THE HOUSE OF GOD, ITS NATURE, CONSTRUCTION, USE, AND GLORY
[p. 393] THE HOUSE OF GOD, ITS NATURE, CONSTRUCTION, USE, AND GLORY
I would, beloved brethren, that each one here might be conscious of the gravity of this subject, namely the house of God. I would say first a word on what it is.
When once God had a redeemed people His word is, “I will dwell in them and walk in them”. (2 Corinthians 6:16) This you get in the end of Exodus 29, “I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God”. As has often been said, He did not dwell with Adam in the garden of Eden. The wonderful thing is that when redemption came in it was marked by this, as He says, “I will dwell in them, .. . and they shall be my people”. (2 Corinthians 6:16) The more you study the Old Testament the more you will find how great a thing it was, and how much God made of it. Well, it is not a lesser thing now but a greater. Of this I would speak first. I am not going to dilate on it, but merely to touch the headings of this vast subject, so that each one may work it out before the Lord, and learn what the Spirit is leading us to at this present time. I do not think any one can ponder it without great satisfaction of heart.
I turn to Exodus 15: 1, 2. As soon as you are in rest of soul, as expressed in the first verse: “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously”, then comes the second: “The Lord is my strength and song; ... he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him”. I know there is a new reading of that verse, but the thought is, God is to be exalted where I am in peace. Therefore I can understand the language of David in another day: “I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out [p. 394] a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob “. (Psalm 132:4) Beloved! are we really sensible that God has an habitation on the earth? As we read in Ephesians 2:22 “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit”. But we shall come to that passage further on, I only just allude to it now. I know that the Spirit of God only can lead us up to it. Thank God, it is His work. The work of the Spirit is to make true in me what is true for me. All is true for me, but all is not true in me, and the great characteristic of the real servant is that his heart is set on this work of the Spirit in the saints, as Paul says, “that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily”. (Colossians 1:29) That is the labour of the servant; and the earnestness of the individual who enters into it is expressed in prayer. I need not dwell more on this; when once you get the divine idea by the Spirit of God, He by the word will be always adding to it. It will be getting fuller and fuller; if you are occupied with it, God will open it out to you.
Well then, God has an habitation on the earth. I turn now to see the order of it. First, what is the qualification for being of it? You may say, every baptised person is in the house; but I am not speaking of man’s building, but of Christ’s building, and of your apprehension of being builded together for an habitation of God. There are many in it who have not the apprehension of what it is; I mean the apprehension which one acquires when really of this great structure. It is a point of deep interest to us all.
I turn to a few verses in the New Testament. First, Matthew 16: 18. One very simple rule in Scripture I will give for the sake of the younger ones here; and it is well to keep it in mind. When anything is mentioned for the first time in Scripture its great characteristics are given. For this reason I turn to [p. 395] the passage where the assembly is mentioned for the first time. This is not the first mention of the word ‘assembly’. We read of the assembly in the wilderness, but here in Matthew 16 it is peculiar; it is “my assembly”. The Lord says, “I also, I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. (Matthew 16:18) Now, beloved friends, this is a new structure on the earth, and after a different order from anything that had been before. The temple was His house, and our blessed Lord cared for that house. When He found it made a “house of merchandise”, He made a scourge of small cords and drove them out of it. As it is written, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up”. (John 2:17) The glory had departed from it, and yet the Lord calls it “My Father’s house”. With adoring reverence the heart is moved in looking at Him there in the midst of all the ruin, all the defection, still refusing to allow anything that was inconsistent with the holiness that “becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever”. (Psalm 93:5) His disciples remembered that it was written, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up”. Would that we had this zeal!
Here then in Matthew 16 we learn what constitutes each of us a part of that divine structure. I would that the Spirit of God would conduct every soul here into it. If any one has not begun at the beginning it will be well for him to begin now. What was your apprehension when you came into the assembly? How did you take your place there? I ask you earnestly. I want to know how you know that you are a part of that great structure. Here the Lord accepts that He is rejected. He had been educating His disciples for this great structure, and when He had ended, He asks, WHO AM I? That is the first question when you come into the assembly. To whom are you coming? You say, To the meeting; but are you coming to the company where the Son of God is,
[p. 396] where Christ is supreme? Then you are truly built in. That is the great point; and that is the education that the Lord had vouchsafed to His disciples in the previous chapters. See from chapter 14; the world rejected Him; He walks on the water, He is above all; and the man of faith joins Him there (verses 28, 29). In chapter 15 His grace is sufficient for you, and in chapter 16 I come to the building, His assembly, where He is supreme. Now let me ask you with what sense do you come to the assembly? Is it with the sense that it is not merely to a meeting of saints, but to where Christ is supreme? “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, .. . ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house”. (1 Peter 2:5) You may say, Is not every Christian a living stone? Yes; but every Christian is not built in, has not taken his place in happy subjection to Christ’s supremacy. That is the point. He has not learned what it is to be a part of Christ’s assembly - His building.
