DIVINE FURNISHING
[p. 232] DIVINE FURNISHING
Luke 24: 49; John 20: 21,22; Acts 1: 9 - 14
I have in mind, as God helps me, to show how the people of God were furnished, as seen in Luke and John, to fulfil the great functions designed for them, both provisionally and finally, or eternally. Luke brings in what is external but heavenly, what was to mark the saints outwardly. John runs parallel as bringing in what is to mark them, so to speak, inwardly and eternally. Hence Luke quotes the Lord as saying, “Wait ... till ye be clothed with power from on high” Luke 24:49, whereas John speaks of the Lord breathing into them and saying, “Receive ye Holy Spirit”. John 20:22. Now these two features convey the mind of God as to those who should represent Him here in the absence of Christ from the earth, and they are to appear in undimmed lustre as we come down out of heaven from God in the future. At the present time the saints who form the assembly occupy a unique position, for Paul said in the epistle to the Corinthians, referring to certain features, that they happened to them as ensamples and were written for our admonition, “upon whom the ends of the ages have come” 1 Corinthians 10:11. That is, the end in view in every previous dispensation has come upon us. The end in view in the dispensation which began with Adam, and the end in view in that dispensation which began with Noah, or that with Abraham, right down to the present — all these ends have come upon us, and hence the great need that we should be divinely furnished. God has indeed provided us abundantly with the means for this furnishing, as I desire to show. Luke bringing in what is heavenly as it came out in the Lord here, and John also speaking of what is heavenly, but rather of what is divine, for he deals with the Person of the [p. 233] Lord Jesus Christ, and speaks of His breathing into His disciples, whereas Luke speaks of clothing — that which is external.
We must have both these things and be marked by them if we are to correspond with the mind of God, for if God has recovered things in Christianity, it is to His primary thoughts. If the ends of the dispensations are still with us, it behoves us to be furnished so as to maintain these ends in a living way. The assembly began, so to speak, with a clean sheet. The governmental results of the previous dispensations all came upon Jerusalem, for in each of them there was the running of man’s will in opposition to God, hence the Lord says that “the blood of all the prophets ... from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias” Matthew 23:35 should be required of this generation. Every item of the evil of these dispensations came upon Jerusalem in God’s government; none of these governmental evils were handed down to the assembly. Now, alas! it has returned to the ways of man in the old dispensation and has assumed its responsibilities, and there is no escape from it. No matter how people try to be in the truth of the gospel, they have conformed themselves to the world, and hence have taken on all its responsibilities. There has been a return of idolatry; historically and in every way the whole Pagan system was taken over by the church,. They clothed it with the garb of Christianity, overlooking the obligations which go with it, so that at the end God raises up two witnesses who prophesy till they have completed their testimony. Then they, too, are slain in the streets of the great city, for, as it says, “in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all the slain upon the earth”. Revelation 18:24. It was the same old Jerusalem, “the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified”. Revelation 11:8. Christendom has taken on all this fearful responsibility, it has provoked Him to [p. 234] jealousy, and the witness to that is borne by the two witnesses of God; Revelation 11: 3 - 13.
Now in recovery, God intends that His people should he delivered wholly from that. So in 1 Corinthians we are reminded, not that the responsibilities attaching to the dispensations have come upon us, but that the divine ends in them have come upon us. The word to us is, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partaker in her sins” Revelation 18:4, and as come out the Lord would have us to know that He has a place for us in the wonderful testimony He has here, in all that has come out in the Lord. He would have us furnished like a good householder, who brings out of his treasures things new and old; and mark the new things come first, and then the old.
So the Lord says in Luke 24: 49, “Tarry ye in Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high”. The principle in tarrying is that we should not undertake anything without the clothing. The Lord Jesus Himself gives us the pattern of the garment, so to speak. In referring to it we have to recall the corresponding passage in the Old Testament, when God directs Elijah to anoint Elisha in his room. We learn there that Elisha enters into the service begun by another. That is the principle; none of us are inaugurators, we have entered upon the service of others. So Elijah takes his mantle and throws it on Elisha. I can understand the feelings of Elisha. He is a simple ploughman; how can he fill that mantle? I can imagine Elisha saying, as he examined the size and the pattern, How am I to fill this? It is a wholesome exercise for all of us. We have got to enter upon the service of others; their mantle is, so to speak, cast upon us. Elisha might say, But Elijah overthrew four hundred prophets of Baal, and he stands before the king, how can I, who am but a ploughman, fill his mantle? Well, we have to learn that God does not reduce His requirements, but that [p. 235] He is going to bring us up to His requirements. He has got the means; the power is His. As the Lord says, “Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father”.
So the Lord says, “Tarry ye here until ye be clothed”. Luke 24:49. But that involves a moral process and Luke brings in the Lord as marked from the outset by prayer. Possibly as many as ten times in his gospel he speaks of the Lord as praying, and when He has finished His service He sets his face to go up to Jerusalem that He may suffer.
When Elisha gets Elijah’s mantle he would say, My best course is to get as near Elijah as possible, and see how he does things. He virtually says, Teach me how I may fill this, and he follows him immediately. Then instead of being a rival of Elijah, he pours water on his hands; he serves him, he wants him to be at his best that he may study him. Then as the hour of his receiving up draws nigh, Elisha follows him to Bethel and to Gilgal and to Mizpah, and at each place he says, “I will not leave thee”. 2 Kings 2:4. That mantle is too big for me unless you teach me how to wear it; so every position taken and every place visited indicates some feature of the testimony, that he may learn how Elijah behaves in every circumstance. And then they come to Jordan, and he is received up. It is the only way of going up, by way of Jordan. So with the Lord, He set his face stedfastly, for the time had come of His receiving up. In connection with Jerusalem He was going out, His exodus took place there, but He knew that He was going up. To become popular in any city or village or place in this world is to betray our service. The going out takes place at Jerusalem. You will be rejected there as He was rejected; the heavenly is refused, and we must accept that. John supplies the spirit of service, and thus abides till He come, but Luke deals with external appearance — the clothing.
