INCORRUPTIBLE AFFECTIONS
[p. 143] INCORRUPTIBLE AFFECTIONS
1 Corinthians 11: 23 - 26; John 14: 15 - 18; Ephesians 6: 23, 24
The exercise I have had in view of our coming together was that there should be something to promote spiritual affections — something that would lead to enlarged ability to love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption. “Them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption” is a beautiful description of the saints. It comes in the closing verses of the epistle which gives the full height of our calling, and it seems to suggest that everything is open to us if we love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption. One feels encouraged to believe that the Lord is working at the present time to bring that about.
We shall not get incorruptibility as to our bodily condition until we are translated, but I believe the Lord is active in the meantime to bring about incorruption in our affections. We could not say of any natural affection — even the sweetest — that it was in incorruption. But there are spiritual affections which have the Lord Jesus Christ as their Object, and which can be said to be “in incorruption”. They are of an undecaying and imperishable order. The word “sincerity” in the Authorised Version does not give the force of it; it is “in incorruption”. To have such affections would prepare us for the rapture in a blessed way. Those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption are ready at any moment to be caught up to meet Him in the air.
It is blessed to see that what is incorruptible has begun [p. 144] to have place in the saints now. Peter tells us that we are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the living and abiding word of God”. That is how our spiritual history began. Peter speaks, too, of “the hidden man of the heart” having “the incorruptible ornament of a meek and quiet spirit”. Incorruptibility having place in the hidden man of the heart would shew incorruption in the affections. I would like to suggest how that character of affection is brought about and maintained in the saints. I have no doubt it is by learning a love which is in incorruption, made known to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, and by appropriating that love in our affections. That is why I suggested reading the scripture in 1 Corinthians 11. I believe the Lord instituted the Supper to maintain us in relation to Himself in incorruptible affections. He brings us under the influence of a love that is in itself incorruptible.
The first thing the Lord says in instituting the Supper is, “This is my body, which is for you”. That body was prepared of God to be suitable to His “gracious” and “Holy” One; nothing ever had place in that body but the will of God. There was incorruption there, from the outset and all through. The Lord would nourish our affections on the fact that His body has been devoted to us in love. We know that He has wrought atonement for us and accomplished redemption. What He has done for us is most blessed, and we could have no spiritual blessing without it, but what He suggests to us in the Supper is His infinite devotion to us in love, and that becomes the spring of affections which can be said to be “in incorruption”.
I doubt whether we think sufficiently of the delight the Lord had in taking up His body — in being here in the scene of lawlessness for the pleasure of God. He said, “I delight to do thy will”. He delighted to be in that body [p. 145] which God prepared for Him. The Son’s affections were in that body, giving impulse to every act of obedience and righteousness. That was true when He was here; He had ever the consciousness of doing the will of One who sent Him. There was no stain upon the perfection that was there — no decline or decay. All His perfections and His holy affections came out in His body. It was the pure vessel in which everything that was marked by incorruption came out.
The bride in the Song of Songs (chapter 5) describes His body; she speaks of His head, locks, eyes, cheeks, lips, hands, legs and feet. In Psalm 45 the psalmist’s heart is welling forth with a good matter; he speaks of the King’s sword, His arrows, His throne, His sceptre, His garments and His anointing. All that suggests what He is officially. But His official glory does not appear in chapter 5 of the Song of Songs; what we see there is the description of His personal loveliness as known to His beloved ones. The Spirit of God would call attention to the fact that it came out in His body. We need to entertain that, and think of all the personal loveliness of that blessed One who took up a prepared body for the pleasure of God. “I was daily His delight” was true of every step of His pathway here, and His delight was to be God’s delight. Everything in that body had perfect loveliness and moral beauty, and the spring of all was the affections of the Son. Think of that body being devoted in love to the assembly! It is not a question at the Supper of sinners, but of the Lord devoting His body for the assembly. All were clean at that supper table save the apostate, and the Lord said, ‘I am going to devote My body for you’. That was love in incorruption. The loved one in the Song had Him in her affections through the night of His absence as “a bundle of myrrh”, Song of Songs 1: 13. She had to get to the mountain of myrrh “[p. 146] until the day dawn, and the shadows flee away” (chapter 4:6). Speaking in the language of the New Testament she had to learn Him in the devotion of His suffering love in which He gave His body for her. All moral loveliness came out in His body — He was “altogether lovely” — but He has devoted that body in supreme love for the assembly. That is the “mountain of myrrh”; there is fragrance there which moves the affections. Unfading and incorruptible love on His part calls into activity incorruptible affections on the part of the assembly.
