UNSEEN AND HEAVENLY THINGS

P. Martin

2 Corinthians 4: 15–18; John 3: 11–15

Our brother’s word has encouraged me to read these scriptures as having been thinking of them a little in relation to the unseen things and heavenly things. The service of divine Persons is to help us in the circumstances in which we are at the present moment. Our brother has referred to our great High Priest. What a great High Priest we have! One great enough to pass through the heavens. Aaron could never have done that, but Jesus has done it. He has passed through them all. I think these passages may help us in the present juncture because there are things that are outside of this world that are more real than the things that are in it.

We are

passing through conditions of momentary and light affliction. There are many passing through pressure and it is working something while we look not at the things that are seen, but at those that are not seen. Dear brethren, it works while we look at the things that are unseen. You may say, How can we look at unseen things? but it is open to us to look at unseen things. The things that belong not to this creation, not to this scene, but to the scene where Christ is; the unseen things. Peter says as to the Lord Jesus, “whom, having not seen, ye love”, 1 Peter 1: 8. Unseen things are centred in a Man in the glory.

We are living in a time when everything publicly is centred in what is seen; it has never been more so than in the affluent day in which we are. Men are living in earthly things. We are passing through conditions of the Lord’s own ordering in order to cause us to value the unseen things. It does not say, while we are looking, that might mean that we stop looking, but, “we look not at the things that are seen”. It is characteristic of the believer that he looks not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen, the things that are centred in Christ where He is in another world. We often used to be taught, when I was younger, the things of that world are more real than the things of this world. I think as we go on a little we begin to prove how true that is. Now we look not at these things. The believer is turning his eye away from the things that mark the scene that has rejected Christ, and even the things that have been affected by the incoming of sin. Creation itself is affected by the incoming of sin.

Believers are not finding their life in that, we look not at those things, we look at the things that are unseen, the things that are centred in a Man in the glory. I think the scripture in Genesis 24 helps us in relation to this because what the servant did was to give the things of his master to Rebecca. She was looking at those things while she was moving through the wilderness journey and eventually what filled her soul was the man who was coming to meet them—“she had said to the servant, Who is the man ... ?” (Genesis 24: 65). Isaac was a type of the heavenly Man.

It may lead us on to chapter 3 of John, because the Lord Jesus is speaking of heavenly things. Christendom has centred its occupation with earthly things, it has become an earthly Christendom, because it has rejected the Man who is in the glory. I say rejected Him, He is not given the place or even the glory that He is worthy of. The Lord Jesus says to Nicodemus,

“If I have said the earthly things to you”. He had said earthly things to Israel. What things they were! Great things that they had never heard before, but they were earthly things; but He was going to say heavenly things. You get the impression that the Lord Jesus was yearning to speak of heavenly things to His own, and He is doing that by the Spirit in the present day. He is speaking of heavenly things. He is speaking of the things centred in Himself, “Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which have not come into man’s heart, which God has prepared for them that love him, but God has revealed to us by his Spirit”, 1 Corinthians 2: 9. Think of the heavenly things that have been opened up to us because the Lord Jesus is in glory and the Spirit is here. Dear brethren, the things that belong to our life are heavenly.

Now the earthly things are not the occupation of our life. We have to live in this scene, we have to work out our responsibilities, we have to go to school, and we have to work, doing what is righteous in our business, but they are not our life. Our life centres in another world, in heavenly things, and the heavenly things are centred in Christ, and the Lord Jesus was going to open them up. He begins to speak of them to the disciples. Once you come to chapter 12 of John’s gospel the Lord Jesus begins to accustom the disciples to another world and He is doing that to the saints at the present time. He is speaking of heavenly things, not things that are centred upon the earth. The Lord Jesus will yet have to say to the earth, but it is not the centre of divine activity at the present moment. The Lord is occupying the saints with what is heavenly. He is saying, If I have said the earthly things and ye have not believed, what if I say the heavenly?

Dear brethren, what if He says the heavenly tonight? What if He is speaking about the Man in the glory? What if He is speaking about our heavenly calling and the place we have in Christ?

Made to sit down in the heavenlies in Christ. What if He is speaking of these things? Is it not to attract us away from the scene where He has been rejected? Indeed it is to cause us to live in the scene where He is.

He drew those disciples from John 12 onward, He drew them away from the scene that was going to reject Him, and occupied them with the world in which He would be the centre, and caused that His own relation with the Father should be unfolded to them. How wondrous that is, His speaking of such things! He is speaking of the assembly which has its origin in heaven and is heavenly in character, and whose destiny is heavenly. We belong to that order of life, we do not belong to the life that has rejected Christ. How wondrous that we have a place in His affections! He says that in John, “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”, John 14: 20. What wondrous things these are. You might say, Well, I understand little of it. I think it is to encourage us that in the Spirit’s day, we understand through the service of the Spirit; that the Lord Jesus has a place in the Father’s affections that is distinctive to Himself; and we have a place in His affections; and that He is to have a place in our affections because now we are associated with Him as out of death, of His own order, having the Spirit and linked with Himself in another world. He has a place in our affections that the disciples did not know, when the Lord Jesus was here and before the Spirit came.

May the Lord encourage us, our occupation is not to be with what is proceeding upon the earth. Our life is hid with Christ in God, that is where our life is. As

passing through tribulation down here and with our great High Priest strengthening us in the midst of it, it is working something. It is working a surpassing weight of glory; that is what is being worked out. You say, Out of these conditions, how can glory come out? That is what is working while we look not at the things that are seen. You may wonder sometimes how the saints will get through. Dear brethren, we look not at the things that are seen, we look at the unseen things. It affects the manner of life of the saints. We are moving through this scene as not belonging to it, moving as heavenly persons. We are moving here not characterised by matters that come up in the world, the changing standards of the world, we are characterised by what is unchanging.

May, the Lord encourage us, dear brethren, these things are real for us; they do not just belong to one hour in the evening, they belong to the life of the believer—Christ who is our life. I feel searched by it that Christ is our life—that is He is our life as we are living to Him.

He says in this gospel again, “because I live ye also shall live”; John 14: 19. As we are conscious of that we shall find that we move here in heavenly dignity in the world of moral degradation. May the Lord help us in it for His name’s sake.

Word in meeting for ministry, Dundee
20 June 2000