THE SUPREMACY OF GOD
C. R. Byng
One of the many ways in which the absolute supremacy of God is displayed is that He never has to alter in any way anything that He has purposed. The purposes of God stand, not only in their general scope, but in every detail. We think of the saints, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, as related to the purposes of God. And we can be assured that every one who was chosen in Christ is going to find his own particular place in the realm where everything by way of opposition will have been finally removed, when the full consummation of the greatness and glory and supremacy of God is going to be seen and is to be the theme of the worship of the myriads of those that love Him.
I think we are tested in these days as to our faith in the supremacy of God. One of the features that runs through the gospels is that the Lord Jesus had to question the disciples, sometimes individually and sometimes together, as to why their faith was so little. That perhaps is a current word, as the Lord might have to say to us. Why are ye of so little faith? Is our faith being strengthened, beloved brethren, in the supremacy of God?—the God who is able to do according to His purposes, and never has to amend in the slightest detail any of them.
The love of God is the source of every detail of the ways in which His supremacy is displayed; at the moment it is displayed to those who love Him, but ere long it will be displayed to a universe that will wonder. At the present time the supremacy of God is proved to us in the way that love would work. Love has the infinite right to show mercy. That is one of the features of the supremacy of God, that He has the right to show mercy, “To whom he will he shews mercy” (Romans 9: 18)—it is part of His rights in love. But then in the wonder of the greatness of God He has chosen to take a way which means that His righteousness in showing mercy is displayed to all. No one can challenge the right of God to show mercy because it is related to righteousness. No one would have the right to challenge it because it is based on love, but God has moved in a way, through Christ and the cross, to establish to all who may enquire that He is absolutely right to show mercy.
Even the way in which the Lord Jesus suffered and died showed that the supremacy of God was in complete control. Let us be strengthened to understand that everything is under control. It always has been, and always will be. That is something that is established as a foundational basis to our faith, that we know a God who has everything under control. Man had not planned to put Christ on the cross originally, they planned to put Him to death secretly lest there might be trouble, but the divine way was that Jesus should be on a cross; the curse that attached to the tree had to be demonstrated, and God saw to it by His over-ruling hand that man’s hands were used to put Jesus on the cross; but it was His determinate counsel and foreknowledge. It was not man’s counsel, it was God’s counsel.
God in His supremacy is still working things out according to His own will. We may wonder how He is doing it. We may question, not by way of lack of faith, but by way of genuine enquiry, as to what God is doing in South Africa. He is doing according to His purpose. Let us be settled in that. We may think, too, of Australia, and New Zealand. What is God doing? Let us be established that He is supreme in His purpose and behind His purpose is the infinite greatness of His love. The operations of His supremacy would be particularly related to His wisdom and His power. That was how God dealt with things in Corinth; He came in through the power of Christ to overthrow everything that was contrary to the truth of the assembly of God, and in the wisdom of Christ He established everything according to His own mind.
That is how God is working things out in these days. We would connect wisdom and power especially with Christ, because that is how Scripture connects them; but in the functioning of things in the detailed experiences of our assembly lives we find that the Spirit would connect the great thought of grace ‘with the Father; the Father is supreme in grace. But then if we think of wisdom (and how much wisdom is needed, wisdom. Ln all the detail of things, so that we understand, at least in some measure, how God is working) we would connect wisdom peculiarly with Christ, the glorious source of wisdom for the assembly. For the working out of things here we need the Spirit by way of power. The Father and the Son and the Spirit are all working together in Their own supreme way. We sang of the word of God; the word of the Spirit always has its own way, always reaches through.
What is in mind is liberation, that the yoke and the burden are to be removed, v.25. What a God we have been brought to know! What problems there are in the world! Are things out of control in the Middle East? Are things out of control in America, or Russia? God says, “As I have thought, so shall it come to pass”. He may take time; He often does. We may say a thousand years is a very long time—God says it is only as one day. His purpose is established; He is going to work it out according to His own timing, entering into the details of our lives. How many there are in this city at the moment in frailty of body. Is this out of control? Is the Lord Jesus, the Saviour of the body, relinquishing His personal sympathy and touch in relation to any beloved brother or sister? Far be the thought! The Lord Jesus in His own supremacy as Saviour of the body is going to exert His right ere long in resurrection power. At the present time He is using it in priestly power to strengthen the saints so that in their spirits they can be caused to be restful, the yokes and the burdens all departed and liberation coming in.
The whole earth is in view. You may say, What about the Far East, including China and Japan? God’s purpose is going to stand. Our activities would be related to where the Lord is manifestly working in relation to the spreading of the truth of the assembly. What an area there is to pray for! What areas there are where God is still working secretly, but He is working, let us understand that. Let us be assured that the supremacy of God is the complete answer to any way in which the enemy would bring in doubts or fears. Strength and courage on our part are the result in us of faith in the supremacy of God, and this is to yield for His own glory. His hand is stretched out, as it says, and “Jehovah of hosts”—that glorious title of God—comes in. The first reference to it is probably in the time of public weakness in the days of Eli, 1 Samuel 1: 3. A woman began to pray for a man child; she had some understanding of the glory of the name of Jehovah of hosts. That man child was used to bring in David. What a place Jehovah of hosts had with David!
But then as the people were brought back in the time of Haggai and Zechariah, what an extended place Jehovah of hosts had. And we are still serving a God who is Jehovah of hosts. There may be only two or three in a place, but Jehovah is there as Jehovah of hosts. And so, as it says, “Who shall frustrate it? And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?”.
“His hand is stretched out”; everything is committed by the Father into the hand of Jesus, the One who is the Son of Man. Men may marvel; men marvelled in the days of Belshazzar when the fingers of a man’s hand began to write on that wall, Daniel 5: 5. What was happening in the very midst of that awful feast was that the supremacy of God was seen; God exerted His right to write with the hand of a man, pointing forward, no doubt, to the Son of Man. O, how men need to fear God, because God is God, and God will never allow anyone to despise Him.
Punitive judgment is a strange work with God, but at the end love will have to have its own way and every opposing element will be brought under eternal restriction so that love can be free to be at home in a sphere where everything is filled by the worship of a God who always is, and always has been, and always will be, supreme in love.
Word in meeting for ministry
London, 24 September 1974