HEAVEN: ITS INFLUENCE UPON WORSHIP
[p. 111] HEAVEN: ITS INFLUENCE UPON WORSHIP
I have before me tonight to occupy you with heaven, according to the testimony of it brought down by the Spirit; for it is the divine thought that heaven should be known by those of us who are destined for it, before we actually reach it. So that, as the testimony of it that the Spirit has presented perfectly is rightly apprehended, we shall not feel ourselves strangers there. The heavenly city is to come “down from God out of heaven”. Revelation 21:10. This is according to what is stated to the Corinthians — “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly”, 1 Corinthians 15:48,49. Then we have the further enforcing statement in the second letter to the Corinthians — “He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God”, 2 Corinthians 5:5. Workmanship is proceeding today; hence, as one looks into the countenance of a true believer, one sees there the reflex of that work.
Moses desired of Jehovah that He should manifest His work unto His servants; and he also says, “Establish thou the work of our hands ... yea, ... establish thou it”, Psalm 90:17. Thus the work of God proceeds, including our work, for it is all of one piece. Hence the great obligation laid on the servants, — on the workmen — that they should be like Jonathan, working with God. The work that is proceeding shall come out in its entirety; as I said, the assembly comes down from God out of heaven. It is, as it were, a heavenly visitant to the earth. Such is the perfection of the work that it fits us for heaven; as it is said, “He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God”. 2 Corinthians 5:5. In the meantime, as we await our [p. 112] house from heaven, we have the earnest of the Spirit, as it is said, “Who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit”, 2 Corinthians 5:5. The earnest is a sample of the whole piece of that into which we are going, so that heaven is here in that sense in the way of witness. It is brought to us by the Spirit.
Now, having said so much to make our position clear at the outset, I wish to refer to the book of Genesis for a moment, so that we may gather up the divine intent in the heavens. It is said, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, Genesis 1:1. It does not appear that the heavens were involved in the great disaster that ensued, for it immediately says, “the earth was without form and void”, Genesis 1:2. It says nothing about the heavens being thus. There was subsequently what was called “the expanse”; God separating the waters from the waters by it; referring to what we know as the atmospheric heavens — the sidereal heavens being beyond. “God called the expanse Heavens” (Genesis 1:8) — those that affect us materially and physically; including, I apprehend, the sidereal region.
But then, there is what Solomon calls the heaven of heavens. He, in his wonderful prayer dedicating the temple, refers to the heavens about fourteen times, reminding us of the intimate relation between them and the house of God; at the same time humbly admitting that the structure he had reared up could not contain Jehovah. He says, “The heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded!” 1 Kings 8:27. But, though he humbly admits the smallness of the structure relatively, yet the intimate relation between the heavens and that structure is evident.
Now, what comes to light in the book of Genesis is that heaven is seen relative to the house at its first mention. There was not only a reference to it, but direct communication. Jehovah is seen standing [p. 113] above the ladder in the heavens, the ladder reaching to the earth, with angels ascending and descending. All this announces at the very outset that the house of God is in immediate touch with heaven. Then Jacob says, as he awoke, “This is none other but the house of God” (Genesis 28:17) — an indication of his remarkable spiritual intelligence. “This is the gate of heaven”. Hence the nearness of the relation between the heavens and the house of God.
But what lends all its precious meaning to that event, to my mind, lies in the fact that the first speaking from heaven is after Isaac was born. The heavens are mentioned earlier, but their direct action on the earth was judgment, for their windows were opened to pour out judgment — a sorrowful consideration. The earth seemed to have been in measure independent of them, for we are told that the first watering of the earth was from itself. I have no doubt that in that God reminds us of our sufficiency as having the Spirit. But then, heaven must have its place; and before it speaks Isaac is born. We can easily fit that in with the birth of the Lord here on earth. Heaven can speak freely as He appeared here. The heavens were opened, we are told, at His baptism, and the voice came: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matthew 3:17.
Now, all that I have said, as I think you will admit, enters into the passage in Exodus, for the Lord calls Moses’ attention to the fact that He had spoken unto them from heaven. Let us understand, beloved, that the communications giving character to Christianity are from heaven; and so I wish first of all, in regard to the scriptures read, to speak of the influence of these communications on our worship. I wish to speak of them briefly. I wish to speak of their influence on our service; for the inference is clear that the worship of God being [p. 114] spiritual, as the Lord said to the woman of Samaria, it must be different from what is customary upon earth. What can be more sorrowful than the contemplation of what the worship of God, as set up here in the Spirit, has come to in man’s hands?
