GOD AS BUILDER

GOD AS BUILDER

Genesis 2: 18 - 23; Genesis 11: 1 - 9; Genesis 13: 18; Hebrews 11: 8 - 10; Hebrews 12: 22 - 24

We were speaking together this afternoon, dear brethren, of the thought of building as connected with the saints, and I wish this evening to speak of God as builder, and to seek to show something of the stability and glory of what He builds, so that we may be stable, and that, in any little measure in which we may be able to have part in furthering divine interests, we may be working with God; that is, working intelligently. We read of Jonathan that he wrought with God, which is a very important matter, because there is much energy and labour in Christendom that is misdirected and misplaced simply because saints are not in the intelligence of what God is doing, and therefore they work according to their own ideas, instead of having their ideas and aims regulated by the light of what God is working for.

The first reference to building in the Scriptures, is in the second chapter of Genesis, the passage I have read, where the word which is rendered ‘made,’ “the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman,” is actually builded; He builded a woman. We were speaking this afternoon of the edifying of the body of Christ. Edifying is, of course, the thought of building, and building involves a constructive process. It is not like creation which is done in a moment, but it is done stage by stage and done systematically, and done, if one may say so, according to plan, and so we find that God was the first builder. Afterwards we shall find, in chapter 11, that man began to build, and he has been building up a world of his own for his own pleasure and his own glory ever since; but the One who inaugurated building was God Himself.

It is well that we should see in what setting this building of the woman comes. Adam, as we know, is a type of Him who was to come, and the antitype is seen in our Lord Jesus Christ, and the present view that we have by the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ is, as we have it in Ephesians 1, that God has set Him at His own right hand in heavenly glory, “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, ... and hath put all things under his feet.” That is the position which faith recognises. It is not known in the world, but it is known by the people of God. It is the position in which Christ has been placed by God; as it says elsewhere, we do not yet see all things put under Him, but faith apprehends that God has already put Him in that position and has put all things under His feet. God has determined that, and is therefore entitled to regard it as done. Now that answers very much to the position in which Adam is seen in this second chapter of Genesis. He is presented to us placed as head of the whole system that God had brought into existence on the earth. God not only created the earth, but He also brought into existence a world upon the earth, a world of life, a world of great variety of life, a world composed of many different characters of creatures, some of them having their existence on the earth, some of them constituted to have their existence in the heavens, the birds of the air, showing that God delights in great variety and delights in different spheres of life and blessing. All that was intended to foreshadow typically the system of blessing which God has in mind to establish in the world to come, consisting as we know of various families, some earthly, some heavenly, as it says in the epistle to the Ephesians, “the Father, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named.” So there were these creatures suggestive of what was heavenly and what was earthly, but all to be under the hand of Adam. He was put as head over all and his intelligence was seen in that he gave names to everything that God had made. I have no doubt that every creature that came from God’s hand presented some feature of divine glory. There is very little doubt as to that. We may not be able to see it in detail in every creature, but there is no question about it, that every creature that came from God’s hand was intended to present some feature of divine glory. It is marvellous, dear brethren, how God can come down to the smallest things. There are creatures on the earth at the present time, so small that the human eye can hardly see them, showing how wonderfully able God is to come down to that which is very small. How comforting! How comforting to know this, that God, so great though He is, is able to come down to what is so very small; and He is sympathetic, as it says in the Psalm, “These all look unto thee; ... that thou givest unto them, they gather; ... thou hidest thy face they are troubled.”

As I was saying, every creature expresses some feature of divine glory and Adam’s intelligence is seen in that he was able to give names to them all. But then, in that position, God said it was not meet that the man should be alone. He would make him an helpmeet for him. It is just here that this first thought of building comes in, and the idea of the building of the woman involves a process, not an act of creation, but a process. It is what is going on at the present time by means of the work of the ministry. It says that He caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep and he slept. It is, of course, typical of Christ in death; not that Christ is still in death, of course, actually, but I suppose publicly the position is that this is the time of His death. That is to say,

the world has not seen the Lord Jesus since His body was taken down from the cross. The world never saw Him in resurrection and the world will not see Him again until He comes in power and glory and the saints with Him, in that day of which we have been singing, when He will come to be glorified in His saints and admired in all them that believe. Until that day comes, the position publicly is that Christ has died. Of course, faith apprehends, and affection rejoices in, the fact that He is alive, that He has, as we were saying, gone up far above all heavens that He might fill all things; but the One who has gone far above all heavens is identified as the One who first descended into the lower parts of the earth.

