REGULATION BY THE WORD OF CHRIST
[p. 419] REGULATION BY THE WORD OF CHRIST
Luke 19:1 - 10, Acts 2:47 (latter clause)
I am exercised to point out that we have to be regulated in all our relations by the Lord Jesus. It is a simple thought, but as I hope to show by the Lord’s help, a most essential one for us today; for if we are not regulated by the Lord, however well regulated we may regard ourselves, religiously or socially, it will not only be outside His direct influence and to that extent without His law, but we shall also be deprived of the privileges which He has for us as those who obey Him. He is the Regulator according to divine appointment, not only of the saints, but of everything, just as of old Joseph was set over the Egyptians, and Pharaoh said to him, “according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled”. (Genesis 41:40). Hence, as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see in Joseph the divine thought that all the saints, and indeed all the nations, and Israel as the head of them, as well as angels and all things are to be regulated and ruled by the word of Christ. This is perfectly clear from the Scriptures, and I want to show you how essential it is for us; for if we do not go beyond the acknowledgment of our allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ in our baptism, we are simply a multitude without order. The Israelites came up out of Egypt, not indeed as a disorderly mob, but they did not go out according to their tribes; they came out in military rank, “harnessed” (Exodus 13:18); that is, by fives, five in a rank thus presenting a military front to the enemy; they were under divine control, but not yet according to their tribes. I want to show you that the divine thought is that we should be regulated according to our tribes; in other words, that we should take up assembly position in our [p. 420] souls. That is what the Lord has in His mind for every one of us.
Now when a young Christian begins his course he recognises the lordship of Christ; that is the initial feature of his confession. In his baptism he confesses that Christ is Lord, but baptism does not set us in our tribes; it does not place us in the fellowship of God’s people; that is a later consideration, a further step, but obviously we begin with the acknowledgment, not only in the outward form of baptism, but in our souls, of the lordship of Christ. The one thing that is indicative of Israel’s faith is that they crossed the sea, so that baptism is only effective as it is taken up in faith; it is a dead form otherwise. We as parents do it for the child, but in order that it may be effective for the child it must be in faith with him, so that he may be said to have crossed the sea. He never crosses it truly except by faith, so that he begins his Christian career publicly in that way by the acknowledgment of the lordship of Christ. This is what Romans teaches us: “for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”. (Romans 10:10). So that he makes a good start in that way, with the heart affected by faith, and the mouth confessing what the heart has yielded to. Then the apostle goes on to say, “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself, ... whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s”. (Romans 14:7,8). Let us recognise that. Then he adds, “for to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living”. (verse 9). Thus the Lord has an incontestable right to rule over every soul; He has the keys of hades and of death; He can enter hades at any time and announce His right over everyone there. For the moment His rights are announced by the gospel testimony through redemption, and as it is accepted in the souls of believers the lordship of Christ is owned; as Saul said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). He not only recognised the Lord’s rights over him as a matter of property, but he said, “what wilt thou have me to do?” that is a levitical resolve.
Now, the people came out of Egypt, and in their song, joining as they did with Moses, as it is said, “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord”, they say, “The Lord is a man of war”. (Exodus 15:1, 3). That is how they apprehended Him; not yet as the Jehovah who would dwell with them, although no doubt they had it in their hearts, but what the song contemplates is the thought of a military Leader, so that they come out victoriously. They were not led by the way of the Philistines, “lest peradventure”, God said, “the people repent when they see war”. (Exodus 13:17). Before we fight, we must learn to be subject.
