WHAT CHRIST'S HEART IS SET UPON
WHAT CHRIST’S HEART IS SET UPON
You will see presently, I hope, beloved friends, the most wonderful thing that ever was on the earth, which existed before the world was; and now it is displayed for a moment on the earth - at least the fact is disclosed - that is, Christ and the church. I trust it will occupy every soul in this room - the wonderful nature of the thing He is connected with. It was God’s great thought before the foundation of the world that it should be God’s centre for ever. It is no wonder we should know so little about it - we are so little interested in it. A person is generally more interested in his appearance or in his success. There are five worlds: the first is dress, the second, a house, the third, beautiful gardens, the fourth, a country place, and the fifth - and worst of all - your intellect. Every one of us has one of these ‘worlds’. You have a circle of interest. The whole of a natural man’s life is taken up with one of two thoughts, either to be an object of consideration or to have an object of consideration. It is wonderful the small idols that people have - a bird, a dog, something that gives you an object of consideration. But it is vain to turn to the things that divert us. Look at this passage I have read. It is quoted from Genesis. The woman was called Ishshah because she was taken out of Ish. I believe it is the most perfect type of Christ and the church in the Old Testament. Everything was very good, but it was not good for man to be alone. There was not found for Adam an helpmate. The word translated ‘helpmate’ really means ‘something over against’ - a counterpart. Now the apostle, commenting upon the type, says, “This mystery is great, but I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”. In the [p. 54] most perfect state of things here, it was not ‘answerable’ for man to be alone. When everything is in confusion, and God’s Son has been rejected from the scene - that is the time for the divulging of this great secret, the antitype. The type comes out when everything is beautiful, and the antitype when everything is disturbed. The very opposite of the garden of Eden is the time when God discloses the wonderful secret of Christ’s body - the mystery. Before I go on I must notice another thing in connection with types, a very touching thing for us - how the bride was given. Brides are given in Scripture to console the bridegroom in the day of his rejection, of his sorrow. Rebecca was given to Isaac to console him for the death of his mother. That was a type of the death of Israel. You can see how it answers to the Lord; He has lost Israel, and we are to take the place of Israel, to console Him here on the earth. What a thought - to be able to console Him in the place of His sorrow! I look at Joseph, an outcast in Egypt; he gets a wife, and is consoled in the land of his rejection. Moses in Midian gets a wife to console him when he is expatriated. For the sake of his people he is forty years in the wilderness, and is acquainted with it before he takes the people of Israel one step through it. I only add David; in the day of his rejection he gets Abigail. Satan has done all he could to remove the idea of the church, and there never was a church publicly on the earth since the days of Romanism. What is a dissenter doing? He is trying to construct a church. What is Protestantism? Reformation. What are you reforming - the church? Then you are not in it. What must we do? Go back to the beginning. A man is a priest in Rome; he turns Protestant, he is a clergyman - no other change whatever. Let a clergyman turn a Romanist, he becomes a layman. The ordination of Rome is valid, that of Protestantism is not. The argument of a Romanist is, How can you have a visible [p. 55] church without a visible Head? I admit the argument. I say it is a mystery, and if I have the mystery I understand the Head. But how can a man be the vicar of Christ? The Holy Spirit is the vicar. Romanism never sets up an antichrist - it calls the Pope the vicar of Christ. When you come to the Reformation, in Sardis, the church was not got back at all - it was the gospel. What gave the character was what you get in Philadelphia, the Name - that brings in the new thing.
This is a digression, in order to impress upon you the importance of what the church is. Nothing shows so much where we are as our indifference to the church. Where is your interest for that which is dearer to Christ than the apple of His eye?
