THE ASSEMBLY AS IN THE PURPOSE OF GOD AND HER POSITION IN THE WAYS OF GOD
[p. 47] THE ASSEMBLY AS IN THE PURPOSE OF GOD AND HER POSITION IN THE WAYS OF GOD
Ephesians 3: 13 - 21; 1 Corinthians 1: 1, 2
Summary of Reading
What I have before me is the assembly, what it is to God and what it is to Christ; what it is to Him and for Him. Ephesians connects itself with God’s eternal counsels, and I purposely mentioned that chapter first, because that side must be worked into every one of our souls if we are to understand our place here collectively in the ways of God; we must be enlightened as to our calling according to His eternal purpose. It is only as we know our place in the counsels of God, that we can rightly grasp the position we are set in provisionally. Our place in the ways of God is a provisional position, and to fill that according to God it is necessary we should know what our heavenly position is. The first mention of the assembly in type has reference to it in connection with the counsel of God’s love; that is, the woman; Genesis 2. The next type is Rebekah; that speaks of the same assembly, but as here filling the place of another; Rebekah takes Sarah’s place; Sarah’s place indicates the earthly position, and we come into that provisionally, but it is obvious that finally we shall revert to our own place; the time is coming when we shall no longer be in the provisional place, but we shall have our own place in connection with God’s counsels of love, “that we should be holy and without blame before him in love”. In the doxology at the end of our chapter it says, “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus”, that is what it is for God.
On the other side the church enters into a position that is provisional in the ways of God. She is in a place that really primarily belongs to another, and [p. 48] will be taken up eventually by Israel, to whom it belongs. The assembly always has precedence, even in the ways and government of God, but her own place is “holy and blameless before him in love”. Rebekah sets forth what the assembly is to Christ at the present time. There was no thought of a mediatorial system when Eve was formed; the necessity for that arose later on, on account of sin. The assembly enters into that mediatorial system, but she has her own distinct place. The testimony of God is bound up with the mediatorial system, but we must know our heavenly calling in order to fill our place in the mediatorial system in a heavenly way. So we are to “walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye have been called”.
We get the primary thought in Genesis 2. In chapter 1 God creates the heavens and the earth; the word ‘God’ is used many times in that chapter, but in chapter 2 we get Jehovah; that is, the Lord God, because it is a question of relationship. At first there was not a man to till the ground, things were incomplete, for God will have the ground tilled. Then the man being formed, there was still a need, not in the man, but in the divine thought. “It is not good that the man should be alone” was the primary thought. There was the need under the eye of God that man should have one like himself, and no doubt Adam appreciated the divine thought after Eve was brought to him, but the suggestion originated with God. The word ‘good’ there had reference to God, He estimated all things. In God’s account Eve, who typifies the assembly, was a necessity, not because Adam felt the need, but because God knew the need was there; without Eve there was incompleteness.
The assembly is the great divine ideal, the great thought of God: “To him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus”, that is God’s thought. Corinthians [p. 49] give the provisional point of view down here for God, hence it is “the assembly of God”, not Christ’s assembly as in Matthew 16. It is that in which God’s government and order are all set out now. It requires Ephesians to enable us to come out according to Corinthians; it is very important to get hold of that. In the type Rebekah is represented as being a comfort to Isaac after the death of his mother; but that is not the primary thought, because Adam had no mother; Adam is not Christ coming in in connection with Israel, but in connection with the primary thought of God. The ways of God come in between God’s primary thought and its accomplishment; they are provisional because certain consequences have arisen through sin. That is where Corinthians comes in. That epistle is addressed to “the assembly of God which is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours”. It is not God’s primary thought there, it is what is built by man. Paul laid the foundation at Corinth, and others built, only it is God’s assembly, and in that position was to represent God.
God was to be seen in the assembly because it was God’s temple; hence the importance of seeing what we are on the heavenly side where we are linked up with Christ in God’s eternal counsels, so that we may come out here and fill the position, not only in righteousness, but in the excess of it, for there will be more seen in the assembly than ever has or will be seen in — Israel. These two thoughts are seen in Revelation 21. The assembly is first seen in that chapter adorned as a bride for her husband,”not as the Lamb’s wife”. The Lamb in Revelation refers to Christ in the sufferings borne by Him in the ways of God. The first reference to her is as a bride adorned for her husband, and that answers to Genesis 2. Then we come to the other side, the “bride the Lamb’s wife”: all the marks are there of identification with what has been developed in the government of God on earth, twelve tribes, twelve angels, twelve gates, twelve apostles. All these refer to God’s government here on earth. Not one of these is connected with the assembly in the early part of the chapter, because there she is connected with the new heavens and the new earth.
So Genesis 2 gives typically the primary thought of God as to the assembly, and Genesis 24 the assembly for the present comfort and satisfaction of Christ. God takes account of the need of the Lord Jesus in relation to the loss of Israel. It is obvious that the Lord felt the loss of Israel; as Messiah He felt it, and Genesis 24 has that in view. God took account of the loneliness of Isaac consequent on the death of his mother; but that is not the thought in Genesis 2. There is no reference to Adam’s sense of need; it is what God says before sin came in, hence it is the primary thought. The other is provisional, which meets the conditions of loneliness caused by death, the death of Sarah. Rebekah is brought into Sarah’s tent; that tent was a very important tent, there has never been one like it, for no woman ever existed like Sarah. She was a remarkable woman, representing Israel here, and her death leaves a great void. Ephesians brings in the families in heaven and on earth, but they are brought in there to emphasise the Father’s supremacy in love. In the gospel the Lord says, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth”. That has His sovereign rights in view, but it is not the same in Ephesians; there it is the Father’s love that is emphasised. The primary thought is not altogether what the assembly is to God. The Lord has His own thoughts and delights, and they centre in the assembly, Matthew 13 helps us on that line. He sold all that He had to buy the pearl of great price; that was His value of it.