[p. 236] So Elijah and Elisha go to Jordan. Think of the power of the position with which we are connected; the very same power that wrought in Christ when He was raised is now towards us who believe. So Elijah divides the Jordan; he smote the waters and they scattered hither and thither, and they went over. And as they went they talked. The Lord would have us habituate ourselves to what is heavenly, to walk and to talk with Him. So here Elijah says, as it were, to Elisha, What are you after? And Elisha, true to the size of the mantle, says, “I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit he upon me” 2 Kings 2:9 — nothing less will fill that. And Elijah says, “If thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee”. 2 Kings 2:10. It is all put on moral lines in regard to the Lord: if you see Me. So all the furnishings are there, furnished liberally by the Lord, but we come into them by desire, by the sense of the need of them. We pray; we do as He did here, and we secure in that way the furnishings which are requisite for the position.
Elijah says, “If thou see me”, 2 Kings 2:10, and Elisha saw him and as he went up the mantle came down; it fell and Elisha took it up. Then he rent his own garment in two, and with the mantle of Elijah he smites the waters of Jordan and they part asunder. In one way there was no pretension to imitate Elijah, but there was dependence on the God of Elijah. God was the same for him as for Elijah, just as we say, “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”; we recognise that He will support what is of Him. It all indicates an assembly spirit. So Elisha comes back with divine and heavenly clothing; it answers to what we have in Luke: “clothed with power from on high”. Luke 24:49.
Now Luke proceeds to the actual receiving up, “He led them forth as far as Bethany” Luke 24:50 — he indicates there the principle of the dispensation — leadership. And then He lifts up His [p. 237] hands and blesses them; leadership must be accompanied with that spirit of blessing. That spirit ought to mark those who lead, as Peter says, “not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing”. 1 Peter 3:9. Then as He blessed, He was carried up into heaven, and the disciples are in every way in accord with that, for they are continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. They are patterned after Himself and in great joy, for in principle they had the blessing. That is what follows His being received up according to Luke’s gospel; in Acts he gives us the same events, but not in relation to the temple, but to the upper room. There is no contradiction in the narratives, for both are the heavenly company, but Luke would show that God contributes this testimony to Jerusalem, in the temple, in these extraordinary men — the witnesses of the heavenly Man carried up into heaven. The God who had carried Him up in the same grace, the very same hour, was available in Jerusalem. So if we witness today, it is in the same way and in the same power. We are witnesses to God who carried Jesus up. God will not allow any man on earth to alter His plans. It takes grace to witness to a disobedient and gainsaying people, but He does it in these men “praising and blessing God”. Luke 24:53.
Now the same things, as I said, are connected in the Acts with the upper room. God has wrought wonderfully in our days, bringing out the truth of the assembly in connection with the upper room. There is something unpretentious, and yet something above the level of this present world, suggested in the upper room. The whole tenor of Scripture is to impress the principle of elevation. The Lord Himself goes up into heaven, but if He does so, He will come back from thence, and meanwhile heaven fills their gaze, while their interests here are centred in the upper room where the disciples were together. There [p. 238] they gave themselves to continual prayer, with Mary the mother of Jesus — that is the true Israel of God — and with His brethren. Whatever the high priests might say outside, the mother of Jesus was there. She had been committed to John, and there in that upper chamber you find all that He had cherished; every thought of God is cherished there, and everything that He had cherished.
In John, when He sends out the disciples, He says, I send you as I was sent — “As the Father sent me forth, I also send you”. John 20:21. It Is personal representation. We are to represent Him here, but for this there must be likeness. There must be likeness before image. So if He sends us forth, He first breathes into us so that we should be like Him. If you are to represent the Lord, you must be like Him; it could only be hard and official without moral likeness. Think of one daring to say, I am the vicar of Christ! God has had to say to all that, “I cast her into a bed ... into great tribulation”. Revelation 2:22. He will not own it; He will judge it.
You get the thought of likeness at the very outset: Adam, it says, begat a son in his own likeness. And then when Seth had begotten a son we read, “he called his name Enosh” Genesis 4:26 — mortal man — made of clay — how could such an one represent God? But “then people began to call on the name of the Lord”. Genesis 4:26. God had come in in Christ; it is God Himself brought in. So then it goes on, “These be the histories of Adam”. Genesis 5:1. God began all over again; the moral thing is established. God has come in and Adam begets a son in his own likeness. Now God has come in in Christ, not only as life, but in the Spirit. He breathed into them — it is most intimate — and because it is so John uses the designation Holy Spirit; it is one of the few cases in which he does so. “He breathed into them, and said, Receive ye Holy Spirit”. John 20:22. Luke insists on it and constantly uses the expression Holy [p. 239] Spirit, showing that the Spirit received in recovery is Holy Spirit. For if we call our son Enosh, so to speak, how could there be likeness to God save by Holy Spirit? Luke gives the public feature, clothing, but John what is inner, holiness. So we are to “flee youthful lusts”, 2 Timothy 2:22 and again, “let each possess his vessel in sanctification and honour” 1 Thessalonians 4:4 — we pursue our way and we end it in the light of holiness. So John says, “Ye have an unction from the Holy One” 1 John 2:20; in seeking to minister the power for it lies in the unction from the Holy One. Peter says, “We have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”. We understand and communicate divine things by the unction of the Holy One we have received.
May we be increasingly furnished for the greatness of our functions.