Now I will turn to Matthew 13: 44 and trace out how this wonderful thing came into existence. Now I suppose not one of you will deny that Christ was rejected from this world. Many of our christian brethren in system get out of the difficulty by saying, The gentiles did not reject Him, it was the Jews. This is simply incorrect, because it was actually the Romans that crucified Him. God gave the Jews a law - by that law they killed His Son. God gave the Romans power - they used it against Him. Now I come to the question, how are you here? As an individual? It is a very solemn consideration for you. Going to heaven when you die? Nothing would distress a pious saint more than to believe that he was in the place where Christ was rejected. Talk of honour, distinction, given to me? They did not give it to my Lord. You will get all the good you can from Him, but you have no heart for Him! The only answer to the question how are you here, is, I belong to Him. That is right. I am Ishshah. That is one of the most important solutions you have in Scripture. It is a problem. I am a bit of Him; I am standing here for Him, maintained by the Holy Spirit, and my grand characteristic here, the one commanding thought [p. 56] that animates me night and day, is how I am to stand for my Lord in the scene of His rejection. I do not want, I would not accept a bit of succour from this poor world. The church is the real patron of the world, if we understood it. We are to pray for them. It is like Jacob blessing Pharaoh. We are between God and the world. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in the woman of worth. ‘Oh, but’, you say, ‘I might forfeit my interests in life!’ You will advance them. “Them that honour me I will honour”.
In Acts 9: 4 I get the secret divulged for the first time. “Why persecutest thou me?” It is not in connection with His rejection on earth, but in glory. Now comes the fitting moment to disclose this great mystery, when Saul of Tarsus was violently persecuting the saints. He says “me”. He discloses for the first time that the saints are Christ. 1 Corinthians 12: 12. “So also is the Christ” - the Head and the body. Romanism insists that there is one unbroken, indivisible body on the earth, and therefore all the members of the Catholic church, all over the world, are to say their prayers in Latin. They must have the one voice, the one language. Why I refer to that is that when Christ was rejected from the earth, the truth which Romanism imitates came out - the one indivisible body all over the earth. I cannot show it to you. You cannot understand a mystery till you are in it. Satan worked upon man so that Christ should be driven out of this world where He was in humiliation. Nothing could be more gentle, beautiful and gracious than He, yet He was cast out bodily. Then He is offered from glory to the Jews - only to them, and they killed the man that offered Him. Now, when the rejection is completed, both from humiliation and from glory, the secret comes out that Christ’s body is on the earth. Nothing could be a more signal defeat to Satan than that. You say, But is not the fulness [p. 57] to come? Yes, that means the whole complement, but I go beyond the Roman Catholics and say that the whole body is on earth. The woman in Proverbs illustrates the body, the house is “the House”. When the wise woman was in good health she kept the house in good order. The body has got out of order - the house is out of order.
Now I turn to Ephesians. The first section in the first chapter ends at verse 14. It is occupied with the individual. What it shows is that the individual is of such equality or degree that he is fit to be united. It is not that union makes equality; but when you are of that equality you are fit to be united. Union goes beyond position, but it does not give you degree. You are of the same stock before you are united. Eve was fit to be Adam’s companion. There is nothing at all about union in Hebrews; there it is “partakers”, companions. You are accepted in the Beloved. If you were not fit to be a companion, what a sad thing it would be to be united! I have thought it was union raised us. We were raised by birth. I have said sometimes, Christ would not be complete without His body, but I muttered to myself, He is complete without anything. What was I blundering about? I was blundering about the idea that you were adding something to Him! Why, we derive everything from Him! and as the consummation of it all we are united to Him.
The next section runs down to the end of the chapter. I only read verse 19. There you learn the power of the Spirit of God bringing you into union. You know the bird when you see the feathers. Would to God we were exhibiting the beauty of the heavenly Man on the earth, you one feather and I another, till we set forth the perfection of the heavenly Man in the spot where He was rejected! If it is beautiful in conception, how much more in reality! Nothing could exasperate Satan like that. If you want to have easy times, never attempt it, but then you will never [p. 58] understand the joy of the heavenly position. Satan says, You sleep and I will sleep, that is a bargain. He knows how to buy you. Every man has his price, and well Satan knows it. There is not an honest man in this room that does not know that at some time or other he has been bought by Satan. I know it well, to my cost. God in mercy showed me that he caught me.
I have now got what Peter wished to have. Like Peter, we have to learn it. He saw Jesus walking on the water, above the power of it. He left the ship. Why should he leave what was made for the water and place himself in such a predicament? He wants to get near the Saviour. Peter had not the power; we have. Why do we not go? Because we have not the affection. Take it home, beloved friends. Do you know the way the parent bird gets the young one to fly? It gets over it a few feet, and the little one shakes itself and discovers that it has the power. What led it to look for it? Affection for the parent. What is the lack in every soul? Affection for your Lord.
The second chapter of Ephesians is the vocation. You begin in heaven and you come down to the habitation of God upon the earth.