In Luke 22 His body is “given”, but in 1 Corinthians 11 the word “given” is omitted. “This my body, which is for you”. The abiding preciousness of what was once given remains — I think we might say eternally — for the assembly. The fragrance of that “mountain of myrrh” is wafted to us afresh every time we hear Him say from heaven, “This do in remembrance of me”. The voice of our Beloved surely makes every chord in our hearts vibrate with incorruptible affections! The Supper is the Lord’s abiding provision that precious, incorruptible affections should be constantly refreshed, revived and maintained in our hearts, and this not merely individually — for we cannot eat the Supper alone — but assembly-wise.
There is a difference between having an affectionate remembrance of the Lord all the week and remembering Him collectively as come together in assembly. Every one who loves Him in incorruption carries a sense of His love all the time. But His precious word, “This do in remembrance of me”, is addressed to His own collectively; it contemplates movements of affection which have assembly character. He would be remembered in united affections by His loved ones as together in assembly character. He would be remembered in affections which are properly those of the assembly. I believe the Lord [p. 147] intends to develop this kind of affection every time we remember Him. If we have only broken bread a few times our affections may not be greatly developed, but those of us who have broken bread many times ought to be greatly developed in these affections. If not, what the Lord has before Him has not been reached, and we are in poor response to Him; we are like the little sister with no breasts (Song of Songs 8: 8). Nothing makes up for that; no turret of silver or boards of cedar will make up for lack of breasts. The Lord wants the incorruptible affections of the assembly. The bride says, “My breasts like towers”
(Song of Songs 8: 10); those are fully developed affections; they are brought about under the influence of the devoted love of Christ as set before us in the Lord’s supper. John at that supper table was in the region of incorruptible affections; he was in the bosom of Jesus, and leaned on His breast. That is where we learn incorruptible affections, and where they are developed in us.
The Lord would also be remembered in the drinking of the cup. What an astonishing thing it would have been to a Jew to be told that the new covenant was a subsisting fact! He would say, ‘Nothing is changed; sin and death are still all around’. But the Lord says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”. The spirit and spring of the new covenant is God revealed in His nature. You might say to a man living in the millennium, ‘What wonderful times you are having, what marvellous prosperity! Your harvest and your vintage are perfect; neither your wife nor your children are ever sick; you have a blessed time’. He would answer, ‘If that is all you know about it, you do not know much. My blessedness is that I know God’. “They shall all know me”. That is the blessedness of the covenant. Not merely that everything is perfect providentially, but all His people know God, and respond to Him in holy affections. It is not only that lawlessness and [p. 148] idolatry are set aside, and there is no dearth or death-shadow, but God is known in love. We have this blessed knowledge now, and we call the Lord to mind as the One who has been the Testator of it all. It has been brought to us in the blood of Christ so that we may know God.
Could anyone tell how God valued the life of Christ here?
But He gave Him in death that we might know the Spring of all blessing in the heart of God. To drink into that forms incorruptible affections.
In the Supper we hear the Lord’s voice — “the voice of my beloved!” And we get a glimpse of Him; He shews Himself through the lattice. He appeals to the affections of His saints, and the affections of the assembly move actively towards Him. What He presents to us in the Supper speaks of His affections, but He brings them before us to awaken ours. His coming to us is dependent on our affections. The first question is, How have we been affected by the love of Christ and the love of God which has been brought to us, and which is kept fresh in our affections by the continual recurrence every first day of the week of the Lord’s supper? As we call Him to mind in affectionate remembrance He gets His place, though absent, as the Object of love “in incorruption”.
