BUILDING UP IN VIEW OF SUBSTANCE
S. McCallum
It is important that we should see how, according to the truth of the glad tidings, our souls are to be built up in the knowledge of divine gift, in view of substance that becomes available with believers for the great thought of the assembly. You will recall the word to Abraham in Genesis 15 in regard to the prophetic suggestion as to the people and the furnace of affliction in Egypt, that afterwards they would come out with great property. I want to speak of how that property is acquired and how our souls become built up in the knowledge of God, in the truth of the glad tidings, so that there is property, spiritual material and substance, from which the great thought of the sanctuary can be constructed, having in mind the dwelling and the praise of God. You will recall that in the book of Esther there is projected on to our view the great thought in figure and in type of the wealth of the kingdom of which we are to speak. So that it says of a certain king, who in a faint and somewhat abstruse way sets out the great thought of God, “He shewed the glorious wealth of his kingdom”, Esther 1: 4.
These two thoughts enter into Romans 5 in the truth of the glad tidings, namely the glorious wealth of the kingdom of God, and the acquisition of property by those who are the subjects in that kingdom—whose minds and hearts have been brought under the moral sway of God in grace in view of securing for God that in which He would find His
abode, and in which He would be served according to the desires of His heart. There is great need in our local gatherings for substantiality in the souls of the brethren, especially with the younger brethren, with all the wonderful light that has been received from the glorious Head of the assembly as to Himself and the assembly. What wealth, dear brethren, has come to us in the unfolding of the truth, what wealth we have in the books in our homes, and how important that we should wholly follow up the line of the teaching into which there enters the expenditure of unselfish love on the part of Christ for His assembly. How important that we should not be neglectful in regard to the assiduous following up of the truth.
I would just digress for a minute to exhort the younger brethren in their early years to give attention to the ministry, to read it, and especially to give attention to the Scriptures and to read them, because our faculties when we are young are unimpaired—whereas in later years there is not the same faculty and ability to retain as there was formerly. All the older brethren would bear witness to that; some of us are not very old yet but we can already detect the failing faculties; therefore the importance of the word to Timothy, “Till I come, give thyself to reading”. Whatever it may have meant in that day, we have to understand what it means for us in our day, and therefore our spare time and the hours that are available when free from the legitimate duties of responsible life in the working day should be profitably turned to account as setting our hearts, like Daniel, to understand and to know the truth. No believer who does not read and does not pray will ever amount to much practically in the assembly, in the house of God.
It is often said that we do not have much time,
things move so fast, but we have to make time. Some of us come from cities where life is fast, and where time is scarce, indeed the scarcest commodity that we have is time. But we have to learn to redeem the time, to make opportunities, even if it means the loss of sleep. I am not, of course, suggesting that we impair our health; I am not referring to that. Some of us were recalling that great reply of Mr. Darby’s answering the unfaithfulness of one he had known so well; it was written when he legitimately could have been sleeping. He deprived himself of what was legitimate. Therefore we want to be on the line of being fixed in our objectives in regard to getting on in the things of God, for looseness in regard to objective is pathetic. There is nothing so spiritually vitiating as a loose way of viewing matters, as though it does not matter whether we give attention or not. Therefore the importance in our early years of being affected rightly in view of our part in the testimony to which we are called in this wonderful moment of the finishing of the dispensation.
So Romans largely has in mind young believers, although affecting, and rightly affecting, everyone whether old or young. We cannot build a superstructure without the necessary and right foundation, otherwise it will soon topple and fall to the ground, and if the light of the assembly is to be filled out in our local gatherings, and if the service of God is to be filled out rightly in spiritual substance and power, it of necessity means that the foundations must be right. It is important to see that our foundations are right. Mr. Raven said that when a person goes off in later years in regard to the truth, or the testimony, he always wondered what stone was loose in the foundation. And Romans has to do with the foundation, with the under-shoring, the under-pinning work which is so essential in view of a solid moral and spiritual structure being built
up in our souls. The knowledge of divine giving enters into this great matter. Romans 5
dilates on this great subject of the liberality and the gratuity of divine gift, in view of the encouragement of our souls. As has often been said, Romans 5 is like the vision of the glory in the wilderness, which the children of Israel got through the word of Aaron; they turned towards the wilderness and saw the glory (see Exodus 16: 10).
