A DWELLING-PLACE FOR GOD
[p. 166] A DWELLING-PLACE FOR GOD
Ephesians 2: 19 - 22; Ephesians 4: 1 - 16
FER I think we saw last time that redemption is connected with the sovereignty of God. God takes up a people for Himself, that He may dwell among them, in order that they may be instructed in the knowledge of God.
DLH The idea of dwelling among them came up at once.
FER Yes, it would seem as if redemption had been accomplished to that end, that they might form a dwelling-place for God.
DLH The thought is that God might have something for Himself.
FER I think so. I suppose redemption will eventuate in the filling of all things. Christ has ascended up far above all things, that He may fill all things. The universe will be for God; it will be God’s house, and it will be filled by Christ.
ED What is the limit of the all things?
FER It takes up heaven and earth I think. I used the word universe, in that sense.
JSO He immediately dwelt among them in Exodus, but it was in view of the mountain of His inheritance.
FER I think so. The tabernacle was the pattern of “all things”. Christ will fill all things in result, things in heaven, and things on earth, but not things under the earth.
DLH There is a sphere now, amid all the confusion that Satan has wrought, for God.
FER I think so, the household of God remains. “Ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ... fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God”. The Gentiles were of God’s household and that remains.
DLH The point for us is [p. 167] to get the spiritual idea,
and to leave out the material idea.
FER Yes, I am sure we are greatly hampered by material ideas.
JB Is the house of God, the sphere where God is pleased to make Himself known?
FER I think so, just as a man in his household. He dwells in his household. You know a man at home in his household, and learn his ordering there.
HCA Hebrews 3, says “whose house are we”.
FER If you could imagine a man simply dwelling in a material house, you would not know anything at all about him, as to knowing the man, everything depends upon his dwelling in his household. You see his influence and ordering in the midst of his household. In any moral sense a man dwells in his household.
DLH Not in the bricks and mortar. God said of Abraham, He knew he would order his house after him.
FER It is in a man’s household that he is seen, learned, and known. It was so in the case of Solomon, and the queen of Sheba; she saw the ordering of his house, and the sitting of his servants.
JB You do not get to know a man by seeing him abroad.
FER No, nor by seeing him dwelling in a house of bricks and mortar.
DLH It becomes a very serious thing when the thought of that is transferred to God, and His house.
FER The apostle brings in the consequence of it in chapter 4. The conduct suited to the presence of God. That comes out consequent upon our recognition of God’s dwelling. The vocation I connect with the end of chapter 2. The vocation — our calling, is that we “are builded together for an habitation of God”. That is the immediate basis of conduct down here.
HCA There is nothing more wonderful than to be in association with Christ, with God, and His house.
FER And christendom has lost all sense of it, because they have dropped down into a systematic [p. 168] christianity, and have given up all idea of God’s house. Mr. Stoney used to illustrate it by a clock. “The body” is represented by the works, and “the house” by the dial. Neither is of use without the other.
THB Would you say “the body” is the real thing?
FER I think the house is the real thing, they both go together.
THB I thought that one who dwelt in the house was recognised in the household, that that was the same thing as the body.
FER The body is that which enables us to maintain unity. One Spirit and one body is really the power of unity.
JSO In the body Christ is Head, it is not the thought of God dwelling.
FER The body is what the church is in relation to Christ; the house is in relation to God.
DLH Is the body for the expression of Christ here?
FER I think it is that the body is more for God. There is that here which is for God, and which is really — if you will allow the expression — animated by the life of Christ. The body is of Christ.
DLH They seem to run into one another a good deal.
FER Very much indeed. That which God recognises on earth is the house, but the truth of the body is essential to the house.
MG Is the body that which is necessary for the expression of the fulness of God?
FER That comes out in the house. The prominent thought in Ephesians is the house; in Colossians the body. Christ is prominent in Colossians; in Ephesians it is God.
ERBR What is the difference between the house and the temple?
FER I have no doubt there is a shade of difference, but it is not very great. The temple might take [p. 169] in the complete thought.
JB In the body the Head gives directions.
FER Everything is set in movement by the Head. All practical conduct is in connection with the house.