It is a great thing to apprehend the Lord’s words, “Thou art Peter”, a stone. It was not that he was not a stone before, but he is now a stone in its place. You are a stone in your place when you believe in the supremacy of Christ in the assembly; then it is that you are gathered together to His name.
I pass on now to the state connected with owning the supremacy of Christ. Turn to John 20: 19. There we get the first opening out of Christ’s own circle on earth. The Lord is risen; and He comes to His first circle of interest; it is on this earth; according with Psalm 16. “The saints that are in the earth, .. . in whom is all my delight”. (Psalm 16:3) He is now risen from the dead. Mary Magdalene sets forth what I may call the heart of the assembly. She has an ear to hear and she receives from Him. But, further, He comes into the midst of the assembly (verse 19). I need not tell you that this is only a pattern. Christ’s circle of interest marked the opening of the new [p. 397] day, the new creation day. The old creation finished up with a man. Everything failed in that man, and the whole creation was made subject to vanity. Now the Lord is risen from the dead, and has become the Head of the new creation. It begins with a Man now; it opens with the risen Lord. Every living stone now dates from the assembly. One might say, I date from my own house or from my country. No; you date from the assembly, because it is the first circle of Christ’s interest; He is Head of the new creation, and the assembly is of Him. It will come out eventually as the new Jerusalem. We read, that He comes into the midst of His disciples, and says, “Peace be unto you”. (John 20:26) That is the state you are to be in there, PEACE. I am supposing an individual coming into the assembly. He comes to the company where Christ is supreme, and his own state through the work of Christ is PEACE. There is not a disturbing element between God and you. Christ has risen. It is nothing that you have done, but what He has done, and there is not a disturbing element now; He has made peace.
Now what I want to set before you is, what is our gain from the assembly, and what an object the assembly is to the Lord. First, as I have said, you are in peace; a peace effected by Himself. The disciples see Him there as the One who had been dead, and they were “glad when they saw the Lord”. (John 20:20) Now is fulfilled what you get in John 14. Would that I could convey to you more fully the nature of this enclosure! The disciples are apart from the world, at the Supper table; the Lord is instructing them, preparing them to be missionaries. In chapter 15 they leave the Supper table and come out.
In Matthew 18: 20 we read, “where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them”. I think there is often great defect in looking at that passage. There is not enough stress laid upon the word name - “my name”. You cannot bring in a [p. 398] second name: if you are in the name of the Lord everything else is shut out. So here in John 20:19, “the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews”. That is the pattern of it. The religious element is outside. Now they are in that enclosure, the fulfilment, as I have said, of chapter 14, where they learn what He confers for the first time, PEACE and LIFE. And from thence also they are sent forth, “as my Father hath sent me even so send I you”. (John 20:21)
I turn now to 1 Corinthians 10. Perhaps nothing has been a greater index of the state of souls than the way the Lord’s supper is received in Christendom. Many of you here may have not studied church history, but you have all heard of the sacrifice of the Mass. The Romanist would tell you that the real presence is in the bread and wine. They have some idea of the Lord’s presence. They say you partake of it in eating the bread. They do not give you the wine; it is what they call the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass. Much is borrowed from Romanism. You may say, None of us is a Romanist. Yet there is not one of us who has not been leavened with it. It is very difficult to get leaven out, very easy to get it in; and no man can get it out; the Spirit of God alone can. Well, What has the perversion come to? An Israelite feeding on the slain lamb was looking for salvation. I am not so bad as that, one will say. Well, take care of the leaven. There are pious men who call the Lord’s supper a means of grace, and even go so far as to have it the last thing before they expire. Every one here would say, I am beyond that. Well, I go on further. Do you see your sins of the past week gone in the remembrance of His death? If that is your thought you do not understand the Lord’s supper. There is nothing about your sins there. But it is better to present the right than to dwell on the wrong.