Now the book of Numbers is the great regulating book in the Old Testament, and I want just to touch on it for a moment. In the beginning of the book it is said, “And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation”. (Numbers 1:1). That was the position of the tabernacle; it was in the wilderness, and God spake out of it, in that position, and the speaking had in view the regulating of the people in regard to their tribes. The tribes, for faith, henceforth were always in view. No one who loves the Lord will ever let the assembly out of his mind; the assembly will be always before him; hence you find that where the Lord Jesus is typically seen in Moses as dwelling in the affections of His people, it is said “he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together”. (Deuteronomy 33:5). It is as Christ is recognised and held in the affections of His people that they are regulated by Him in assembly relations. Moses says in Deuteronomy 33:3, “Yea, he loved the people”. The Lord would have us in assembly relations, and [p. 422] as in those relations, the heads of the people and the tribes assembled will be seen there. The Lord is seen there; if as yet He is not acknowledged in the world, yet is He acknowledged there in affection. I believe that is what the king in Jeshurun signifies; Moses was held in the, affections of the people; so you can see the importance of the tribes. Those who are not walking in the light of the assembly are not holding to Christ.
Thus we see throughout the Old Testament, and in the New, that the tribes are always in view for faith. You get them in Elijah; you remember how he built an altar of twelve stones, recognising the twelve tribes. In the Psalms too the tribes always come in for affectionate recognition. Jerusalem is a city compacted together; it was not a city of endless suburbs like modern cities; it was divinely regulated, “whither the tribes go up”. (Psalm 122:4). One loves to think of the saints in assembly order as before God; the Psalmist says, that the tribes go up for “a testimony to Israel”, (Psalm 122:4). So the apostle Paul speaks of them; he says before Agrippa, “our whole twelve tribes”. (Acts 26:7). What a witness! No one can explain how that is, only we see that it is on the principle of faith. So James writes to them too, “To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad”, (James 1:1) for him they were all there; he does not hint at “lost tribes”; Scripture knows no such thought. We hear people say that the British people are the lost tribes; this is not so. The scripture has all in view; you do not write to lost people. I only speak of it in regard to the assembly, my desire being that we might have before us the thought of the entire company, as being under the eye of the Lord, and moreover that if anyone writes today, he writes as having all the saints on earth in view. Scripture not only speaks of speakers, but also of writers; every scribe is like unto an householder we read. James writes to the [p. 423] twelve tribes, and so if you write it is not only for the few you know, it is for all. Anything that the Lord gives, He gives for the whole assembly, because His thoughts of the assembly are never narrower than to include every member of it. The Lord knoweth them that are His, they are not lost in this sense.
Now to come to the thought of regulation. In the book of Numbers Jehovah is said to have spoken to Moses out of the tabernacle in the wilderness, and the word was one of regulation. It is in keeping with Corinthians, which is the word of regulation for the assembly. The Lord, through the apostle, addresses Himself to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, “with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours”. (1 Corinthians 1:2). There is only one Lord; wherever there is a company calling on His Name He is their Lord, as He is of all other companies; and then as the apostle proceeds, you discern that one rule or law is to govern all; all are to be regulated by the same principles. So the apostle says, “Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you”. (1 Corinthians 11:2). There were some directions which they kept, and others which they disregarded, but he credited them with those they had kept.
I dwell on the point of regulation because although there is to be no assumption to the position of the assembly in a public way, yet we must cling to first principles, those which were given to the apostle by the Lord to govern the saints. So it says, “But if any man seem to be contentious we have no such custom”. (verse 16). It is contrary to the assembly to have contention, “It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman”, Proverbs 21:19. Contention is foreign to the assembly, so the apostle says, “We have no such custom, neither the assemblies of God”. Men might meet on Mars’ Hill to dispute about matters, but not so in the assembly; it is a place for subjection to one another in the fear of Christ, hence the importance of rule. So the apostle says to Titus, “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting” (Titus 1:5); things were to be set in order.
When you come to the regulations in Numbers, the principle was that Judah was to have the first place; that cuts straight across nature. Nature and all its interests and prejudices must be excluded in the ordering of the house of God. Reuben was the firstborn, but he has not the first place in regard to the ordering of the tribes; Judah had that; not that he was any better exactly, but God would assert His rights. Judah gets the first place in relation to the tabernacle; and that is a very important principle; we must recognise God’s sovereign right. He does what He will in the armies of heaven; no one lifts up his head against divine ordering.