Now God is building a counterpart to Christ. The conception is marvellous, for the body of Christ is composed of all those who receive the Holy Spirit, from the day of Pentecost right on to the time of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ for His saints. Hence the body is an immense vessel, and the wisdom of God enters into the formation of this vessel in which Christ is to be perfectly expressed, and the process is going on. The work of the ministry is going on. We are to grow, as it says, “we may grow up to him in all things.” Faithful ministry keeps Christ continually before the hearts of the saints, and will not allow any other ideal but Christ, and will not allow any other man but Christ, and the power by which God works in the souls of the saints, is that they are affected by the influence of the love of Christ. He descended first into the lower parts of the earth; not only into death, but into the grave. He has gone right beneath, so to speak, all that lay upon us, in order that He might establish an indisputable claim to have us in life, that we might be brought into what has been from the beginning in God’s mind for us. And so we are to be formed according to Christ. Love has been supremely expressed in Christ, and what is being formed in the saints is love. If I have not love, I am nothing, scripture says. I might have prophecy and faith to remove mountains, and understand all mysteries, and yet if I have not love, I am nothing. Scripture says, “Nothing.” Just a mere cipher, so to speak, of no account whatever. It is a most challenging statement. Whatever ability I might have, whatever gift I might have, I am nothing if I have not love, and love is learned in Christ, and one’s wish today, dear brethren, is that we might see to it that nothing that is not love is allowed to have place with us. The love of Christ is a holy love; it is not tolerant of evil. It is expressed thus in Jesus, that He Himself would go into death and endure judgment in order that evil might be dealt with according to God and righteousness established; that love might prevail and that those who are involved in evil might be delivered from it and secured for the pleasure of God. We are to be formed in love. We are also to be formed in other things. We are to be formed in righteousness, and we learn righteousness in the light of the death of Christ. We learn the true measure of righteousness there. “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant instruct many in righteousness,” Isaiah 53: 11. We get a right estimate of what is right and wrong in the light of the death of Christ. We are apt to be superficial in our judgment of evil, but as we contemplate it in the light of the death of Christ, we see it as it really is. Then we learn holiness too. Much else we learn in the light of the death of Christ, but the great thing is that God is working in the saints now in order to bring about in the assembly, a vessel which corresponds in every way to Christ, especially as formed in love and intelligence, and as having moral sensibilities and an absolute appreciation of good and an absolute abhorrence of evil. All this is being wrought in the saints at the present time by means of ministry which connects the hearts of the saints with Christ in glory, but apprehended as One who has been down into the lower parts of the earth.

And so, it has often been said that the deep sleep of Adam does not typify the death of Christ in relation to any issues that were raised by the incoming of sin, because it took place before sin had come into the world, and that is perfectly true. Thus it does not contemplate the death of Christ in relation to setting us free from our sins or anything of that sort, but at the same time we have to be formed in holiness and righteousness and love, because a merely innocent being would not in any way satisfy the heart of Christ or be a true counterpart to Him. The counterpart of Christ must be characterised by holiness and righteousness and fashioned above all in love, and in intelligence too. And so the divine conception is marvellous, dear brethren, that while other families doubtless will bear some impress of divine glory as the creatures in the physical creation did, the assembly is to be the fulness of Christ, and Christ is the fulness of God. “In whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily.” God has come into perfect expression in the Man Christ Jesus, and that Man is to have a body in which His fulness as Man can find perfect expression. God has first come out in the Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus, a divine Person become man, and that glorious Man has a vessel which is in turn His fulness, so that what God is as known in the creation perfectly expressed in Christ, is to be expanded, not added to, but diffused, so that the whole redeemed creation, heavenly and earthly families, shall be in the light of God made known in Christ, that light diffused by means of the assembly, His body.

Now, dear brethren, I think you will be able to see the immensity of the conception, and the immensity of what we have been taken up for, and what God is working at the present time, and how important that we should not allow individually any other ideal before us but Christ. We must all realise how far short we come of it practically, but do not let us allow any less ideal, any less aim, before our minds, than what God is after. Paul says he laboured to present every man perfect in Christ. He had no less standard than that before him, and we ourselves, in our exercises and prayers, are to have that in mind. We are to understand that God, in the skill and wisdom that He has at His hand, uses everything in our circumstances to further this work which is being carried on at the present time in our souls. All is in view of the formation of this vessel to be the counterpart to the Man. And so Adam slept, God took a rib from his side, and the rib which He had taken from the man, builded He into a woman, and brought her to the man, and Adam says, “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.” There was nothing in the woman, as brought to the man, that did not come out of the man, she was entirely of him. She brought in nothing extraneous, nothing outside of the man. In that sense she added nothing to him, and yet, in another sense, she added much to him, because he would say, ‘Now I have a counterpart, one to be with me intelligently, sympathetically, able to move with me in all that is under my hand, as perfectly answering to myself.’ There is no disparity between the man, and the woman as answering to the man in feminine features. I want to seek to convey something of the glory and immensity of what God is building at the present time, so that we might in our outlook be with God, and that our exercises might be in the same direction as that in which God Himself is working.

