THE GOSPEL OF GOD - AND WHAT IT SECURES FOR GOD
[p. 119] THE GOSPEL OF GOD — AND WHAT IT SECURES FOR GOD
In reading these verses, I have no thought of confining myself to what they present; my thought is to show what accrues to God from the gospel as presented in this remarkable letter to the saints at Rome, namely, that believers as set up on the ground of redemption should be here for the will of God, or to refer to the types, should become boards for the tabernacle.
The gospel, as spoken of elsewhere, is perhaps more comprehensive than the letter to the Romans sets forth. We have “the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God” spoken of; then we have also the “glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ”, but Romans is “the gospel of God”, or God’s glad tidings, and has in view, as I said, that God should have men and women here on this earth, subject to His will, and whom He can employ, according to that will, in setting forth what they have proved Him to be in their own souls through the Gospel. The heavenly position is not in view in this epistle, although the basis for it is laid. The word heaven is scarcely used in the epistle, indeed only in one instance, and in that instance it is to tell us that wrath comes from heaven, “for there is revealed wrath of God from heaven upon all impiety”, so that it is not the glad tidings of the land, as we may speak, that is presented to us here. In Hebrews 4 you will remember, it is said that certain had the glad tidings presented to them, but it did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard; that was the glad tidings of the land. It refers to the report, brought by the twelve spies who had been sent to investigate and report to Moses and the congregation what the land was; it is their report that is alluded [p. 120] to in that passage. That is the glad tidings of heaven; that God has a heavenly place for those who believe the gospel.
Now that is not Romans. Romans is simply “the gospel of God”, and Paul “a called apostle” is said to have been separated to it, as if to intimate that every primary movement in the gospel originated with God. The sending of the Lord Jesus Christ first of all, and the call of the apostle Paul, both speak of the initiative being with God; and so in regard of those in Rome that had received the gospel; they are said to be “beloved of God, called saints”; that is, He had called them. It was not simply that they went by that name, but that they were called to that. Paul was a called apostle, and they were called saints. Then the apostle announces that he was not ashamed of the gospel, not because it spoke of a heavenly position, but because it was the “power of God unto salvation”; but note it was “unto salvation to every one that believeth” as Paul says elsewhere, “Unto us which are saved it is the power of God” that is, the preaching of the cross.
Now I want to ask the question, whether we, as believers, have come to that, for I assume that we are all believers here tonight, or nearly all, and I would put it to you as to whether you have come to it in your soul, that the gospel is the power of God. It is an immense thing to realise the power of God in your soul, for that is where it is operative now, the power that wrought in raising Christ from the dead is operative now in the souls of believers; as it is said in a fuller sense in another scripture, “the power that worketh in us”. That is what we get in the opening of this epistle, and now I want to show you when the apostle comes to his point, for one may say the early part of the epistle; that is, the first two chapters and the second half of the third chapter, are introductory. When he comes to the working out of the [p. 121] gospel, he introduces a thought that should ever be before our souls, namely, the glory of God. “All have sinned”, he says, “and come short of the glory of God”. That is a remarkable expression, and it is one that, as I said, should be ever before our souls, because it intimates a certain standard that God has before Him in regard to things on this earth. As yet it is not a question of His glory in heaven, it is a question of what is on this earth. In order to show the bearing of the expression, I would refer you to the well-known Psalm 78: 61. He “delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy’s hand”. It referred to Christ; that is the ark, to use a type; the ark was the glory; it was that in which, figuratively, God could overthrow the enemy’s power, and find a resting place for His people, who in turn found a resting place for Him.
Now I want you to bear in mind what God has embodied in this way; that is, He has brought in in Christ One who delighted to do His will. A wonderful Person to have here on earth! “I delight”, He says, “to do thy will, O my God”. Even if that will involved His going down underneath the dark waters of death and judgment, He would take that way. So when the ark moved, Moses says, “Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee flee before thee”. That was Christ going into death. “Let thine enemies be scattered”, what a scattering there was of the enemies of God when Christ went into death and rose out of it! They were all banded together there, all the elements of evil were banded together at the cross against Jehovah and against His anointed, but the ark went forward, and as the ark went forward the enemies were scattered, and all that hated God fled before Him. As we read the records of the resurrection of Christ in the four gospels our souls are filled with the sense of victory. You see the enemies melting away like snow-scattering. “The keepers did shake”, as the angel of the Lord, whose countenance was like lightning, sat on the stone of the sepulchre. What could man do with an angel whose “look was as lightning”? The guards trembled and became as dead men, and so, beloved friends, the enemies were scattered, and all that hated God fled before Him.
