree and the stem of the briar; there is distinct separation even as to appearance. Of course no simile can be complete; but still, I say, this may show you what I want to convey; for as the rose is brought to perfection, the briar is not to appear. Be it a briar or a crab-tree, if it is allowed to grow, there is no bloom in the graft.
The apostle brings out this in his epistles to the Corinthians. He writes two epistles to them. He was not in Corinth between the two, but he shows them, in the second epistle, what would be the effect of what he had said in the first. They were Epicureans; they gloated in indulgence of every kind. They disgraced themselves in every circle of society; whether at home or abroad; in the church or the world. They were indulging their body, giving rein to the flesh. Therefore the apostle says of himself, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection”. I do not even give myself the liberties that I might. The Corinthians thought that they would never see their bodies again. This we find in chapter 15.
[p. 312] There were some among them who denied the resurrection of the body. This self-indulgence leads to the principles of Babylon. It is said of Babylon, “She ... lived deliciously”, keeping up her position; and she lived luxuriously, feeding herself without fear. Then the apostle goes on to say, “we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body “.
As you are here for Christ in the present moment, in that measure you will be for Christ in the kingdom. He will reward every man according to his works. You are not here only for service, but as you serve here, so will be your position in the new Jerusalem. All, even the youngest babe, will be “conformed to the image of his Son”. But there will also be a position in the city corresponding to your works, “counted worthy of the kingdom of God”.
One example more, which shows how the faithfulness of God comes in. I see Jacob suffering for his unfaithfulness. In Genesis 34, he is scandalised before the world; but when he comes to Bethel in chapter 35, he suffers when he is in faithfulness. He has come to the right spot, and now the Lord says, I will set you right as to the original hindrance. First Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse, dies. There is Allon-bachuth. Then Rachel dies. The Lord does not press you into the path, but the moment you are on it, for no doubt the Spirit of God has brought you there, the hand of God will help you.
May the Lord grant that we may know this double action of God attaching and detaching; that we may come out in the body of light, and we ourselves be “like unto men that wait for their Lord”. It is dangerous to the last degree for a man to propound what has not come out in himself. I would say one word to you, Do not speak of anything beyond what you know yourself. But the moment you accept it [p. 313] before the Lord, He will bring you into conformity to it.
The Lord grant that we may know it, and be found for Him here on earth, for His name’s sake.