It is a great thing that we understand the truth of the kingdom and the truth of Christ’s headship as presented in Romans 5, and our attachment to Christ as viewed in that chapter, so that we are delivered from the influences that are at work on every hand that will soon find their consummation in the rival head to Christ, the antichrist, the man of sin. God has a Head for men and that Head is presented to the race in the truth of the glad tidings, and every feature of spiritual blessing is bound up with our attachment to that Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is important that we should be delivered from lawlessness; the kingdom of God and the truth of Christ’s headship in Romans .5 have in mind that we should be delivered from lawlessness and independency. We know that in the astronomical sphere the celestial bodies are held in relation to the sun, and thus it is in the moral and spiritual world, that if we are to be preserved in righteousness, free from lawlessness and what is independent, we must understand our attachment to Christ as the divinely appointed federal Head, in whom everything is presented from God to men for their appropriation. God has in mind that we should reach wonderful things; He brings on to our view the best in the glad tidings, as if He would touch our hearts by the very thought that He has provided the best, and brought in the best, so that we should forsake all that is linked with ourselves and the world, as affected by the
truth of the glad tidings.
For it is the gospel of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. That is, the truth of the glad tidings brings God on to our view, not in an arbitrary way, not moving arbitrarily for the accomplishment of His ends in the blessing of men, but moving in all the feelings of His heart to touch us by the fact that what He is in His nature enters into the securing of the blessing which in richness and fulness is unfolded to us in the gospel. And God has in mind that we should reach the great thought of sonship; it is presented to us on the line of gift for faith to lay hold of in the truth of the glad tidings. For according to Galatians we are all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. That is, it is not a question of attainment, it is a question of what is divinely conferred in the way of gift upon the believer through faith in Christ Jesus.
But then we want to reach sonship substantially and God brings in the wonderful character of the operating power that is in the glad tidings in view of our deliverance—deliverance from the world, deliverance from the law, deliverance from the flesh. God has in mind that we should learn these holy and wondrous matters, and that in the learning of them, and in the experience of soul in passing through them, we might be enriched with the substance that does not just come through the reading of books or the reading of the Scriptures but is acquired as by faith and making room for the Spirit we enter upon the truth of the glad tidings and are built up in our souls substantially in the knowledge of divine gift.
This is a real matter, dear brethren. If you are going to take a holiday somewhere, it may be on the Continent, I hope it is where there is a meeting, where the brethren are, for what would holidays mean if the brethren were not there? We should never
take our holidays where there are no brethren. Our holidays are to be bound up with them.
The places that mean most in geography to us are the places where the brethren are. When we intend to visit places the travel companies furnish literature that describes them, and emigrants from this country to other lands get all the story about the resources and the living conditions in the place to which they are going, and in which they are to live. Well, Romans 5
is like that; it is like God showing the wealth of the kingdom, in the wonderful character of divine giving. He wants us to enter into what is laid out in the kingdom as in the obedience of faith we are subject to the divine will, eschewing the working of our own wills in independence, as having been subjugated by the powerful operation of the kingdom which brings the will of God into supremacy in our souls. Oh the independency on every hand! If we are to be good assembly men and assembly women we must come into the gain of the kingdom, the kingdom must have its way in our souls.
Why is it that persons are difficult in local gatherings? Because the kingdom has not had the place that it should in the subjugating of their wills, in regard to the part and place they have in the testimony. If we are going to be in the assembly as we need to be, it necessarily means that the kingdom should have its full place wherever we are, in our homes, our businesses, as well as in the local companies. The truth of the kingdom is to have its full sway and power in our souls so that we are saved from lawlessness and independency. We will never reach the assembly if we are marked by features of lawlessness and independency. Persons who never rightly get help, in the full sense of the word, as to lawlessness and independency, always become a source of trouble in the assembly. They may know a lot, they may be able
to say a lot through the reading of certain things, but what stands the test and brings out where we really stand, and what we really are, is the spiritual substance and property that we have acquired and that has been built up in our souls as the truth of the kingdom has had its full place with us. So that God has in mind that we should reach sonship substantially, and that we should reach the thought of union substantially. How few there are that reach in fulness the blessedness of the truth of union with Christ.
Mr. Raven had to say in his day (and I have often wondered how much he would have to say it today) that most minded their own things and not the things of Jesus Christ. It is very easy to mind our own things, to put our business, our profession, our work and employment, our families, before the assembly. God’s chief thought, and the chief thought of Christ, is the assembly, and we need to be delivered from our self-contained thoughts and interests if we are going to serve that great object of divine intention rightly, as divine Persons have in mind we should serve it. Once the joy of union is reached subjectively in the soul in the power of the Spirit, your own interests sink into the background, and Christ’s interests become everything to your soul in your outlook and your activities of life. But then how much has to go before in the way of the breaking down of our wills, the displacing of the flesh, the displacing of myself; how much has to go on in a negative way, and how much is to go on in a positive way in the building up of our souls in view of reaching union substantially in the wonderful part that the assembly has as united to Christ. Therefore the truth of the kingdom enters into this great matter.
