THE GLORY OF DIVINE GRACE

THE GLORY OF DIVINE GRACE

Ephesians 1: 3 - 11; Ephesians 4: 8 - 16; Joshua 10: 10 - 14

I wish to say a word, dear brethren, as to God’s thoughts concerning us as they are presented to us in the epistle to the Ephesians, and as to the means by which He is giving effect to them at the present time in the saints. The apostle, as we have often remarked, as introducing this great subject of what God has in mind of Himself, you might say, for the saints, introduces it in a spirit of worship, saying, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This would show that these things are not to be regarded by us in any academic way, but as entering into the feelings of love in God which lie behind the thoughts which He has made known concerning us, and getting some little impression of the greatness of what God is pleased to do for His own satisfaction, and the wisdom by which He effects it, and the power too, that is brought into expression in effecting these thoughts, that we should be developed in a spirit of worship.

You will remember that Jacob, who is taken up as an example of God’s ways with one who is the subject of His sovereignty, finishes his days as a worshipper. He worshipped, it says, leaning on the top of his staff (Genesis 47: 31), as though that is an end that God is working to with us, that everyone should become developed in the ability to worship, and not only to worship, but also to celebrate God’s praises intelligently and feelingly. David, too, in the last chapter of 1 Chronicles, speaks to God and says, “Thou art exalted as Head above all.” His heart rises to God in a sense of the exaltation which attaches to the blessed God, so that David says, “Thou art exalted as Head above all.” So with others also, such as Simeon, who coming into the temple and embracing God’s Christ in his arms,

blessed God; Luke 2: 28. His movements were in the Spirit, and the Spirit of God has a large place in the epistle to the Ephesians, for the Spirit of God in His ungrieved operations is essential if we are to have any true understanding of what God has taken us up for, but Simeon came in the Spirit into the temple and took up the child Jesus in his arms. It had been made known to him by the Spirit that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ; that is, the Christ of God, and he took up the child Jesus in his arms, and blessed God. It is a great secret in regard of our spirits being called forth in worship God-ward, to have an apprehension of the Christ of God; that is, not now in relation to ourselves, but Christ apprehended in relation to God; that is, as the One by whom and in whom God effects every thought that His love has cherished.

Well, now, the epistle to the Ephesians, I need not say, is written from the standpoint of the exaltation of Christ, as, indeed, we are told in this very epistle that God has “set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named,” Ephesians 1: 20, 21. We are in the presence, in this epistle, of the greatest conceivable exaltation, the greatest conceivable elevation too in a moral sense, and that is to give us an idea of the kind of riches, so to speak, into which we are introduced. The greatest thoughts of God are now to be opened up to us, and Christ is already there as Man in the position from which those thoughts are unfolded. That is a great thing to take account of. In olden times, Abraham and others saw things as God revealed them to them, distantly. “Abraham,” the Lord says, “rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad,” John 8: 56. At the same time, what he saw was still in the distance, but things are no longer in the distance. Christ is already in the place which God’s purpose has marked out for Him, and the Holy Spirit is here, the Earnest, and in the Earnest there is the power in the saints to enter at the present time into all that will soon be ours in glorious actuality. Indeed, dear brethren, one frequently reminds oneself that it will only take a twinkling of an eye; that is all the time it will take to transfer us actually from this scene into the place and bodily condition in which these blessings are to be realised in their fulness and for eternity. So near are they that it only requires a twinkling of an eye to complete the matter so far as our bodily condition is concerned, but there is that completion to go on in the meantime in our souls in a formative way, and that is what we are concerned about.

What I am seeking to stress is that the day for these things has come, in that Christ is already in the position which the purpose of God has marked out for Him as Man, and the Spirit has come. The day for heavenly things and spiritual things has come. That is what one wants to reach, that the day for these things is now. We are not to put them off till the future, and so the apostle says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us.” The apostle can speak in that way. He is dealing with God, and with God’s standpoint, so to speak, and, as I say, Christ is already in that position, and in Jesus where He is is the setting out of what God has in His thoughts for us. It is well for us to take that in, and so the apostle can say that God “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” He has chosen us, he says, “in him before the foundation of the world.” It is remarkable the scope that is covered in one or two verses, going back to before the foundation of the world, eternity in the past, if one may speak of the past in relation to eternity; going back to that, and then looking on to what is called the administration of the fulness of times which is the day that is to come; then in chapter 3, going on to all generations of the age of ages which is eternity in the future. The apostle, in a very short span, so to speak, so far as words are concerned, covers an immense scope as regards time or eternity. He says, God “hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.”