[p. 399] Now look at 1 Corinthians 10: 15. The apostle had been speaking of the house all along up to this; he does not touch on the body till verse 16. Then in verse 21 he dwells on the Lord’s table. It is the only time in Scripture that it is mentioned. The Lord’s table, mind you. Mark the distinction between that and the Head. He is Son over God’s house. The way you are at the Lord’s table is an index to your state. The Corinthians had been giving themselves a loose rein. Now the apostle says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16) That is identity with Christ’s death here. Who is in this identity? Beloved friends, see what a place you are in, that of identity with Christ’s death! If His death had not relieved you, you would be chargeable with it. But having been relieved through His death you are now identified with it here. I know how people try to explain it away, but it cannot be done. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16) You are identified here with His death.
The effect the Supper has on me is that my heart is drawn out in the sense of His love in dying for me; and the more it is, the more my heart says, No other path would suit me on earth but to be identified with His death. You do not get properly the Supper here in 1 Corinthians 10. It is the responsible side, but the apostle deduces from it that you cannot have any other place here; it is not that you must not but you cannot, it is impossible. You cannot have the two any more than you can be light and darkness; it is impossible if you are light to be darkness. You will find great help in reading those chapters. The apostle says in chapter 11, “Despise ye the church of God?” (1 Corinthians 11:22) In all these chapters you find he is opening out the church. I think I have now said enough as to it.
[p. 400] I can look to the Lord to make up for my lack, and to lead your souls into this wonderful subject, the knowledge of the assembly. The Lord is able to make much of very little.
It is a great thing to apprehend your place in the assembly. You are where He is supreme. You know where you begin. You remember Him here taking the lowest place on earth. You are identified with His death, and you show forth His death until He comes. The glory of man is gone. What are you where your Lord died? You seek nothing here! Many a sorrow saints have heaped to themselves by looking for something on this earth where Christ died. You are right when you are truly showing forth His death “till he come”. There is nothing between the two - His death and His coming - nothing to intervene. Many a one speaks of His coming to appease his conscience, who has no idea of being identified with His death. But there is no fidelity of heart in looking for Him to come unless you can say, “Where thou diest, will I die”. (Ruth 1:17) I am identified with His death, therefore my heart looks for the only bright day here, when He will come. You are not looking for Him, if you are not in company with Him.
I have spoken so far about ourselves. I turn now to the Lord in the assembly; Hebrews 2: 12. His delight is to be here with us. The Lord’s treasure is not in heaven, it is on the earth. You are in spirit with Him in heaven, and the more you are with Him, the more you will be occupied with His interests here; it is the only consolation, and it is the greatest to every true heart in the midst of all the dilapidation, that Christ’s treasure is here. The missionary comes from Him to be found here for Him. In Hebrews you do not find anything about the Lord’s supper. The great object in that book is to detach you from the earth, though you are still on the earth. The one thing to establish to a Jew was that all had been [p. 401] accomplished; therefore in chapter 1: 3 your sins are purged. Chapter 2: 12 is quoted from Psalm 22. Twenty-one verses of that Psalm describe Christ’s death. From verse 22 He is in the midst singing praise. At the Lord’s supper we are calling Him to mind; we remember Him who has done it all. If you are not in the benefit of His death you cannot remember Him, and you cannot be in company with the Lord if there be any soil, any shade between you and Him. In Christendom there is a week’s preparation for the Lord’s supper. To you the word is: “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat”. (1 Corinthians 11:28)
Well, in Hebrews 2: 12 we read: “I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”. That is Psalm 22: 22. Now you are in the Lord’s presence. What do you expect? I find it a very useful question to put to souls: What do you expect in coming to the assembly? Possibly you will say, I am going to meet the Lord. That, so far, is the right answer; but do you expect to enjoy His presence? I cannot conceive anything that would more delight a young believer (I need not say an old one) than His presence. Would you like to be in the presence of your Saviour? I could understand a true-hearted believer saying, I would go any distance to meet Him! May you, beloved friends, seek to enjoy His presence? I do not think that it is enough to have the right doctrine. It presses much on my heart at the present moment that so many know in letter the right way of meeting and accept it, without seeking for the Lord there, without enjoying the presence of the Lord. How do you know that you are in His presence. The answer is very simple. If you are in His presence nothing will occupy you but Himself; everything else is excluded. I do not enter into the immense gain from it, but I trust you are conscious of it. He says,
“[p. 402] I will declare thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee”. (Hebrews 2:12) I think a great many go to the meeting for the breaking of bread only. I do not believe they are occupied with the Lord, or they would know that there is something more. First, you are calling Him to remembrance. Then you are receiving from Him. He is not only your High Priest greater than Aaron; you come in as of the consecrated company with Him, as Aaron with his sons; all come in in the one common fragrance. We have often a poetic idea of it, without the divine reality. You must be there first before you can know the effect of it.