In Genesis 11 we have the thought of man combining to build. We read of building by man as early as Cain, that he builded a city and called it after the name of his son Enoch, so that the idea of building, which was originated by God Himself, was quickly taken up by man, by man away from God, by unregenerate man, and was taken on as a means by which he would perpetuate his own name. He called the city after his son Enoch. In chapter 11 we find a further feature in connection with man’s building, and that is, that they were uniting to do it, combining to do it. It says that the whole earth was of one language and of one speech, “And they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” That is morally a picture of what man has been doing ever since. I believe that it is the first occasion on which we have men presented as combining together. Combinations of men are a feature of the present time and a sinister feature too, so far as the saints are concerned, because it involves that there is great concentration of power in the hands of the combinations of men and Satan understands that, and however logical and reasonable from man’s standpoint, men’s combinations may seem to be, they serve in the hands of Satan to provide a powerful means of opposition to what is of God, because men’s combinations do not take God into account, nor His will, nor His name. They have in mind only the improvement and establishment of their own world, their own will, their own glory. Hence it comes about that those who seek to be true to the Lord find themselves opposed by the combinations of men in various forms at the present time. The principles governing Christians are entirely different from the principles governing men in the world. Christians are governed, or should be, by the will of God, and seek the glory of God. Men are governed by their own will and seek their own glory, and hence the Christian, as seeking to be faithful to the Lord and pleasing to God, holds himself aloof from entering into any association with ungodly men. There is no affinity between them, no fellowship of light with darkness. At the very beginning God called the light day and the darkness night. He stamped each with its own true moral character. He separated the light from the darkness, and that is a principle with God that is to be maintained by those who would be pleasing to God. There can be no affinity, no fellowship between light and darkness, and therefore, Christians seeking to be pleasing to the Lord find themselves unable to have part in these various combinations of men, and the position is becoming testing. Satan is behind the matter, seeking to make it impossible for those who would be governed by the truth to go on. But then the comfort of this scripture is that God overlooks nothing. He comes down to see what men are doing. He says, ‘If I do not hinder them, there will be no limit to what they will do.’ So He hinders them and confuses their language. And this is a matter, dear brethren, at the present time of the greatest importance, but if we are prepared to be faithful and to suffer rather than surrender the truth, we can count upon God to weaken the combinations of men in favour of the saints. I do not say that He will not still allow them a large measure of strength, but He will not allow them to go the full length. He did not allow these men to go the full length, but he confounded their language. That is often the way God takes to weaken men’s movements. They are no longer able to see eye to eye, they begin to speak different languages,

so to speak. One has an aim in one direction, and another in another direction, and God confuses them in that way and weakens them. So this first combination of men in opposition to the truth is very encouraging as showing that God will take account of all that is moving on the earth, and when necessary will weaken it so that it may not go the full length that men themselves would desire.

Now in contrast with all that, it says of Abraham, who, it must be borne in mind, is the father of us all; that is, we are to learn from our father Abraham, that he removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre which is in Hebron, and built there an altar to the Lord. Now Hebron is always typical in Scripture of the purpose of God. We read in Numbers 13 that Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. Zoan, I understand, was a seat of learning, representing the wisdom of this world, but there is that which is before the wisdom of this world. God’s purpose was entirely before it. Whatever men may be doing in their ability, with Satan behind them, building up their own world according to their own thoughts, there is that which was before it and that is the purpose of God, and the purpose of God is going through. The first one to build was God Himself, and He is going steadily on with His building. What man is doing does not affect what God is doing, save that under God’s hand it all works out to further His work. The more saints are under the influence of Christ, the more they will be concerned to be faithful to God. He was faithful to God. He would die rather than surrender what was due to God, and the very presence of difficult conditions that seem to threaten those who desire to go on with the truth, is only an occasion for God to develop in the saints that feature according to Christ, that they will be faithful to God at all costs and maintain the truth of God. Only in that way can they possibly be developed as in keeping with the idea of a counterpart, a helpmeet for the man. And so it says that Abraham came and dwelt at Hebron. He pitched his tent and settled there. He was stable in his soul, he was entirely unmoved. He had in his soul the light of Hebron, God’s purpose, and he abode there and built an altar unto the Lord. He would keep himself in the light of what God was doing according to the purposes that had been formed before the world’s foundation. I have no doubt that is what is alluded to in Hebrews 11 where it says, “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which be should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and, maker is God.”