We have often gone over these things, dear brethren, but it is well to go over them again to get our minds and spirits saturated with the sense of the blessedness of God operating entirely from His own side; not presented as actuated by any question of need on our part or desire, for indeed these matters go back to before the foundation of the world, but choosing us for His own pleasure, choosing us in Christ. One sees, dear brethren, what divine purpose is, how marvellous it is! How from the very outset, when once the thoughts of divine love were conceived, the incarnation was in view, as, you might say, the keystone of all that God was going to effect. He chose us in Christ. The explanation of it, of course, is that all is “according to the good pleasure of his will.” It is not a question of what might meet our most exaggerated thoughts or desires; it is a question entirely of what will satisfy the heart of God. You might say, why should God desire it? Well, it is a matter for us to consider, why indeed? I was speaking of different ones who were moved in a spirit of worship. Paul, himself, is another remarkable instance. So blessedly did he know God that in writing an epistle like Romans, he constantly bursts out in doxology. In chapter 1, he refers to God as Creator, saying of men, that they “worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” Then in chapter 9, he speaks of Christ coming in of Israel, according to flesh, and then in order to establish the truth of His Person, he says, “who is over all, God,” but then he has to add, “blessed for ever. Amen.” That is the spirit in which Paul handles divine things. As he thinks of God and as he thinks of Christ, a spirit of worship arises in his heart and that is what the Lord would help us in, lest we should become academic or formal in these holy things. In Romans 11, he traces God’s ways and, as he does so, he says, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?” And then he says, “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” That is how Paul is affected as he thinks of God. If he thinks of Christ, who He is, he is affected in the same way. If he thinks of God’s ways, he is also affected in that way, and as he thinks of the mystery, he is similarly affected, according to the end of Romans 16. The spirit of worship is intended to characterise the saints as they take account of God.

As I was saying, we might well ask, why should He purpose these things and why should we be the subjects of them? Long before man was created He brought into being an order of creature infinitely greater in power and glory than man, I refer to the angels, and yet when we come to the epistle to Hebrews, we find, “he does not indeed take hold of angels by the hand, but he takes hold of the seed of Abraham,” Hebrews 2: 16. That is God’s sovereignty. Why should He do it, save that He is pleased to do it? He is pleased to magnify His grace, to exalt His own Name in the glory of what His own grace is able to do, but, if, on the one hand, it is infinite grace that takes up such as we, there is another side to it and that is that He makes us entirely worthy of the position which His love has marked out for us. While it is right to have low thoughts of ourselves, to be marked by humility, it is not right to have thoughts of ourselves lower than what God thinks of us. You will remember that when the unbelieving spies came back and spread a bad report of the land, they said, “we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight,” Numbers 13: 33. That was not the divine view of the people at all. Balaam, a little later, had his eyes opened and said, “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them,” Numbers 23: 21. God’s view of the saints is not at all that they are grasshoppers, and we are not to have a view of ourselves less than what God has of us. So it says, “he has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved,” Ephesians 1: 4 - 6. That is one central point that is to hold our hearts, “the Beloved.” It is the light that governs the present dispensation. It says in Isaiah 60: 1, “Arise, shine! for thy light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee.” Our light has come. It is the light of Christ in glory, and then of the assembly as of Him and united to Him, so that the first thing that is to hold our hearts is the light of “the Beloved.” It is Christ in a settled position, loved of God, on account of what He is in His moral excellence in manhood and in sonship; beloved in that position. He is the antitype of both David and Solomon. It says, we have been “taken into favour in the Beloved.” That is the position which we fill out in sonship and then it adds, “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences, according to the riches of his grace.” We have that in the Beloved, and through His blood, the blood of the Beloved. How touching that is, dear brethren.

