(1) THE HEAVENLY COMPANY AND THE CHURCH
([p. 206] 1) THE HEAVENLY COMPANY AND THE CHURCH
Hebrews 11: 1 - 10; Hebrews 12: 1, 2; Hebrews 6: 13 - 20
It is clear that in this epistle we get the thought of the Christian running a race. The fact that Christ has entered in “within the veil” as Forerunner indicates that there are people running a race in regard to whom He is the “Forerunner”. If there were not others following, the expression would not have any force. When we come to chapter 12 we get the admonition to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily entangles us, run with endurance the race that lies before us, looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith”. Running with patience the race set before us is that which is to mark the Christian. We know that the Apostle Paul himself had the idea of running a race (we see that in Philippians 3) he was running a race, and properly every Christian is doing so, and in order to run a race it is necessary to “lay aside every weight”. If a man is running a race, he will keep his eye upon the goal or he will not run steadily. We want to be unencumbered on the one hand, and to keep our eye steadily on the goal on the other; the latter is the admonition in chapter 12.
In the race, we are running from the joys of earth to the joys of heaven; and if you ask where the race is performed, I answer it is performed in the soul of the believer. No one can see what is going on within, but very many people, if they observed, could see the effects of it. We have the great fact that Christ has entered in as Forerunner. I have considerable hesitation in applying to the Lord [p. 207] thoughts such as that of a race, which are really connected with the Christian; but at all events He was taking the course from earth to heaven.
In this epistle we have Christ presented to us in the early part in two lights, that is, as Apostle and High Priest. In the beginning of chapter 3 we are admonished to “consider” the Apostle and High Priest of our profession. It is a great point to “consider”. You will never get understanding if you do not “consider”. The Lord gives understanding, but His giving understanding follows on our considering. Paul said to Timothy: “Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things”. The thing which is lacking in most of us is the habit of considering; and this is so as regards the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. We believe in Him, but now we have to “consider” Him.
There are two main thoughts with regard to the course of Christ — He “came out” and He has “entered in”; He came out as Apostle, but He has gone in as Priest. In this epistle no apostle is named, for Christ is the apostle; the apostle is the One whom God employs to inaugurate a system, We see this in Moses. We are told in the beginning of the epistle that God has spoken in the last days in the Son. The Son came out in order that in Him God might make known His mind. God was not speaking any longer by prophets — He had spoken in that way — but now He took in hand to speak by the Son. The idea connected with that is, that, as Apostle, Christ “comes out”. He says, “I came from God” — He came into the world. He was the Apostle — He is a great deal more than that, for, “God has spoken in the last days by the Son”.
But Christ has “entered in” as Priest. He was not properly Priest until He “entered in”; and the reason is, that He had come to accomplish [p. 208] redemption and establish righteousness, and on the basis of righteousness He is Priest. “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec”.
I think you will have no difficulty in apprehending the difference of idea between “coming out” and “entering in”. The one who has “entered in” as Forerunner helps others who are on the road. Christ is Priest at the right hand of God, and as Priest He helps us who are on the road. Do you know how you are helped? Well, it appears to me that nothing is indispensable to us down here except Christ. You may think the good of this world in your circumstances is indispensable. But nothing is indispensable. Health is not even indispensable. The one thing indispensable is Christ. The end to which Christ is working in regard to us is to make us conscious that He is indispensable to us, and it is when this is so that we are helped on the road.
Now another thought comes out, and that is of our “entering in”. What I want to point out is, that though God was making known from time to time, and by one person and another, His purpose with regard to earth, after all from the beginning He was really gathering together a company for heaven. It will not be difficult to show that, all along the line, from the time that sin came into the world, God was engaged in gathering a company out of the world.
At the same time God was working in view of the world to come, and many past things are not repeated in the ways of God. The flood happened once for all. It was used to purge the earth. The flood came in order that the earth might be regenerated (in a certain sense) to be a theatre for the world to come. There is no repetition of the flood. Evidently there will be an eventual purging of the earth and heaven by fire, but there will be no purging again of the earth by a flood. In Revelation 4 [p. 209] is seen a rainbow. It is intended to remind us that the earth has once been purged by the flood — in the way in which God allowed the flood to come upon it — in order that it might be a theatre for His ways. I take another case: God brought Israel out of Egypt, and He brought them out for good, and will never bring them out again. God has called His Son “out of Egypt”. I have no doubt that God brought Israel out of Egypt in view of the world to come. It is extremely interesting to see how many things in the ways of God in the past are in view of the world to come — not really in view of this world. Israel was brought into the land, but I think only provisionally; for while they were still in the wilderness they had forfeited the land by making the golden calf. That makes it plain that they were only brought into the land provisionally, but they were brought out of Egypt once for all.