As we look abroad on a large area of Christendom, wherein is the essential difference in it between what is called divine worship and what we call heathendom? There is no essential difference. I mean from the divine standpoint there is no difference. Christendom has dropped down to the level, I may say, of the most corrupt religion on the earth as regards its forms and ceremonials. I know I am making a serious statement, but it is a statement that is obvious to all who have light. The nominal worship of God has dropped to the level of man’s worship; as the apostle Paul says, “man’s art and device”. Acts 17:29. I come from a city where fifteen million dollars have been subscribed for the enlargement of a cathedral! Think of that! Think of such a structure as compared with the “upper room” at Jerusalem into which those came who saw Jesus go into heaven!
But if our worship is influenced by heaven, it is different. It must be different from what is current on earth. God says to Moses, “Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. Ye shall not make ... gods of silver, neither ... gods of gold”. Exodus 20:2,23. What are the facts, beloved friends, at the present time? They are that Christendom has returned to gods of silver and gods of gold, to say nothing worse. But God says, “I have spoken unto you out of heaven”. He said in effect, ‘Has there been anything in My communications to indicate that there are to be such gods?’ Nothing. And hence He proceeds at once to the remedy. And this is what I want to come to, with the Lord’s help.
It says, “An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me”. It requires but little in the way of expense to [p. 115] provide that. But it is a solemn reminder of what we are. The requirement of heaven is an altar of earth. Do we understand it? It is the solemn acknowledgement in the presence of God that we are what we are; that, as born of him whose name signifies “red earth” (Adam), we are naught but earth; as Seth says of his son “Enosh”, “mortal man”, that is all. Let us not shut our eyes to this fact. As we rear up our altar of earth according to divine requirements we acknowledge what we are.
But, you say, is that all? No, it is not all. For merely recognising an altar of earth could not be acceptable. There must be more than that; and hence the wondrous fact that the Son became man; as we are told, “He became flesh”. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. Wonderful fact! In all points tempted as we are, sin apart. Absolutely sinless. Absolutely holy from the very outset. “That holy thing which shall be born of thee”, Luke 1:35. God says. Nevertheless He was a real man.
Thus the voice from heaven speaks. What had been said at Sinai only brought out what we are, — miry clay, as one may say. But is that all? No, beloved; in the next chapter (Exodus 21) we have the Son of God portrayed before our eyes side by side with what we are. The Hebrew servant says plainly, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free”. Exodus 21:5. We have Him in servant’s form, but not only in servant’s form. We have Him as the victim; for there could be no altar acceptable to God save that Christ should die, taking on Himself as the Son of Man, the liabilities of the race, and discharging those liabilities to God’s glory. Thus, “we have an altar”. Let us, in the faith of our souls, claim such an One.
It is marvellous that He has come to our side. He has become a man. The race takes on a new character entirely in the eyes of God; but, nevertheless, it is [p. 116] the race; it is humanity. God is to have humanity before Him forever, but He is to have it as Christ is; as it says, “As he is, so are we in this world”, 1 John 4:17. Marvellous fact! I do not know anything more wonderful than that position — Christ on our side. And I suppose it is less understood by the saints than any part of the truth. Peter says, “God that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God”, 1 Peter 1:21.
So, dear brethren, as we sit down to the Lord’s supper, we are there in the full acknowledgement of what we are as in the flesh. Otherwise we are not there rightly. But then there is before us the token of a dead Christ. A dead Christ! you say. Yes, a dead Christ. The blood is separate from the body. He says, “unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves”, John 6:53. It is not Christ here upon earth who is our communion. It is Christ as dead. Hence the apostle addresses the saints in their intelligence, and he says, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” 1 Corinthians 10:16. It is a question for ourselves that the Christ who came down to take our place and identify Himself with us as a man here, actually died; as He says, “Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour”, John 12:27. It was all real to Him. But then He says, “Father, glorify thy name”.
There is the Man; and immediately heaven must speak. Let us hear it. “I have glorified it”. He had glorified it in the Person of Jesus in the resurrection of Lazarus, and now He says, “I will glorify it again”. John 12:28. Think of God glorifying His name in a Man, and that Man having come within our range so as to be appropriated! But how appropriated? We have not now Christ here after the flesh. The enemy would deceive people by seeking to link them [p. 117] on here with a Christ after the flesh. Paul says, “Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more”, 2 Corinthians 5:16. We do not know Him thus.
Our altar, beloved, involves that Christ has died, and so we come together with the token of a dead Christ. Not exactly to remember a dead Christ; we remember a living Christ. The Lord says, “This do for a remembrance of me”. Luke 22:19. Our communion is in a dead Christ in the cup and in the loaf. That is where we begin; and let me assure you that there is no Christian beginning aside from that. That is the beginning. Hence, “an altar of earth shall ye make unto me”. It is the disallowance of idolatry. Hence the apostle goes on to say, “Ye cannot drink the Lord’s cup and the cup of demons”. He says, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?” 1 Corinthians 10:22.