In Proverbs 8: 24, Solomon writes, “When there were no depths, I (wisdom) was brought forth,” but there came a time when depths came into evidence, and one of the greatest depths that came into evidence was when God’s Beloved went down into death and judgment that we might receive forgiveness of sins. The depths have come into evidence, and God has brought in wisdom in order that we should be furnished with that which is intended to appeal to our hearts and enrich them with a sense of how blessed God is. Paul prays that God would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him. That is the great thing, and then, not only are we taken up in sonship, but God would have us marked by intelligence. To be characterised by affection and liberty are two great features of sonship, but also to be characterised by intelligence. A parent who has young boys regards them, of course, as his sons; they are his sons. At the same time, they do not represent, while they are boys, the full thought of sonship. The full thought of sonship involves full manhood, so that they are capable of entering in an affectionate and intelligent way into the thoughts of the father. Having introduced this thought of sonship, we get the further thought then that God has abounded towards us in the riches of His grace in making known to us the mystery of His will. He wants us to be fully intelligent, and all this, dear brethren, is to take shape now. It is not at all the thought that it should be put off to the future. There is no object in putting off to the future our becoming intelligent as to the administration of the fulness of times, because when the fulness of times has come the administration will be seen, but what God wants us to be intelligent about is what He is doing before it actually comes to pass, and so He has made known to us the “mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself for the administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth; in him, in whom we have also obtained an inheritance.” That shows the place that the assembly has with Christ. It answers to Eve as given to Adam, for Adam was set over all the works of God’s hand. There were the fowl of the heavens, the cattle, every beast of the field, the creeping things, and the fish of the sea, all were placed under Adam. He was set over them all as head. It was a prefiguring of what God has purposed for the administration of the fulness of times, that all things are to be headed up, both heavenly and earthly, in the Christ.

Now Adam being in that position, God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate, his like,” Genesis 2: 16. There is the deep sleep and the rib taken out of the side of Adam, and the building of the woman, and the bringing her to the man. She was brought to the man in that position, and that is exactly what is before us here: “In whom,” that is, in Christ, “we have also obtained an inheritance.” We have an inheritance with Christ because He is to inherit all things and we are to have part with Him in His inheritance. The point is, dear brethren, Are these things to affect us now? It is a wonderful thing that these things are ours, but how are we to be fitted to have part with Christ in that day? Adam rejoiced when he saw someone brought to him whom he could recognise as being worthy of him, and capable of entering intelligently with him into the position in which God had placed him. He said, “This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Woman, because this was taken out of a man,” Genesis 2: 23. That is, there was, in feminine form, in the affections and grace connected with the feminine idea, that which was the exact counterpart to the man. That is what we are to have before us, dear brethren. This is God’s side of the matter. In the fifth chapter of this epistle, we have Christ’s side of the matter (Christ viewed in this position as the One in whom all things are to be headed up); “the Christ also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it, in order that he might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water by the word, that he might present the assembly to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things; but that it might be holy and blameless.” We only arrive at what is holy and without blemish as we are brought into correspondence with Christ, and hence that is what we come to in chapter 4, what God is working for at the present time in the assembly. We read in chapter 4 that Christ has gone up far above all heavens. “Wherefore, he says, Having ascended up on high, he has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men. But that he ascended, what is it that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens.”