But then there was not only the moving, the setting forward of the ark, but there was the returning of the ark. When the ark rested, Moses said, “Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel”. Now you come to the circle of faith. If the ark found a resting place for the people, if Christ has found a resting place, for our consciences and our hearts through His death and resurrection, what is it for, but that we should find and afford a resting place for Him? I have no doubt that in Psalm 22 we get the circle of the enemies, “bulls of Bashan”, “dogs”, the “assembly of the wicked”, “the lion’s mouth”, but in verse 21 the Lord says, “thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns”. From that extreme point of evil where He stood for God, where He maintained God’s righteousness and His holiness, God heard Him, and so in the next verse He says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the assembly will I praise thee”. It was, as it were, the returning of the ark unto the many thousands of Israel; and I would have every one of us here tonight to know that we belong to that Israel, the Israel of God. God would have a resting place in the midst of the myriads, the thousands of Israel.
So the glory of God, the standard that God sets before the soul in Romans 3, is what Christ was here as doing His will. We all come short of that, but then God is going to bring all into accord with it. The pre-eminence of the Son of God as maintaining all according to the divine standard, the glory of God, is set forth, but God’s proposal through the gospel is [p. 123] to bring every believer into accord with His glory, “to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy”. What a thought that God is able to do that! He is doing it; He is working in every believer to that end. But further, in chapter 3, we have not only the ark but the mercy-seat. The ark was made of shittim wood covered within and without with gold. I suppose the gold is what is of God. Christ “went about doing good ... for God was with him”. It was a question of showing forth what God is. But the mercy-seat was all of gold, and its dimensions were commensurate with the ark in the sense that it was the same length and the same breadth. The ark had the additional dimension of depth, and it contained the tables of the covenant.
In the heart of Christ there was ever His delight in the law, He delighted to do the will of God, but the mercy-seat was all of gold, because it was in this that God was set forth. It was a delight for God to look into the heart of Christ, but God was in the mercy-seat for man. God has found One in whom He can set forth His righteousness, and that, too, in respect of the passing by of sins that had taken place before. Satan might have questioned the righteousness of God for thousands of years, but now here is a public declaration on the part of God, in the blood of Christ, that all is covered; that He was righteous in justifying Abel, in justifying all that had gone before, in the passing by of sins that are past “that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”. What a reserve God had in that way in Christ, that He could show forth His righteousness and justify Himself in what He was doing now; that is to say, He can be “just, and the justifier, of him which believeth in Jesus”. Are you of the faith of Jesus? Do you apprehend in your soul that that blessed Man did the will of God here? It is such an one as you that God justifies, if you are of [p. 124] the faith of Jesus. If that be so, God will bring you into accord with it. He will justify you, give you a good conscience, but that is not all; He gives you peace, but that is not all; He gives you His Spirit, but there is more still. Wonderful things these are, and God sheds His love abroad in your heart; all that is for you: justification, peace, the possession of the Spirit, the shedding forth of the love of God in the heart, all these are for you. God would have it so, and He would have you also to know what He is to you in Christ.
But now I would ask, what are you to be for God? That is what I wanted specially to emphasise. I shall just touch on one point so that you may have it before you. Chapter 7 works out in the experience of some man, indeed, it may be, what one may call abstract experience, but it is worked out in this way, that the writer says, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man”. That is a remarkable statement. He does not say that he does it, that he fulfils it, but he delights in it. Have you come to that as a believer? I have already spoken about forgiveness, justification and peace, all of which are from God’s side through Christ. But now, here is a man who is in the light of these things, and although he has found out that the flesh in him is against God, that it is incorrigible, unalterable, and remains ever what it was and what it is, yet he speaks of what he calls an “inward man”, and according to that inward man he delights in the law of God. Remarkable result! In other words, by his profession he is a board of the tabernacle. One can hardly say that he is yet standing up as a board, but he is a board in his inward feelings and resolve.
In referring to the boards, one point I would note is that there is a correspondence between the boards and the ark, in one thing at least, they are both made of the same kind of wood, shittim or acacia wood.