The love of the assembly is actively awakened by what is recalled of our Lord Jesus Christ. Incorruptible affections are nourished and cherished and enlarged under the influence of His love and God’s love. Then our affections have an effect on Him. “Behold, He cometh”, Song of Songs 2: 8. “If ye love me ... I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”, John 14: 15, 18. If we love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption do you think He could keep away from us?
He goes where He is loved. From John 14: 15 all turns on “If ye love me”. It is not, “I have loved you”; He has said that in John 13, but now He says, “If ye love me”.
[p. 149] He says as it were, I will tell you the great gain which accrues to those who love Me in incorruption. First of all you will get the Spirit — the Comforter — and then “I am coming to you”. How deeply the Lord is affected, and how truly He is attracted, by the love of the assembly!
We can speak very confidently about His love for the assembly, but in John 14: 15 it is the assembly’s love for Him, and how He answers to it. The development of incorruptible affections in the saints attracts Him. In the Song of Songs He says to His loved one, “How much better is thy love than wine!” She had said, “Thy love is better than wine”, but He says, “How much better is thy love than wine!”
There is something collective for the Lord even in this day of great weakness. The Supper has been restored to us, and this really involves the reinstatement of an assembly character of things brought about by revived spiritual affections. If saints really eat the Lord’s supper they must take church character. There is something for the heart of Christ; He not only loves the assembly, but the assembly loves Him.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter”. The Comforter — the Holy Spirit — comes to be the abiding support of those who love our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is by His presence and power — though He is invisible — that spiritual affections are maintained here “in incorruption”. If we give place to the Spirit our affections will never wane. While the Lord was here He carried on an unceasing service of personal love, but now that He has gone to the Father we have the Comforter. There is adequate divine power to maintain things wholly apart from any corrupting influence. This is not a fluctuating influence, but an abiding divine presence.
Another thought seems to me to be closely connected [p. 150] with the incorruptible affections which have been called into being by the activities of sovereign love, and that is suggested by the character in which the Lord comes to His own. “I will not leave you orphans”. There is something of a parental thought in this. He would come as the One whose parental care and affections they had known.
He had nurtured them in family affections; He had spoken to them of the Father; He was Himself the way to the Father; and they had seen the Father in Him; He had told them of the Father’s house. He would come to those who love Him to renew those blessed influences that would bring the Father and the Father’s love near to them. He comes to us as the One who says, “I ascend to my Father and your Father”.
The effect of His coming to His own is to bring in the consciousness of relationship with the Father. This is more than the light of the relationship, or even the Spirit of sonship; it is the enjoyment of the relationship in company with Him who is the firstborn among many brethren. There can be no orphan feeling left in the hearts that have experience of this.
How delightful it must be to the Father to have sons before Him in association with Christ — to have those whose affections are at home in the relationship which His love has established! Family affections are there, and they are in incorruption, they are eternal in their nature; they will never decay or fade. The love of Christ is known and responded to, the love of God is known and responded to, and the love of the Father is known and responded to. The Father’s love is known as resting upon His beloved Son, but it is in the brethren to whom the Father’s name has been made known by the Son. These are incorruptible affections.
If the Son comes to us He brings the Father’s love because it rests on Him. It is the supreme desire of His [p. 151] heart that we should know the Father’s love. “I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known; that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them”, John 17: 26. What must it have been to the disciples to miss the abiding influence of the Father as He had been made known to them by the Son in Manhood? They are truly orphaned in losing Him, but “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”. He would come bringing the wealth and warmth of the Father’s love to them. When He comes to us we find ourselves consciously with Him in the presence of the Father’s love; we know that He is there. We may sometimes carry on meetings as if we were in the joy of this when we are not. One would desire to look increasingly for the realisation of it by the Lord coming to us — the state of our affections being suitable for Him to do so. It is love in incorruption that secures this unspeakable favour.
It is a day of much precious ministry, but let us not be content with light and terms. Nothing will satisfy our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father but developed affections — those incorruptible affections which are spiritual and eternal. Love in incorruption must be entirely spiritual. One is attracted by the blessedness of knowing that we can have what is incorruptible in our affections before we know incorruptibility in a glorified condition of body.
“In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. He is in the Father’s affections; the saints are in His affections; and He is in theirs. That verse is a precious setting forth of incorruptible affections.