I was speaking a moment ago of the exalted position in which Christ is. He is there permanently, never to be dislodged from it. He is to be taken account of there. It says, “He ... has also ascended up above all the heavens.” In the first chapter He is presented as being set by God in this exalted position; in this chapter He is presented as gone there in His own right and power, “ascended up above all the heavens.” We get a wonderful view of Christ, the One whom God has supremely exalted on the one hand, and the One who has in His own Person the inherent right and power to go far above all heavens, beyond the created sphere, and hence we are in the presence of the greatest conceivable thing: a divine Person in manhood, and yet we are to be united to Him. We are not to have part in Deity, of course, but, at the same time, to be brought near, to a most intimate and most holy place, to be united to a Man who has part in Deity. “He has ascended up above all the heavens.” He has gone there in His own right and power, far outside the created sphere. What a glorious Christ! Then from that position, so to speak, unaffected by conditions down here; that is, not operating from that standpoint but operating entirely from the standpoint of divine counsels, He has given gifts, but then there is a parenthesis to call attention to the fact that before He ascended He descended first into the lower parts of the earth. All that had in mind the formation of the assembly. The body of Christ is to be brought into view, and is to be brought into view as corresponding with Himself, as formed under the influence of His love expressed in death. Adam went into a deep sleep, and the woman was formed out of what was taken out of his side in the deep sleep, and Christ has gone down into the lower parts of the earth. It means complete identification in love with the position in which we were; not, of course, that the assembly has any past history, I am not suggesting that, but then the assembly, as the body of Christ, is to be formed in moral features, formed in features that are of God, formed in love, in righteousness, in holiness, and these things are learned in the light of the death of Christ. Those who are to compose the body of Christ are those who have had a past history, though viewed as the subjects of the work of God they have no responsible past history. So the process of formation goes on, and Christ has ascended up above all the heavens, and from that position He has given gifts. Later in this same chapter, we read, “But ye have not thus learnt the Christ, if ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus; namely, your having put off according to the former conversation the old man which corrupts itself according to the deceitful lusts; and being renewed in the spirit of your mind; and your having put on the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness.” It is a question, I believe, of the way the work of God goes on. On the one hand, there is Christ personally before us: “But ye have not thus learnt the Christ,” and then the entire disallowance of one order of man in order that an order of manhood created according to God in righteousness and true holiness should come into view. That truth is learned in Christ and in the light of His death: “Ye have not thus learnt the Christ, if ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus.” Now the work of God is going on in the formation of the body of Christ. We should bear in mind that what is in view is the formation of this vessel that is to be the fulness of Christ, the complete answer to all that is found in Him as a Man. There are two means which God employs, and the first is the gifts from an ascended Christ, and the second is what we ourselves do amongst ourselves as holding the truth in love. These are the two means by which God is effecting His present thoughts in the saints. First of all there are the gifts from Christ ascended far above all heavens: they represent the invincible power of the ascended Christ. They are used, it says, “For the perfecting of the saints; with a view to the work of the ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ; until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man.” The Son of God is God’s ideal. A divine Person in manhood is God’s idea of manhood, and we are to have an apprehension of the Son of God and arrive, in the appreciation of Him, at the full measure of stature, no less measure of stature than that of the fulness of the Christ.

I trust that I am able to convey what one has in mind. One seeks to present the great thought before the mind of God, the body of Christ, the fulness of Christ, and that what God is effecting now by means of the gifts is nothing less than this, and what we are to have before us is nothing less than this, “The measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ,” no less measure. The Son of God is God’s ideal. The Christ is what He is working to, and so no less a thought than the full thought of manhood as set out in Jesus is to be before our hearts. I need not say that there is a double thought in God’s mind, in regard to manhood as seen in Jesus. One is that Man is before Him entirely for His pleasure, capable of responding to Him in a way that affords Him satisfaction, and the other is that Man is in view as the One in whom God can be perfectly expressed. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let them have dominion,” Genesis 1: 26. Both these thoughts are to be filled out in Christ and the assembly, His body, for the assembly is the great vessel in which God is to be ministered to for His own pleasure, in affectionate and intelligent response. It is also the vessel through which Christ will fill all things with the knowledge of God. Indeed, He will fill all things by the assembly, I have no doubt, for the pleasure of God. The assembly will shed its own influence over all the other families, and as influenced by it, they will yield pleasure to God, but then also by means of the assembly Christ will fill all things with what is morally of Himself and thus truly expressive of God, for He is the image of the invisible God.

There is not only what ministry has in view, but there is also the part we are all to play in this. There is something now brought in which is not a question of gift. We are not all gifted but we all have a part to play in this matter of the edifying of the body. Verse 15 reads, “But holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ: from whom the whole body, fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply.” It is a question of the saints as set together, compacted, every joint doing its part. How important this is in our local companies, that we should be compacted, and that everyone should hold himself under the influence of Christ, and that the truth should be held in love, not abstractly, but in love, understanding that all the saints are essential for it. “God ... has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.” All the saints are necessary. We do not want to be without them. It is a question of being fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply; each brother and sister having something to supply with a view to the increase and building up of this vessel which has one end in view and that is the expression of Christ. That is what is contemplated here: “according to the working in its measure of each one part, works for itself the increase of the body to its self-building up in love.” As the truth is held in love, and we are growing up in all things to Christ, who is the Head, and deriving from Him, there is the ability to edify ourselves. The body edifies itself in love.