[p. 125] The dimensions of the ark are peculiar, as you will observe if you read Exodus 25, and their peculiarity speaks of the Person of Christ, what He is; but when you come to the boards, what is said of them is they are “standing up”. “Thou shalt make”, He says, “boards for the tabernacle of shittim wood, standing up”, that is very remarkable. Ordinarily, in making them they would not be standing up, if we judge according to nature, but Scripture is written not according to nature, but according to spirit. We are to read Scripture in the spirit of it, and indeed it is said, “the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. It is in the Spirit of the Lord that we take up the Old Testament, and in the Spirit of the Lord we have liberty to go through and see Christ in it, and, indeed, not only Christ, but all that concerns Christ. The boards refer to the saints in their relation to Christ. Now do you understand, as a believer, that God’s thought is to set you up here in relation to Christ? He has no other thought for you as you are down here, nor indeed has He any other thought for you in heaven, than that you should be set in relation to Christ.
But to refer to the type in detail: we read that the boards were ten cubits high, and a cubit and a half in width. There were forty-eight of them. I suppose the number has its own spiritual significance. It is a remarkable number, having a combination of ideas, of administration in the number twelve and universality in the number four; there is also the idea of responsibility in the height of the boards, ten cubits. I want you to follow, in a spiritual way, what I am saying, because the divine intent is that we should be set up in relation to Christ in responsibility, at the same time having the thought of administration in our souls, the administration of the blessings of God and that the whole world should be before us, and nothing less than that; indeed, the [p. 126] apostle enjoins that prayers and supplication on the part of saints should be made for all men.
It is further said in the book of Exodus that these boards were set up in sockets of silver, which typifies our being established on the ground of redemption; that is the truth of Romans 3, I need not remark. The blood of Christ is the foundation on which we rest in the faith of our souls, that is our public position, the ground on which we stand in the wilderness in relation to Christ, and in relation to God. We are standing up, but we are not standing up severally, each on his own responsibility, we are standing up in relation to one another; that is, as it says in chapter 12 of this epistle, “For, as in one body we have many members ... thus we, being many, are one body in Christ”; not of Christ, mark, but in Christ. Now that is the position we occupy as believers, according to this epistle. In other words, we are standing up, held together in that position in Christ. In regard to the binding principle, you have in the type that there were certain bars, set in certain rings, by which all these boards as standing together were held in unity, and then it says there was one bar which reached from end to end, which, I believe, refers to the Spirit. Now do you understand that you have the Holy Spirit as a believer? In chapter 5 He sheds abroad the love of God in your heart; but then the possession of that same blessed Spirit that sheds abroad the love of God in your heart, means also that there should be a bond between you and all other believers, so that you are no longer an isolated believer, you are bound up with all the saints of God, and you would not have it otherwise.
There is that one long bar, as one may say, extending from end to end, holding all together. How blessed is that position. I would, as I said, put it to every one here who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, as to whether you apprehend that His will concerning [p. 127] you is, that you should stand up here as a redeemed person, not on the ground of what you may be naturally, for that is all of no value to God, whatever it is; the ground on which you rest according to Romans is the ground of the redemption work of the Lord Jesus Christ, as it is said, “being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”. That is the ground on which we stand publicly. This leaves no room for national distinctions or social distinctions; we are all on the same basis; indeed, in giving the atonement money the rich were not to give more, the poor were not to give less, than the amount mentioned, and these very sockets, on which the boards stood, were composed of the silver that was given by each Israelite as his redemption price. What a levelling principle, dear friends; we all stand up here for God on the ground only of the redemption work of the Lord Jesus Christ, “redemption that is in Christ Jesus”.
In regard to the verses which I read in Romans 14, you will see from what I have said that I do not intend to dwell on them, but only to show how the lordship of Christ is asserted. In this chapter the apostle enters a plea for the weak brother; and it is important to bear in mind that such a plea is entered by the apostle in this chapter. The weak ones are to be the subjects of special care among the people of God. We must always be on the look-out for the weak, because Amalek is after them. Those who are weak, and cannot march on with the others, are always exposed to Amalek, and so, “We then that are strong”, the apostle says in the next chapter, “ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves”. Oh! how much self-pleasing there is among the people of God, pleasing ourselves! But we read, “for even Christ pleased not himself”. That is what the next chapter teaches; He is the Model; “as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee have fallen upon me”. That was the Lord Jesus; He did not avoid the darts that were aimed against God, He bared His breast, so to speak, to receive them. He was utterly devoid of self-pleasing. And so, dear friends, to be in correspondence with Christ, as believers in Him, we are enjoined that we should not be self-pleasers. To be self-pleasers we cannot be boards in the tabernacle; and I can conceive of nothing more honourable, or more to be desired at the present time, in a world of utter lawlessness, than to be a board in the tabernacle of God. Wonderful thought!