Our communion disallows absolutely every claim of idolatry. Jehovah says, “In all places where I shall make my name to be remembered” (Exodus 20: 24), for that is the reading. It comes in beautifully after the acknowledgement of what we are, and the acceptance of our place as before God in Christ, for He says, “This is my body, which is for you”, 1 Corinthians 11:24. That body in which He glorified God as a Man is there, and we are identified with it; hence where God causes His name to be remembered, there He comes to us, and there He blesses us.
That is the worship of God, so far. It is not the whole of it. And so He proceeds to say, “If thou shalt make me an altar of stone”. There is no ‘if’ in regard to the altar of earth. We are not worshippers if we have not the altar of earth. God accepts no worship, no praise, no prayers, apart from the altar of earth. “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord; but the prayer of the upright is his delight”. Proverbs 15:8. We have to recognise we [p. 118] are in a fallen condition as before God, and that He has set us up on the principle of faith in the new condition and position altogether in Christ. He is the upright One, and He has brought us to God through His death; and so the altar of earth is imperative.
“If thou wilt make me an altar of stone”. Now we have the ‘if’. You say, What does that mean? It is God’s gracious consideration for us. It is as if He said, ‘Even if you do not reach in your souls the resurrection of Christ, you believe in it, and you definitely recognise in the altar of earth your ruined condition save for the death of Jesus’. Even if we do not reach resurrection as an experience in our souls we are accepted. This makes provision for the smallest spiritual formation, for I apprehend the very smallest spiritual formation in a believer will lead him to acknowledge the necessity for an altar of earth. He refuses the arts and devices of man in his worship, and returns soberly and humbly to the altar of earth. But the altar of stone goes further.
Building an altar of stone is not singing hymns that speak of heaven, of Christ risen, and of the Father, and relation with the Father. It is a question of your soul’s condition. “If thou wilt make me an altar of stone”. This suggests the saints in the power of the Spirit moving on from the altar of earth to the altar of stone. They now not only apprehend Christ become Man and dying; they apprehend Him risen; yea, I may say, they apprehend Him in heaven.
In Deuteronomy 26 worship involves that we have come into the land. “When thou art come in unto the land”, it says, “thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit” Deuteronomy 26:1,2 — heavenly growth. Christ risen and glorified is indigenous to heaven. He belongs to heaven; so do we. Wonderful fact! I always seek to be in this light as having partaken of the Lord’s supper; as it says, “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ ... and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”, Ephesians 2:4 - 6.
Hence it is ‘if’. But then, it is not an if of impossibility, but surely one of possibility. We have the power to rise. As water rises to its own level, so the Spirit, as we are prepared for it, opens the heavenly door and gives us to look in. It is wonderful to reach Christ there. Everything is abiding and eternal.
Marvellous privileges open up to us in the building of the altar of stone. He says, “If thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it”, Exodus 20: 25. It is not to be made of hewn stone. The epistle to the Colossians is the amplification of this. It brings in the Son of God risen and in heaven. Can you add anything to Christ? No, beloved. Philosophy, vain deceit, ceremonialism — they are all shutout. Nothing outside of Christ is admitted. He is the Head, and “in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”, Colossians 2:9.
Note that word ‘bodily’. In the first chapter it is, “In him all the fulness ... was pleased to dwell”, Colossians 1:19. It does not say ‘bodily’. But in the second chapter it says, ‘bodily’ meaning that all that fulness has come within our range in Christ as Man, and all else is shut out entirely. Hence He says, thou shalt not ... “lift up thy tool upon it”. The humanity that Christ brought is characterised by what He is personally, and in Him as Man all the fulness is within our range. The education of this world could add nothing to Him. We have no evidence that He was ever ‘educated’, as men speak. He brought all the fulness in, and it is in [p. 120] Him bodily. So that there is no place at all for man’s ‘tool’. The fine tools or implements that are employed in the rearing up of these structures that men speak of — all the interior decorations, the stained glass and what not — all are outside true Christian worship. These human things are connected with idolatry. If there is anybody here who has not left these things, pardon me; I am telling you the truth. It is outside the range of Christian worship. A tool has been lifted up; you have endeavoured to improve things. You have certainly gone far afield from the upper room at Jerusalem. You have lifted up your tool, and you have polluted the altar. You are allied with a polluted system of things — that with which God will have nothing to do; and the quicker you abandon it the happier will you be. I can give you no better advice than to abandon it, and to return to the heavenly requirement indicated here. The altar of stone — that which involves the highest part of our worship — is not to be polluted by man’s tool or implement or device. It is infinitely perfect, infinitely complete and full; we must admit nothing else. “Holding the Head” the body “increases with the increase of God”. Colossians 2: 19.