Now, another point in regard to that; Reuben is the firstborn of Israel, he represented natural right. Natural right was wholly refused in the ordering of the tribes, so that Reuben had his own place, and that place was adjacent to the family of the Kohathites; alas! they influenced each other injuriously, and the result was a party spirit; a servant of the Lord allying himself with those who had a natural right, and so they rebelled against Moses and Aaron. There was the alliance of natural right and prejudices with those who had the position of being servants of the Lord; but that moral combination led them to become rebels against the authority of Christ in Moses, and the priesthood of Christ in Aaron. We are so apt to gender party feeling locally; whilst the Lord emphasised in Numbers the principle of local responsibility, yet that very principle involved a danger, that is the danger of local party spirit.
[p. 425] If we have large meetings, or a number of large meetings in a locality, we are apt to think that we must be in a leading place. The leading place is determined by divine regulation and not by numbers. There were in that combination two hundred and fifty princes, men who had acquired renown. Renown is right in a spiritual way, for in Numbers the heads of the tribes are said to be men of renown. Paul was renowned spiritually, but you get men living on their own renown; there you have the danger and the result is party spirit. The Lord comes in and decides the thing. “I will make to cease from before me the murmurings of the children of Israel”. (Numbers 17:5). These men came up to the tent of the tabernacle in their brazen rebellion; they murmured before God. God says. I will make a test, and He did it by setting up Aaron’s rod to bear fruit in the sanctuary. The answer to all this rebellion is in life; life only can meet it.
In the book of Numbers you have the great principle of regulation; the people are all regulated according to their tribes and set round about the tabernacle, God Himself dwelling there in love in the midst of them; each tribe had a divinely given place round about the tabernacle. “Shine forth before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh”, (Psalm 80). The position of these three tribes was in immediate proximity to the holiest; God was to shine forth on them. How important to occupy your place, for you never can tell when God may shine forth on you. It is His prerogative to shine forth, He shines in the face of Jesus Christ; “Wake up thou that sleepest ... and the Christ shall shine upon thee”. (Ephesians 5:14).
Now to come to Zacchaeus; I want to show how the principle of regulation works out in the individual. Zacchaeus is a remarkable man; he is the type of a believer, but of a believer unregulated. This is true of many today, alas! The Lord had passed through [p. 426] Jericho, the place of the curse, and here is a man evidently exercised. He had heard of Jesus, and wanted to see Him, “who he was”; that was the exercise he had. I wonder if we have that exercise, to see Jesus, who He is. You remember how the Lord had put that question to the disciples, but He did not ask it of Zacchaeus; that was not the point then; Zacchaeus had not had the opportunity to know as the disciples had had. Zacchaeus runs ahead; “he ran before” it says, and climbed up into a tree, but he thereby placed himself in a very awkward position spiritually, as we are all liable to do, with the very best intentions, unless we are regulated by the word of Christ. He was one of those men who go before the Lord; never do that! You may be puzzled to know what to do, you may have the best intentions but do not ever run on before. A man who goes before the Lord may be called an extremist; extremists are never in the mind of the Lord, hence the importance of waiting for definite regulation by the word of Christ. He will come and regulate you if there is any uncertainty.
In the previous incident in chapter 18:39, before the Lord had passed through Jericho, there were certain “which went before”, and they would have silenced Bartimaeus, they would have hindered him from coming to the Lord, and that was a very serious matter, but the Lord asserts His rights and stood and commanded him to be brought. So Zacchaeus had run before the Lord, and he found himself, as I have said, in a peculiar position spiritually. Suppose the Lord were here today, how many people who profess to own Him would He have to look up to according to man’s order? A great many, I fear; if I am in a position in which He would have to look up to me, or even in which one of His people would have to look up to me, it is a position to be given up. I very much prefer to be on a level with [p. 427] His people. Timothy comes in as one of the brethren: he came with them, it is said, not they with him. I would not be happy to find myself in a position in which the Lord Jesus, if He were here, would have to look up to me. He had to look up to Zacchaeus, and in His grace He did look up to him, but it was to bring Zacchaeus down, in order that he might be regulated by His word, and that he might have the privilege of the Lord’s company in his house. It is a very much happier position to view the Lord and to see Him in the environment of the home, than to view Him from the sycamore tree. Things were not right here. If that be your case, let the Lord regulate you, let His word enter your heart, for as of old Joseph’s word was to rule all Egypt, so Christ’s word is to rule, and regulate you and me.