Then there is the truth of the new covenant and the truth of eternal life; these are wonderful
things that the younger ones may not be fully acquainted with, which were much before the saints in the early days of the revival. They represent the great lines of the truth that are divinely intended to build up our souls in view of reaching union substantially, and sonship, which is greater than union, sonship standing related to God and union standing related to Christ. When the thought of union is reached the assembly takes on a different light in our eyes. It is not a question of, ‘Well, you have to go to the meetings, and you have to keep them going, and it is a bother and a burden sometimes to get out’—your soul is filled with the joy that belongs to the privileged position that is yours as in the joy of being united to Christ, not in this world, but in that world, in that scene of glory where the heavenly Man is supreme.
We need to go over Romans, dear brethren, thoroughly and methodically. Anyone knows that in ordinary things in schoolwork, or college work, unless the groundwork is thoroughly covered there will not be much arrived at rightly. Romans is this; it is the groundwork in the soul in view of being in the assembly solidly as persons who can be relied on. So many of us are unreliable, we go by fits and spurts and starts; we come to meetings and we get a jog, and we get perhaps a touch (thank God we do) that keeps us going for the moment, but Romans has in mind that there should be laid in our souls a solid foundation, that in the refusal of the principles of the world, and the principles of law, and the principles of the flesh, we become thoroughly grounded in the knowledge of divine Persons as the truth of the glad tidings brings Them on to our view, and our souls acquire property in that relation, and are thus built up in the truth.
So in Romans 5—you may have heard it before, but we will draw attention to it tonight afresh—there are three great thoughts of life. There is salvation in the power of Christ’s life, as in verse 10; there is reigning in life, as in verse 17; and there is justification of life in verse 18. Now life as presented in these passages is life in an operative way. Eternal life is presented alongside of it, of course, in Romans, but eternal life is never presented in Paul’s ministry in a subjective way, it is always presented in an objective manner, as something to be reached, as something there is a moral road to, as it says earlier in Romans, “to them who, in patient continuance of good works, seek for glory and honour and incorruptibility, life eternal”, (Romans 2: 7). That is, it is something to be reached. But life in these verses alludes to what is subjective, it affects us inwardly in its operating power, and in the building up of our souls in the knowledge of divine gift. This subject of life in these relations is most important; God is giving us every advantage. The actual teaching takes us far beyond Romans 5. There are things suggestively in Romans that take us far beyond Romans. It is like Genesis, the seed plot; it is where things germinate, it is where we have things in embryo, in their rudiments, and it is important that we should see the teaching of Romans in this light.
As the truth comes out constructively in the epistle we are to be built up rightly in relation to the knowledge of God.
So this matter of being saved in the power of His life, brought so early into Romans, has in mind that we are to see the importance of immediate attachment to Christ and contact with Him. Why is it that persons get discouraged, and get out of fellowship? They lose their interest in the truth and in the meetings and they get out of fellowship.
They lose their joy in communion with God. Why is it? It is because they have lost this spiritual and moral contact that Romans 5: 10 has in mind. You know in electricity that if the contact is broken the thing becomes dead. There is no way of communicating, there is no way of receiving or imparting. Paul alludes to the very word ‘imparting’ (see Romans 1: 11, 12).
He desired to impart to them, but he also desired to receive from them, each by the faith of the other. It is important that the contact should be right, and if we are to be substantially in the assembly this matter of salvation in the intrinsic power of Christ’s life is essential, because Christ’s life alluded to here refers to what He is in glory; it is not a backward allusion to the gospels, it is an allusion to His position in glory. He lives a Man before God in the power of that indissoluble life, that life that death can never have to say to, and we are to be saved in the power of it.
The idea is, if I may illustrate it, that you get attached to a person and you are always in their company. Their life has an action and reaction upon you. Their thoughts and their objectives, because you regard them so highly, reflect upon you and your thoughts, and you become characterized and coloured by that. That is the great thought in Romans 5 in relation to salvation through Christ’s life; our contact with Him is maintained unbroken. We keep near to Him where He is in glory and the wonderful power of that life in saving value, and we are delivered from the extraneous, alien and foreign influences of the world. Why is it that the love of money and love of your work and business has come between you and divine things?
Because you have lost contact with Christ. You may say, ‘Oh, well, the meeting I am in locally—there is not much to it, the readings are dry, the brethren are not getting on too well,
administrative difficulties are many, and I have lost interest’. You would be far more truthful to say that you have lost your contact with Christ. No one can say differently who goes out of fellowship, however much they may blame the brethren, however much .they blame circumstances. Let us remember that if our contact with Christ is maintained we shall never be lost to the testimony, we shall be maintained.