God was thus acting from time to time, and through one and another in times past, in regard to the world to come. But while He was doing that, all along the line there was being gathered a company for heaven. All those named in Hebrews 11 formed part of a company which was being gathered for heaven. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah — all formed part of a heavenly company. They had not a forerunner, the way was not very clear to them, they could not probably see the end to which God was leading them; but in the light we have we can see what God was doing — He was forming a company for heaven, and if all these were not to have their part in the resurrection, they really had nothing.
You may depend upon it we shall find all these witnesses of faith in heaven: “we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses”. They are the sons of God, being the sons of the resurrection, and will have their part in heavenly glory;
[p. 210] they form part of the twenty-four elders that we find in the beginning of the Revelation. When John is shown “the things that are to be after these”, he sees the throne and the twenty-four elders. I have no doubt that the twenty-four elders include the entire heavenly company, and God has been preparing that company from the outset. In the twenty-four elders we do not get the church seen in distinction, we get one compact, complete company; they form one whole, they worship together, and their worship is intelligent; they are not like the angels in their way of praising, for it is noticeable that whenever they praise they give a reason for their worship, that is, they are intelligent in the ways of God. They form a heavenly company around the throne, having their part in regard to the Lamb and to the throne.
Now in the end of the Revelation we find the church distinguished, and we do not read much about the twenty-four elders. I do not think the twenty-four elders are the bride, the Lamb’s wife. We are told that in the twelve foundations of the holy city are the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb; and hence the bride, the Lamb’s wife, is distinctive of the church. If it included the whole of the twenty-four elders, that is, the whole heavenly company, we would scarcely get the names of the twelve apostles in the foundation. I think we may safely conclude that the city represents the church, that is, the church in that aspect, as having had its foundations laid in the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
The saints who died before Christ never had a forerunner. The future to them was to a large extent indefinite. They had their faith and hope in God, and no doubt they had the sense that God would provide for them; but certainly they had not a forerunner who had entered in. The end in regard to us is very distinct, therefore we can be said [p. 211] to be running a race; and at the same time the Forerunner has for us entered in, which is a very important point. The fact of the Forerunner having entered in has an immense effect on us, as it gives us a link with the scene into which He has entered: “It became him ... in bringing many sons unto glory”. God has revealed His name in that way, and the truth for us is, not only that the Forerunner has entered in, but that we have a link with the Forerunner who has thus entered in. “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec”.
Christ has entered in as the Forerunner; He was the first to enter in. He has travelled the road from earth to heaven, in order that He might be Forerunner and Priest, and no one ever trod that road intelligently before Christ. He “endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God”.
It is very important to remember that Christ has the place of the “Firstborn among many brethren”. The course is clear, so to speak. We can keep our eye upon the goal — “looking off unto Jesus”. We can see where the race leads to, can apprehend the goal, and are going on to it. And what are we going on to the goal for? That in the day of the kingdom, in the day when everything is in display, we may have part with Christ. We are seeking to reach the goal, that we may have part in the glory of that day, “When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe”.
The holy Jerusalem is seen “descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light like unto a stone most precious”. It is [p. 212] most important to remember that for us it is not simply a question of entering heaven, but of entering in order that we may come out. Christ has entered in, but it is in order that He may come out. He has gone to the right hand of God that He may come forth from the right hand of God. We shall be taken to heaven, but it is in order that we may come out of heaven with Christ — never to be separated from Christ, but ever to be with Him.
Now it is the link with the Forerunner which makes all the distinction between those of old and ourselves. It is a great point to apprehend what is common to all the heavenly company. There is the part which we shall undoubtedly have with them, and I think you must take that into account. I see plainly enough the distinctiveness of the church, and yet we ought to contemplate the entire heavenly company, because it is presented to us in a complete way in Scripture. As I have said, we have a link with the Forerunner. Until the Holy Ghost was given, there was no link with the Forerunner. Some people would say that faith is the link; but the Spirit is the link, and it thus makes all the difference to us that the Spirit has been given.