In closing, I want to refer to the passage in Joshua, for I think that is illustrative of what I have been saying, and also brings in a further feature which enters into what God is effecting. Joshua 10 is, I believe, the point of greatest power reached by the people under Joshua, and the beginning of the chapter presents to us certain kings of whom the first was the king of Jerusalem, coming against the people to prevent them from entering into the inheritance which God had prepared for them. Jerusalem in Scripture nearly always sets forth the truth of the assembly in actual expression among the saints, not in the abstract thought of it, which is more Zion, but in actual expression among the saints, and that was in enemy hands. A king of the Amorites was king of Jerusalem and it was a question of the people of God coming into their inheritance. They went to battle and the people themselves effected a great deal, and then, in addition to what the people effected, God effected a great deal. He cast down hailstones from heaven so that there was a complete victory gained by this two-fold means what the people themselves did, how they slew the enemies, and then what God Himself did from heaven, hailing down hailstones upon them. It is a good thing, dear brethren, to see that these are the two lines on which God is operating now with a view to our being brought practically into His present thoughts for us. There is what is being effected in the power of gift from Christ in heaven, but we must not think that everything is going to be effected by gift. There is what we have to do ourselves, and as we set ourselves to do our part, we shall find that God is with us, and that the power exercised by Christ in heaven will help to further what we, ourselves, are doing, but both means were used in this great victory to overthrow these kings, so that the people of God might go into the inheritance. But then there is another thing and that is the power of prayer. Joshua saw what was needed, that the day should go beyond the length of an ordinary day, and so he calls upon the sun to stand still. He says, “Sun, stand still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon.”

We must acknowledge that there is much to be done yet if the saints are to be brought into full possession of all that God has in His mind for them. With all the light that God has given us, and the Lord has been giving us much light, we must acknowledge we have a long way to go yet as regards actually getting into these things in power. So that Joshua, seeing what was needed there, called upon the sun to stand still. He seeks that the full shining of Christ should continue, the sun stood still in the midst of heaven. It is a question of appealing, so to speak, that the full shining of Christ should be brought to bear powerfully upon the saints. “Arise, shine: for thy light is come,” Isaiah 60: 1. The apostle says, “Wake up, thou that sleepest, and arise up from among the dead, and the Christ shall shine upon thee,” Ephesians 5: 14. It is a question of prayer that calls upon God to cause the light of Christ and all that it means to shine powerfully upon the present situation, that the saints should be brought into their inheritance. So Paul, in the epistle to the Ephesians, doubtless feeling that it was beyond even his ability to set out at great length what the thoughts of God were, and indeed if there were any attempt to define them it would but limit them, whereas in fact, they are illimitable, just sets out enough to convey the mind of God in outline and to incite interest in it on our part, and then he prays. He tells us in chapter 1 at great length what he prays, and in chapter 3 he prays again, that the Father would strengthen us with might by His, the Father’s, Spirit “in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” It is as though he is crying to the Father that He would cause the Christ to shine, and to shine unchallenged upon the hearts of the saints. That is what Paul does, he prays, he bows his knees. There was never a day like this day in Joshua which extended about the length of two days, and that is what this present dispensation is doing. It is being extended about the length of two days. “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,” 2 Peter 3: 8. This great dispensation is being extended because God has His choicest thoughts to effectuate in the saints. So what is needed in addition to what we do ourselves and what Christ does from heaven is that there may be power to pray, and power to pray in a way that will prevail: “And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man.” A man commanded the situation. You may rest assured the more we pray in relation to these great things, the more God will answer it in bringing the saints into them in power. Paul prays in chapter 3, and in chapter 6 he urges us, to pray and persevere in it for all the saints. He enlarges on the necessity for prayer. As to this great victory, it says, “There was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel.”

That is all I had to say, to stimulate us in the recognition of the importance of this day, the great things that God has in mind for the saints that we are to be brought into. I repeat that it is not a question of waiting until the Lord comes, to bring us into these things. What Ephesians has in mind is not the future but the present, the saints entering into their portion at the present time. There is ministry from the Christ in glory; there is also what each is to do as a joint of supply contributing his own part; and then, finally, there is the great power of prayer, prayer exercised by those who have power with God, for God will hearken to the voice of the man who is in the appreciation of His thoughts regarding the assembly and desires that the saints may come into them.