PRM Is the thought of the temple more connected with the Spirit?
FER I should not think that here. It is so in Corinthians, here it is more privilege.
M Is the thought of the temple in Ephesians connected with the future?
FER “In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord”. The thought of the temple would connect itself with the kingdom.
M Is Corinthians its present aspect, and Ephesians the future?
FER Ephesians shews the scope of it. The apostle could say to a local assembly, “Ye are the temple of God”. It is a curious thing but you would never find the house of God spoken of in an epistle addressed to a local assembly. It is spoken of in epistles addressed to individuals, and in the catholic epistles: Timothy, Peter and Hebrews. God’s building, in Corinthians is not the same idea. He says, “Ye are the temple of God”, to the local assembly, but the house of God is a more general idea.
ED What do you deduce from that?
FER The temple of God was the height of it in a way. The apostle awakens them to that. The temple is in connection with God’s holiness.
JSO You could not predicate the house of God, to any single church.
ED 1 Peter 2 would bear that out.
FER I think so. He was writing to the Jews of the dispersion, and he says, “Ye ... are built up”.
Ques Have we not to express the unity of the body here?
FER I believe in the existence of the body, and if anything is to be expressed it must be expressed in the [p. 170] body. We have to keep the unity of the Spirit, but I do not care for an expression of the body when the body is here. In a day of ruin you cannot imitate the real thing, you can only act in the light of the thing. It would be poor work to imitate. When the Lord came here, there were those looking for redemption in Israel. They did not attempt to imitate anything, or to make out that they were a little Israel. They simply waited for redemption in Israel.
JSO I think there is a danger in the minds of some saints of limiting the breaking of bread to those who are at it.
FER Yes, and you would not care to be connected with any association which in principle and constitution was really short of the whole church. The house of God of necessity follows upon redemption. In redemption God takes up a right, and meets all that is upon it; the divine object being that He may dwell, and the dwelling has a very definite import in regard to us. It is in God’s house that He is learned.
JSO The Galatians could have known nothing of God.
FER Nothing, and if you take christians today there are plenty in system, but they have very little knowledge of God, because they do not recognise His house. They know certain creeds and truths and that kind of thing, but I very much doubt if they know God’s house. If we do not recognise it we do not get the good of it. They are very limited and deficient who do not recognise it. The real thing in being brought to His house is to know Him. You get a wonderful idea of it in Psalm 132, “I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy”. We have to learn that. Abundant satisfaction. Priests and saints, all is connected with the dwelling of God.
THB Why is dwelling brought in in Psalm 68, in connection with the bestowal [p. 171] of gifts?
FER It must be a kind of preparation. “For the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them”. Christ has received gifts in man, and the first thing was to form the house of God. When Moses set up the tabernacle he was really doing priestly work. There was no one else to do it. Aaron was not consecrated, and could not do it. When you come to the anti-type, Christ goes up on high, and receives the Spirit in Man, to shed it forth. Christ forms the house of God; He is the antitype Himself and the work is priestly.
ED That is very beautiful.
MG Christ gathered the materials.
FER He went up on high, and received the Spirit in Man, and it is sent forth by Man. You could not have Aaron, and after all Moses was a priest.
ED I see that now, because teaching was a part of the priestly work, we get it in Leviticus 10.
FER We get two great effects in being brought to God’s house; holiness and unity. Holiness excludes all activity of man’s mind and lust. Unity excludes every will except God’s.
JSO You do not lose the benefit of God’s house, by reason of the disorder that is around us.
FER That is the great point, the house of God has its own proper character. Men have organised and set up a great sacramental system, and they have to carry the responsibility of it. They have set it up in Christ’s name, and assumed to come under His authority as His servants, and they must bear the brunt of it. People today have to go back to what was really set up at the beginning, and when they go back they get the gain of it, holiness on the part of God, and unity on our part.
B Is that how you connect judgment with the house of God?
FER It is judgment in regard to saints, in the way of discipline now. God judges His house in a sense.
JB The sacramental system is the result of the vanity of man’[p. 172] s mind.