The first consequence of this is, that we live by Christ, and come under the ministry of Christ. Christ looked at from that point of view is the Minister, and He brings us by the Spirit under the influence of light and warmth. All healthy natural existence here upon earth is dependent upon our keeping in light and warmth. If you were to shut up a new-born child in a dark cellar, life would not be very long maintained. There are certain conditions essential to life, and none more than light and warmth. I believe that we get these by the ministry of Christ. He brings us into the light, that is, into the revelation of God, and He brings us into warmth, that is, the sense of His love. We [p. 213] are brought thus into conditions favourable to health. It is in that way that we live by Christ. I cannot describe how He does it — perhaps by bringing Himself before us. The ministry of Christ is not exactly like the ministry of an apostle. The apostles ministered the truth to the saints; but the ministry of Christ is to keep Himself before the saints. The glory of God shines in His face, and we are told that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I judge that Christ by the Spirit keeps Himself in our view, and attracts and attaches us to Himself; and it is in the apprehension of what subsists in Christ that we are in conditions which are favourable to spiritual life.
I suppose every believer cherishes Christ in thought. The point for us is not only what Christ has done, but what Christ is. We want to have Christ before us livingly, to get the good of the light that is set forth in Him. No one can know anything about God, except in Christ. The great declaration of God — of divine love — was in the death of Christ. There it is that “God commends his love towards us”; and if you want to know the disposition of God towards man, you must learn it in Christ. I judge that the point of the ministry of Christ is to keep Himself in our view, in order that we might get all the good of that which God has been pleased to set forth in Him, and the end of it is, that we might live by Christ. A man who lives by the world dies by the world. The world will court a man so long as that man is useful to it; but let that man grow old and fail or be no longer useful, the world will very soon put him aside, and hence if a man lives by the world he dies by the world. Christians do not live by the world, neither by its excitement nor its literature, but by Christ. The Lord Jesus said, “He that eateth me, even he shall live by me”. “A little while, and the world seeth [p. 214] me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also”.
If you are wishing to be healthy and vigorous, you must be in healthy conditions; and to be in healthy conditions you must have Christ in view by the Spirit, and then it is that your constitution is formed by that which you enjoy in Christ as Christ is known to us. In human things it may be said that a wife lives by her husband. God has subjected the wife to the husband, and the husband is to love the wife, and, properly speaking, the wife lives morally by the love of the husband; and, on the other hand, the husband is known in the wife, not the wife in the husband. We get that thought at the end of Proverbs. A faithful wife is depicted, and the comment is, that the husband is known by her in the gates. If all of us were kept by the Spirit in the light of Christ (because “the darkness is passing, and the true light now shines”), what would be the result? The character of Christ would come out in us, and we should be marked down here by three qualities — truth and meekness and righteousness. I speak of these because I find them to be connected with the Lord Himself; and those who are living by Christ, in the light of our Sun, in conditions favourable to spiritual life (as it is possible now to live by the Spirit), will come out in truth and meekness and righteousness. These would be exemplified in the saints down here.
As regards truth, the affections are regulated by truth, and no affection is disproportionate if truth has its place. Then what marks the Christian is meekness, because if affections are in activity in every right direction, the Christian will not be marked by haughtiness. Then there is righteousness, that is, fidelity in every relationship in which it has pleased God to place the Christian. Clever as men may be (and men are clever), there never was a [p. 215] man in the world that could give you any clear and definite idea of truth and meekness and righteousness. You can get no conception of them except in Christ.
The gain we have in having Christ as Forerunner is that we are linked with the Forerunner, and in the future the Husband will be known in the bride. The bride will be in all the brightness of the Bridegroom; the glory of God is there, and “her light like unto a stone most precious”. The peculiarity of the church is dependent, partly on the calling of God, but even more, in a way, on the link which subsists at this moment between the Forerunner and the many sons whom God is bringing to glory.
There is an education that is going on in the people of God, which is fitting them for the part to be enacted in them in the world to come. The church will be carried up to heaven to be presented in heaven. Christ will present the entire heavenly company there. There would be a great lack if He did not present the church in heavenly array, “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing”. But the holy city will come out, and the Bridegroom will be known in the bride in that day. In principle this is true now. If we “lived by Him”, in the light and warmth of our blessed Sun, depend upon it that He would be known in us, we should be characterised by truth, meekness, righteousness, gentleness — all that is of Him.