So Jesus says, “Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house”. He encourages him to come down, because He says, I am going to abide at thy house. Is it not worth while to come down so as to have the Lord? If you have never tasted what it means to have Christ in your own house, then, as one who in a measure has tasted it, I would encourage you to listen to His word. He would be near to you so that you might see Him in His beauty. The house of Zacchaeus was no doubt a well-furnished house, quite in keeping with his means, but the Lord did not say a word about Zacchaeus’s riches; He had spoken to another man about his riches, for riches were hindering him, but obviously that was not the case with Zacchaeus. He loved the Lord, and the Lord knew it, but He says, Zacchaeus, you must be regulated by My word, and in order that you should have Me it must be so. I would urge you, to be obedient to His word, not only to His commands, but to His word. What the Lord said to Zacchaeus was an appeal coupled with a promise: “For today I must abide at thy house”.
[p. 428] So he made haste, he complied with the Lord’s word, and received Him joyfully. It is a beautiful picture. How one can follow the Lord going through the door, and how Zacchaeus would attend upon Him. What a different scene from that presented in Luke 7, the Pharisee’s house! Here He says, I must remain in thy house. The Lord is not in a hurry to leave anyone who wants Him.
Well, I need not dwell further on that point; I turn now to Acts 2, to say a word as to verse 47. The Lord comes in in grace to your house that you may see Him in His beauty, but I draw attention to a beautiful and forcible expression, in the Psalms, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord ... to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his temple”. (Psalm 27:4). It is not now that the Lord might be in my house, but that I might dwell in His. You remember how beautifully David distinguishes; he says, “I dwell in a house of cedar”, (2 Samuel 7:2) but he did not invite the Lord into that, but he went and sat in the Lord’s house. Have you ever done that? As he sits, inquiring of the Lord, the word comes. I cannot enlarge on that now, but you can understand it. David was willing to forego his own house, to dwell in the Lord’s house all the days of his life, and in that house he would see the beauty of the Lord. So, in Acts, we have described what the effect of Peter’s preaching was; three thousand were converted, and it says all that believed had all things common, “and they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers”; then it says, “and the Lord added daily those that were to be saved”.
Has the Lord done that for you? That is what He is doing; adding to His assembly. I do not overlook the fact that we have no visible assembly. A brother told me lately that the expression “the invisible church” is St. Augustine’s; it is in that way a supplementary reference; he must have come to differentiate between the real church and the visible church; at any rate, it is very suggestive of that. We have to differentiate between the visible and the invisible; the visible is in ruins, but the invisible remains and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it. Thank God, there is that here, the members of which are linked up together by the Spirit, a formation that cannot be dissolved, that will never disintegrate. The Lord holds it, and at the end it is again presented, for it says, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”. (Revelation 22:17). I believe the Lord is adding to that, as at the beginning, daily; every day. Are you added? We have been speaking today of the revelation made to Peter as once for all; it is for you and for me to have the light of it in our souls, so that there may be a spiritual foundation for a structure to be erected upon. It is for each one to know whether he is in that structure.
Let us see to it that we have a spiritual foundation, that we have not only outward, formal links, but that we may be of those of whom it can be said, “The Lord added to the assembly”. When I call someone my brother, do I mean it? Do I mean that that person is a member of Christ’s body, and in that way linked vitally with me? It is all very real, and the Lord would have us to be regulated by these words for these words convey light to the soul, and if we are regulated by them we shall come into blessing. The Lord said to Peter, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona”. (Matthew 16:17). And it is a wonderful day in your soul when the light of Christ as “the Son of the living God”, (verse 16) comes into it. You will then be designated blessed, your place in the assembly will be known to you, and you will apprehend what the assembly is to Christ.
May God bless His word.