Chapter 3 contains two great points, in verses 8 and 9. The apostle is sensible of the magnitude of the mystery. He is going to make all men to see the administration of the mystery. How little do we do it! You say, We preach the gospel. I quite admit souls want it. Paul’s preaching is the “proclamation”. What could be more magnificent here - a full-blown rose upon the earth! You are Christ’s, united to Him in heaven, and down here on the earth to exhibit in heavenly fragrance the beauty of His exaltation, even in the details of your family.
There is another thing in verse 10 - “To the intent that now unto the principalities...”. The angels are not looking round at the glory up there; they are [p. 59] looking to see us. We have no idea of the wonderful network of machinery by which Christ is carrying on His work here. I know a good many christians; I am perfectly surprised at the wonderful way of God’s dealings with them. I know two brothers who live together and are very united. One suffers from the moral defection of his children, another from the health of his family. It is not the question of the good you do to people, but whether you bring the Lord before your heart in dealing with people about different things. Now here we see what you are to do - “that the Christ may dwell ... in your hearts”. Read verse 20. You learn the power towards you in the first chapter; now you learn the power in you. Power for how much? For anything. Oh, that must have been in the early times! The Holy Spirit is not a bit shortened.
I now give you another section, chapters 4, 5 and 6, down to verse 10. Read it over in private. When you have read it you will begin with the church and come down to the slave. Everything is touched with the beautiful heavenly colour. It is the finest field of practice you ever saw. You say it is very exclusive. For instance it tells the man that stole to steal no more but to work. You could hardly make weapons of war, or a fancy-ball dress or fancy-shoes. They are not good. You say, it would limit me in my business. I am talking of a heavenly man. The larger the candle the greater the light. Romans does not touch the family at all. I turn to Ephesians 6: 4 - “Ye fathers, provoke not your children ... but bring them up in the nurture...”. It is generally the mothers who do it. The fathers say, We have no time, we have to attend to our business. I am not a lawyer, to tell you how to evade the word of God. My business is to lay down the law. The word “bring up” (same as “nourisheth and cherisheth”) is only used twice in the New Testament. What the Lord does to the [p. 60] church you are to do to your children. Why is not the mother addressed? She will do it without being told. Scripture is not a book of information - it is a revelation. It does not tell young men not to wear ornaments - only young women. I only say this to show you that to get the heavenly colour you must begin above. You cannot improvise the heavenly thing - you must be born. A man cannot be a Frenchman who never was in France. His accent soon betrays him.
There is only one more point - I turn to verse 10. You will have to encounter the direst opposition. The whole force of Satan, of the ruler of the power of this world, is against you. It is not even Og, king of Bashan; that was this side of Jordan, but now it is the seven-fold power of Satan. To be able to stand, there is nothing but putting on the whole armour. It is practical. I think it is no use lecturing about this. It is no use for a man to put on armour unless he is in the face of the foe, and he is not in the face of the foe unless he is contending for something. Satan is against your expressing the beauties of the exalted Man in the scene of His rejection. What have you to do? Only one simple rule I can give you - be invulnerable, you are invincible. Stand like a buttress, like a tower. If you are a wife or a child in a worldly family, what must you do? Be everything you can in the way of a servant. Never assert a right - your rights are not here. I am superior, but when I have to do with you I take the place of an inferior. Will you go an errand? Yes. Will you join us in this game? No. My enjoyments are of quite another order. I am invulnerable; if I descend to your level I am done. I am above you as to enjoyments, I am below you as to service - never on a level with you. Perhaps they will say you must not go to any meetings. You may curtail my liberty but you cannot govern my conscience. Do not blame them. You are done if you do.
[p. 61] One more word on verse 18. He is praying to God for all saints and for the testimony. At our prayer-meetings I hear a great deal prayed about the gospel, but very little about the church. I do not object - perhaps I pray for the gospel as much as anybody in a way, but you should do it and not leave the other undone. The very same light that converted you at the first is the very same light that has made you go a step. I believe the first step of the christian course is the easiest step of it all. You are drowning - going into perdition - thank God I have got deliverance. You have made a wonderful step in a day or two. Now you will see how slowly you get on....
The Lord grant that our hearts may be more set upon what Christ’s heart is set upon - not merely to be a spectator, or pleading something I have an interest in, but that I am part of it myself.