As you take account of the city which men were building in Genesis 11, you will be struck with the absence of any foundations. There can be no moral foundation to anything that has in view man’s glory. Nothing that has not in view the glory of God has any moral foundation that will abide. Abraham looked for a city evidently in contrast to Babel which had no moral foundations. “He looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” That is to say, he looked for a city which would express the glory of God, which would not be to make a name for man, but would be to make a name for God, and so, having that in his soul, he was content to be a pilgrim; and not only was he a pilgrim dwelling in tents, but he was great enough morally to impress the same character upon Isaac and Jacob. “Dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.”

This is a most important matter for those of us who are older, for if we would see (as every one who is in any way with God would desire to see) the younger generation go on and maintain the truth in a living way, it is essential that we should be concerned as to having moral power to exemplify the truth ourselves. That is exactly what Abraham did, in moral power. It is a question, dear brethren, not of what we say, but of what our outlook is as shown by what we do. If I am seeking a place for myself in this world, I show clearly that I have not in my soul the light of a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. We are here for the testimony and the pleasure of God. The question of earning our living and maintaining righteousness and having wherewith to give, will all enter into it and if we are with God. God will see to it that we do find a way to meet every righteous obligation and have something over to give, coming out like God, as it says in Ephesians, “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.” It is a question of fulfilling righteousness, and having something also by means of which we may come out like God, as a giver. That is why Christians are here. They are not here to make a name for themselves or a comfortable home for themselves in a scene in which Christ is not. It is a question of having what is necessary and of going on with the testimony and truth of God. So Abraham dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise. You know how Isaac had a brother Ishmael, but he was not affected by his father’s faith. He, alas, was affected by his mother. It says that he dwelt in the wilderness and became an archer and his mother took him a wife from the land of Egypt, so that he did not continue in the faith of his father Abraham, not very effectively, at any rate. Then Jacob had also a brother, Esau, and he was far worse than Ishmael. He was a man of the field, skilled in hunting and an out-and-out worldling, and married those who were enemies of God’s people. He married out of the house of faith, a sorrowful thing for one to do who has been born into the household of faith. God puts these things in the Scriptures for us, so that young people should be warned, as having been brought up in the household of faith, lest they should in any way think lightly of their heritage and lose their part in it through marrying outside the household of faith. Abraham dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise, and he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. That, so to speak, as to its actuality, is still future. It looks on to the heavenly city which will come down from heaven from God having the glory of God. But while what God is building is not yet completed, there is already on the earth a system of glory in connection with the assembly which we may well take pride in belonging to.

That is why I read the verses in Hebrews 12. The eleventh chapter looks on to the world to come and the full completion of what God is building at the present time will be seen in the day to come. At the same time, though from one point of view the building is still going on, the assembly is here. It is here and Christians are connected with it. They belong to it, indeed they compose it, and in the twelfth chapter the writer of the epistle is concerned that the believers to whom he was writing should understand the greatness of what we belong to and have come to, so that it should suffice for us and we should not look outside the assembly and the things connected with it for our life and interests. So he says, “Ye are come unto mount Zion.” He begins with mount Zion, for it refers to the absolute stability of what we have come to. Psalm 125, “They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed but abideth for ever.” One thought connected with mount Zion is its absolute stability, and why it is stable is that it represents the great principle of sovereign mercy on the part of God, the establishment of God’s thoughts on the principle of sovereign mercy, when in the hands of man’s responsibility, everything had broken down. It refers to the history of Israel in the days of Eli when the ark was delivered into captivity. The Lord awoke according to Psalm 78: 65 - 72, and established all His thoughts on the principle of pure sovereign mercy, rejecting the tribe of Ephraim, and choosing mount Zion which He loved. That is seen in Christ risen from the dead and glorified. We see there the One in whom God has established everything on the ground of pure mercy. That being established as the basis, then the Spirit of God can open up the glory of the system to which we belong and it says, “And to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” That is what the assembly is. It is the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Jerusalem is God’s centre on earth, but the assembly is the heavenly Jerusalem, and it is the city of the living God. God is known there livingly, and light radiates from it, and there is an influence and an administration that is of God. So it is the city of the living God. It is not a sphere for man’s glory, it is for God’s glory, and we belong to it, as it says in Ephesians, fellow-citizens with the saints.