It may be you are in some outlying place where you get little practical support from the Lord’s people, but there is nothing more to be desired as here in this wilderness than to stand up in the will of God, to refuse to be conformed to this world, but on the contrary to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God”. And so, as I said, the apostle in this chapter puts in a plea for the weak brother. We must not offend him; Christ has died for him; he is on a socket of silver the same as you are; you must watch him; and so the apostle says, if he regards the day, well, he regards it unto the Lord. He has the Lord before him. If he does not regard the day, well then it is to the Lord he does not regard it. You see the principle is, making due allowance for the brother’s conscience. And then in speaking of what may seem to be a trivial, insignificant subject, a weak brother, he brings in this great fact, that “None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself ... whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s”. Do you recognise that? That is what I call the proprietary rights of Christ. The Lord does not set up His standard in the way that different nations assert their proprietary rights, but He sets His mark on [p. 129] those that are redeemed; they belong to Him. May we be led to acknowledge it, dear friends, that “None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself ... whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s”. And why? “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living”. He has that right through dying; He has the right to enter hades; He has the keys of hades. He can enter hades at any time, and call out of it all that are His own. He is about to do it, but then, He has a right over the living, so that “whether we live, or die, we are the Lord’s”. We are His, He owns us. What will He do with us? That is the question.
In the Song of Solomon, a remarkable book, as you all know, it is one song of many: I do not know of any poet who composed so many pieces; he had a thousand and five songs, and this one is the “song of songs”; it is a love song. At the end of it, it is said that Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon. That name means, I understand, the “master of a multitude”. Now Christ as having died and risen and revived is the Lord both of the dead and living. Think of the multitude! I confine my remarks, however, for the moment to the living, because one can hardly speak of the dead as a vineyard; the vineyard refers to the living. We read that Solomon had this vineyard at Baal-hamon, and let it out to husbandmen. What does the Lord let out to you? You, as a believer, come under the proprietary rights of Christ, and I do. He has given me my body; He has given me a heart, and it may be earthly things too. Now, what have I done with all these things? What have you done with them? You have a heart, what about that? “Keep thy heart with all diligence”. For whom are you to keep it? For the Lord. “Out of it are the issues of life”. I have a body. How am I using that body?
[p. 130] How am I holding it? Am I holding it for the Lord? He has, as it were, left it to me.
In that song one says, “Thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand”. That is full measure a thousand pieces of silver: Christianity is full measure. Let us not forget that. Let us turn for a moment to the passage. “He let out the vineyard to keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver”. Now to come short is to be rejected. Christianity is full measure, and that agrees with what I have been remarking, that the glory of God is the standard. Man in the flesh comes short of it, but man in the Spirit does not come short of it. I am not speaking about perfection in the flesh, I am speaking, beloved friends, of what God brings about by the Spirit. I want to show that what the gospel brings about is perfect, it answers to God. What I may be in my mixed condition is not what I am speaking about. This passage says, “,Every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver”; that was the requirement. You do not bring less than that; I have no less thought in my soul than the glory of God. It would be out of keeping with Christianity to have a less thought than that; God has no other thought than that, His glory. He has justified me, He has given me the Holy Spirit in order that I might be in accord with the glory of God. Do you think that any one of us will be in heaven in any way short of the glory of God? None. God will see to that.
Now see what the spirit of prophecy says; for I think I may call it the spirit of prophecy. “My vineyard, which is mine, is before me”. He had it before Him, and then it goes on, “Thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand”. Christendom has lowered the standard. I make a great difference between Christendom and Christianity; Christendom is what man has brought about; it is the vitiation of the [p. 131] truth; the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, the doctrine of Balaam, and the doctrine of the prophetess Jezebel have brought about a state of things which is not at all in keeping with the glory of God; the standard, as I have said, is lowered, God is falsified. For that reason we have to get the truth before us if we are to be here for God. The Spirit of prophecy says here, “Thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand”, and more than that, and “those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred”; they get their portion. I think in these prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament we have a reference to Christianity as confirming what God presents to us in Christ, and we should have no less thought than that. The boards were in every way in keeping with the ark. They represent what is finite, and in responsibility, but in that responsibility answering to the mind of God: whereas the ark represents what is infinite, it is the Person of Christ, the glory of God. But the boards are in entire keeping with it in their own relative position, and so this passage asserts that the believer does not live to himself, and does not die to himself. He lives to the Lord, he dies to the Lord; whether he lives, or whether he dies, he is the Lord’s; but I am speaking of him as living, and as living he is here for the Lord’s will; and the Lord being the Master of a multitude, He sets us in relation to Himself and in relation to one another for the support of the testimony in this world.