In Hebrews you find that the Lord from heaven, higher than the heavens, vouchsafes His support to you in your infirmities, so that you are borne above them, be it sorrow, affliction, bereavement, or whatever it be, in order to be in company with Himself. There is nothing said of communion in Hebrews. There you are in company with Christ as High Priest, but you are entitled to go to the very brightest spot, like the consecrated company, going into the holy places. As we sing,
‘His presence is our home’.
- there is not a cloud -
‘In Him we stand a heavenly band,
Where He Himself is gone’. (12:2)
“Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father”, Ephesians 2: 18. In the holiest of all there is no cloud, no sense of any moral discrepancy.
I have already referred to John 14. The preparation is in chapter 13. There your feet are washed; there must not be a shade of distance. Would to God we knew it better! I desire it for myself, and for others, to be sensitive as to the least shade to interrupt or hinder communion. If you are not conscious of the [p. 403] shade you cannot be conscious of the removal of it. I believe the failure of every Christian originates here, a shade or soil being allowed to remain. You are not practically dead to sin. I am speaking now of always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus. You must carry it out to the full measure of Christ’s death, otherwise you make your own death the measure of it, and you are legal. It is accomplished for you, and the Spirit’s work is to make that true in you which is true for you. Here is the beginning of decline in every Christian; and as to myself I look back and see it has been so. One’s feet were not washed. Peter was already cleared as to his conscience; but in John 21 the Lord washed his feet. He was restored in heart. You may walk with a good conscience and yet you may not have unreserved intimacy with the Lord. Possibly you never had the intimacy. Well, it is plain that you cannot enjoy the Lord in the assembly without it. You must have your feet washed that there may be no hindrance to it. If one of Aaron’s sons had a blemish, though he could “eat the bread of his God”, he could “not go in unto the veil”, Leviticus 21: 21 - 23. Many a one is not ready for the Lord’s presence. You must be as fit for the Lord’s presence as for heaven. Through Him we go in. Thank God! through Him we have access unto the Father. And what then? He declares the Father; see John 17. He says, as it were, I have removed all on your side, I will declare now to you God’s side. “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”. (John 17:26) Now in conclusion, I would say, How great is His house where He makes known His interests! I must add that the organisation of the assembly is derived from the Head, who is Son over God’s house. 1 Corinthians 12 refers to the body in function. “As the body is one, and hath many members and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body:
so also is Christ”. (1 Corinthians 12:12) It is the only allusion in Corinthians to the mystery. “By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body”. (1 Corinthians 12:13) I can understand it, though I may not be able to convey it. If we were all conscious that we are under the same Head we should be fully under His direction. If He directs me to give out a hymn I do it. It then comes from the Head, and not from me. What a beautiful organisation that would be! I am not able to elaborate it as I desire; if I knew it better I should be able; but I am sure that there is not one in this room who delights in the Lord who would not like to enjoy His presence and to be impressed with the effect of it. “Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, they will be still praising thee”. (Psalm 84:4) “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; .. . who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well”. (Psalm 84:5)
You come out from the house of God impressed by His presence, even if not a word was said; you are beside yourself; and the effect of His presence is that you are so interested in Christ’s interests on earth that when you come out you take a distinct course here. If a man wants to know how he is to serve the Lord, I say to him, Stick to the assembly. It is there you will find out your mission. In the circle of the Lord’s interests you are near the Lord, and surely He will tell you what to do. Knowing Him in your own room is not the same thing as knowing Him in the assembly. In the first, I know Him about my own interests; but thank God, in the assembly I know Him in His interests.
Have you read the songs of degrees? Have you taken those steps experimentally? You will have to do so in this day. The last step is, you have arrived at the house. “Bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord”. (Psalm 134:1) Out of all the confusion and dislocation, I have arrived at the House.
[p. 405] Beloved friends! I need not add more. The Lord grant that each one of us may be more deeply interested in that spot where He is here upon earth for His name’s sake!