The next statement is “And to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly.” What a comfort that is for the saints. The second chapter tells us that they are all sent forth to minister to those who are heirs of salvation. The angels, great though they are as creatures of God’s hand, are sent forth to minister to the saints of today,

so great are the saints in the mind of God. What are we to make then of difficulties that may arise to alarm us, if all the angels of God are at our disposal? It is a question of going on patiently, if need be sufferingly, as Jesus did, to maintain the rights and pleasure of God; but to understand that, if need be, the whole company of angels may be called upon. The Lord said as He was about to be delivered to His enemies, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” It is a question of going on with the will of God. There is an innumerable company of angels and many a time will they be used. We are to understand that they are at our disposal. And so Elisha, when the king of Syria sent to take him, was perfectly restful although the army surrounded him, but he prayed to Jehovah to open the eyes of his young man, “And Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” He was there as in the testimony, and the angels of God were there to protect him, that the testimony might continue.

Then it says, “and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven.” That is to impress us with the dignity of the saints. We are all firstborn ones, registered in heaven, and it is intended to lift us up, and to make us feel superior to the greatest of men in this world. I do not mean in the way of looking down on them, but to lift us up in the sense of what we really are and belong to. Paul was able to say in the presence of king Agrippa and his queen and the Roman governor and all the grandees of Caesarea, “I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am.” He was consciously greater than all of them, yet in the feelings of God towards men, he said, ‘I wish you were all as I am.’ And then we have come “to God the judge of all”; that is to deliver us from the fear of man. We have to say to God, and everyone else has to say to God, and the fear of God delivers us from the fear of man. Daniel’s name means, ‘God is judge,’ and I have no doubt that he carried in his soul the truth of what his name implied, and therefore if Nebuchadnezzar said that Daniel was to do something contrary to the will of God, Daniel would say that God is judge. If Darius passed a decree that no one was to make any request to anyone save the king, Daniel would say that God is judge. God will have the final word. And so we have come to God the judge of all.

Then it says we have come “to the spirits of just men made perfect.” I believe that is to impress us with the greatness of what may be seen in the assembly. “The spirits of just men made perfect.” We are not yet made perfect as to our bodies. We await the coming of the Lord for that. We shall be perfected as to our bodies, we shall have spiritual bodies, bodies of glory like Christ’s, then we shall be perfected. We are not yet perfected as regards our bodies, but we may be perfected already as regards our spirits. If you see a brother in perfect liberty with God, addressing God in true liberty in the consciousness of his relationship with God as a son, he is a just man whose spirit has been made perfect. He could never have any liberty with God unless he was practically righteous, and then he can become spiritual. There is no reason why we should not see, and we do see in the assembly, the spirits of just men made perfect, men not yet perfected as to their bodies, but perfected in their spirits, men perfectly at home with God. These are wonderful realities that we may see in the assembly, and the more we have our eyes opened to the greatness of the assembly, the less we shall want to find our life and interest in anything else, because of the greatness that we have come to, the assembly of the living God.

“And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.” The word new means fresh; it is not the usual word for the new covenant, but means a new, a fresh covenant. We have come to Jesus, mediator of a new covenant. How constantly we feel it at the breaking of bread. How blessedly fresh everything is as we have to do with the Lord Jesus and are there in the gain of His love expressed in death. It is a wonderful thing that we have to do with the Lord Jesus who expressed His love in death and yet is alive to convey livingly to our hearts its wondrous import. Then finally, “and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” The blood of Abel simply called for vengeance. The blood of sprinkling speaks of the way divine love has claimed us by means of the death of Christ. It means that divine love has claimed us and put its mark upon us. That is where we stand as separated from this world of evil, sanctified in Christ Jesus, set apart to God, yielding ourselves to the claims of divine love over us by means of the redemptive work of Christ.

May God help us to weigh these things over and to see that, if men are building on the one hand, God has been the first to build and He is building what is going to abide in glory to eternity, the city of the living God, a heavenly city that will come down in eternity, not only in the world to come, but in eternity. God is building that which is viewed at the present time as the body, the fulness of Christ. As we take account of the greatness of these things to which we belong, we shall be more and more satisfied with them and more and more delivered from every adverse influence that we may encounter in this world. May the Lord bless the word.