Joseph said to his brethren, “Come near to me”, Genesis 45: 4. What did he have in mind?
Contact. He wanted to embrace them, he wanted to kiss them; that was their salvation. Why was it they were not right? Why was it they got into all the difficulties that they got into?
Because they lost the contact. They could not greet Joseph with friendliness, they maintained an aloofness, a distance, from him and therefore they got into all the sorrow and difficulty that they got into. Their salvation was in immediate contact with Joseph exalted in glory, the sustainer of life, Zaphnath-paaneah, as he is referred to. Our salvation, and I appeal to the younger brethren, is in keeping near to Jesus in glory. Do not let our souls get out of touch with Him, let us get into His presence as beloved Mr. Darby said—
‘Yet sure, if in Thy presence
My soul still constant were,
Mine eye would, more familiar,
Its brighter glories bear.
And thus Thy deep perfections
Much better should I know,
And with adoring fervour
In this Thy nature grow’. (Hymn 51)
What a power for good we would be in our local companies if we knew this element of salvation through the life of Christ. That is, we keep near
to Him, away from the world, away from alien associations and influences that are not working for good in our souls, and keep near to Christ morally and spiritually with the Spirit’s help. This verse involves the Spirit. We can only participate in the power of Christ’s life by the Spirit. As we participate in it the world holds little attraction for us, associations that are alien to the truth afford little danger, little allurement for us. Jesus crowned with glory, centre of the heavenly domain, is our great objective, and contact with Him. That is what the Song of Songs enlarges on; it is not knowing Christ at a distance in the figure, in the metaphors and similes employed to convey love’s thoughts in that book. She says, “A bundle of myrrh is my beloved unto me; he shall pass the night between my breasts” (Song of Songs 1: 13). That is contact with Christ in the immediate nearness of affection in the power of the Spirit. Oh the saving power of it! That is what the Lord had in mind in John 17: 19, “I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified by truth”. That is, our souls are to be held in relation to Him in glory and we are to participate in the power of that life, through the Spirit, so that it becomes operative in our souls and bodies and we are delivered from the ensnaring influences of the world.
Now just an allusion to reigning in life. What is reigning in our life, dear brethren? Is it our work, our families, that are reigning? The believer is built up in the liberality and gratuity of divine gift, he reigns in life through the abundance of grace. He has power, not as the poor people around us controlled by their circumstances, slaving night and day to build up social security, to build material reserves, money, and the like. They may be controlled and dominated by their circumstances. Many believers are affected in this way, but reigning in life means that the believer is
dominant in his circumstances; he is supreme in them through grace, as it says in verse 17:
“for if by the offence of the one death reigned by the one, much rather shall those who receive abundance of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness, reign in life by the one Jesus Christ”. This is a real matter. When bereavement comes in, does it take everything from us?
Are we controlled by it? Do we fall under it as the people of the world, or do we reign in life as set up in the abundance of divine grace and the free gift of righteousness? When it comes to our business and our work, are they everything to us? Do we live for them? Do we live for our families, or are we reigning in life? Are these things held in their proper relation so that the people in the world see in testimony that we are not controlled by the spirit of inflationary times and the power of material things, which have damaged so many souls? What is money, what is material, if we have lost what is spiritual?
Then it goes on to speak of justification of life. Dear brethren in Inverurie, in Detroit, Aberdeen, and elsewhere, is the justification of life seen among us? In Macduff or Peterhead, as you go out on the boat, do you lose your temper? Do you go about things as a man of the world would do? People have a right to challenge you if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Justification of life means that there is that seen in life in the believer that justifies his position; there is testimony and moral power in the life of the believer to this great matter of life. It is not just that he puts his hand on a scripture and says, ‘Well, that is life for me’. No!
Justification of life means that the believer is so affected by life that if he goes into a restaurant he bows his head in thanksgiving, recognising God—that is justification of life. If anyone brings the name of the Lord Jesus into conversation in
vain, he says, ‘He is my Saviour; that is my Lord’; that is justification of life. If you are pursuing the fishing, or anything else, you do not do it as men of the world do; justification of life comes into the matter. You pursue your course as one who has been affected by the kingdom of God, whose will has been brought under the moral sway of God, and whose soul has been built up in the knowledge of divine gift. You take character from Jesus. God’s great Administrator, the divinely appointed Head, and therefore you are not like men of the world.
Well, dear brethren, I feel it is very essential for my own soul, as well as for the souls of the younger brethren, that there should be the solid foundation built up through the truth of the glad tidings, in a knowledge of divine gift, in order that the great thought of the sanctuary and the assembly in our localities might be rightly set out and rightly held for God and His service.
Address at Inverurie
May 1957