FER Yes, but many of us are still in the sacramental system, though professedly amongst us. If you take the great mass of people, they come together on the Lord’s day morning, but I do not think they come together in the fellowship of Christ’s death, to reach Him outside the world. They come to the Supper as a kind of sacrament, that it is a sort of pledge of fidelity on their part to Christ, and they think they have done their duty, and never do they appear again till next Lord’s day morning. The room is the table in the thoughts of many, and the Supper is a sacrament in their minds. They think they have escaped from one man ministry and so on, but when I see people coming out as I do, it seems to me it is only a sacrament to them. They do not come with the idea of meeting Christ. They have no idea of Christ leaving His place and of us leaving our place to meet Him. The meeting place is not heaven, and it is not earth and yet there is the place where Christ meets the saints. I speak now of the assembly. I see two things in Exodus 15, “Thou ... hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation”, and “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established”. Holiness there is in the sanctuary. There is the abode of God’s holiness, but there is also the sanctuary, and holiness is connected with it.
WJ It would be the temple idea?
FER I think so. It seems to me God’s house is where we learn God; the sanctuary where we worship.
DLH We are always God’s house?
FER You cannot help being that at any moment.
DLH The sanctuary is another matter.
FER Entirely. People can only worship as they know God. They learn to worship by being in God’s house. His house is the place of teaching. They are true worshippers who have the ability to worship, [p. 173] the knowledge of God.
JN When do you get into the sanctuary?
FER When you are prepared for it. It contemplates the sanctified company, we go there as sanctified. It will not be the case when we get to heaven, all will go in then, but now it depends upon the sanctified company.
JB Do you link Hebrews 10 with that?
FER Yes, you have boldness to enter. The holiest is the sanctuary. There is no difference in the house in chapter 3 and in chapter 10. In chapter 3, Christ is builder, in chapter 10, it is His function as Priest.
HCA The reason that God is not known is that people do not enter the sanctuary.
FER If we had more idea of the house, you would not have an unsatisfied person.
THB How do you connect the table with the house?
FER The table is connected with fellowship; I should not confound fellowship and the house. It has its place in the house of God. The house is connected with the Spirit and fellowship with the place we take.
JSO Responsibility is connected with the table.
FER Exactly, you put a person out of fellowship, but not out of the house. If a man is proved, say to be a railer, he is unworthy of fellowship. I cannot say whether he is in the house or not, but he is in fellowship, and having been proved to be unworthy you must exclude him from fellowship. If he is in the house, you cannot put him out of it.
THB If you are at the table, you are in the place of abundance.
FER In the wilderness you may have abundance, but the table, or Supper understood, really brings you to the land, where Christ is, you are in the fellowship of His death, beyond Jordan, risen and quickened together with Him, and you have come into the place where Christ meets you, and that is altogether beyond the house. You get a beautiful picture in the Lord feeding the multitude; the ordering of the Lord, and He [p. 174] abundantly supplies every need of man. It is an awfully poor thing where christians are disconnected; they do not know God’s house. “I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy”.
THB Do you get the sanctuary in Psalm 133?
FER You get Zion.
WJ You get the sanctuary in Psalm 134.
FER People want to be clothed with salvation, else they are not fit for praise in the sanctuary. When clothed with salvation they shout for joy.
WJ Salvation is the realisation of the knowledge of God.
FER A man may be a genuine christian, and know he is a priest, but not be able to exercise priestly function. Every christian is a priest in the mind of God, but a man wants attachment to be able to exercise priestly function. If you take meetings as a whole, the vitality is not very great; it really depresses one to see how little vitality there is.
JSO There is too much looking to individuals to carry on the meetings.
FER We want to get back to the truth of God’s house; the goodness, and fatness of it, and how God would make Himself known. His house must be good. And then follows conduct, holiness, meekness, etc. When the disciples realised the Lord’s presence, they were extremely happy, John 20: 20.
THB Do you get to unity without union?
FER You do not get to union without unity, it is the obligation consequent upon the Spirit being here. Being baptised into one body, there is unity, and that shuts out man’s will. When you get holiness, you get lust gone, and in unity will is gone. The Spirit brings you to practical righteousness, which is really the will of God.