[p. 51] In the final position it is glory to God in the assembly. “To him [God] be glory in the assembly ... unto all generations of the age of ages”. In the mediatorial position, she is the vessel of the glory, because it is the question of the shining out of it. The eternal thought is found in Revelation 21:1 - 9, where the assembly is spoken of under the figure of “a bride adorned for her husband”. There is no reference to levitical service in the final state. But from verse 9 onwards it is the assembly in relation to the millennial world; there is no temple therein, because the “Lord God Almighty an d the Lamb are the temple of it”. The light of the sun and of the moon are not needed. The mediatorial system was introduced to meet the consequences of sin, and to show how God can meet Satan’s attack through man. God had not come in to deal with sin directly; He allowed things to work out, and thus met the consequences arising through man. The question of good and evil is worked out in man. It displays the wisdom and power in which God met Satan’s attack.
On the ground of redemption God dwells with man. He took the people out of Egypt in military strength; they did not go out in tribes, but in ranks of five in military order. Satan’s thought was, God has taken them out, but the wilderness will shut them in; that was Pharaoh’s thought, but the wilderness was the very condition in which God could develop His thoughts; instead of their being hemmed in, it became the sphere in which God set out His own way. It was there they learnt God.
“In the desert God will teach thee,
What the God that thou hast found”. (76:6)
God teaches them there how He could be everything to them, and make them entirely independent of Satan’s world; so the mediatorial system was set up in the wilderness, and the centre of it was the ark [p. 52] in their midst, and that involves witness. The word ‘testimony’ or ‘witness’ is the key to the position, it is the provisional thought. God has shown what is in His mind: that in a world of sin He can dwell, through the wonderful system He has set up. May the Lord help us to get hold of that, because everything hangs on it for the moment. The study of the book of Exodus is of great importance in relation to the New Testament. The Lord Himself began at Moses and the prophets, and expounded to them the things concerning Himself.
I believe the assembly at the present moment forms part of the mediatorial system in relation to the world. It is the vessel of light; the house of God, the assembly of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. The assembly is the vessel in which God administers today all that He has for man, Christ being the great Administrator through the assembly. The dispensation of God which is in faith has reference to the house. What a thing to be in that house! How can one be in accord unless one sees one’s heavenly calling? The sheet that was let down before Peter came down thrice out of heaven and returned thither, and the last time it was received up again it remained there; this suggests that there was to be a vessel out of heaven which returned there.
Corinthians speaks of the “assembly of God”; Ephesians and Timothy of the house of God. The house of God is the family thought, it is rather in advance of the assembly of God. The assembly of God as in Corinthians refers to the concrete working out of the light. In chapter 10 Paul says, “I speak as to intelligent persons”, and in chapter 14, “in the assembly I desire to speak five words with my understanding”. That is the leading thought in Corinthians. An evangelist was not among the gifts at Corinth.
Now the thought of the assembly as witness is [p. 53] developed locally; the levitical position is general, not local. In Zechariah 6: 12, the Lord is spoken of as the Branch; “and he shall grow up from his own place, and he shall build the temple of Jehovah”. The Lord maintained His position here: He was born in poor circumstances, and remained in that position, though He showed His parents that He was about His Father’s business; He went down with them and came to Nazareth, we read, and “was subject unto them”. He recognised the will of God in His local circumstances. It is very touching to see that He grew up from His own place, and that such an One as He builds the temple of the Lord. So where one maintains his place here in the government of God locally, that is where the truth of the assembly is developed. He grows up from his own place, and so in principle builds the temple of the Lord in spite of all the breakdown.
Levitical service is not local, it is general. After the Lord had been in the wilderness tempted of the devil, He returned “in the power of the Spirit into Galilee”, and “he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up”. That refers to where He had been locally. I think we get the principle there. He anticipated what they would say, “Whatsoever we have heard has taken place in Capernaum, do here also in thine own country”. They would turn local responsibility into support for their pride, they would have the Lord add to themselves there, but He says to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent”; that is, levitical service is not local. A Levite must not be tied down to any locality or he will be made a bishop in order to add importance to the place. The Lord would not have that, He said, “I must needs announce the glad tidings ... to the other cities also”. It is a very important principle. I have my local responsibility, but I have also my levitical responsibility, and [p. 54] the latter is for the diffusion of what I have learnt and gained locally. The Levite diffuses the light, it is meant to be diffused. It is for the whole assembly. You remember in Acts that Barnabas brings Paul to Antioch, and they assembled with the saints there for a whole year. Throughout that year there was the opportunity to develop their local exercises. Paul was a local brother for that year, and after that year the Spirit says, “Separate me now Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them”. The saints knew them; when the saints were called upon to identify themselves with these two Levites, they knew them because they had been in their midst and they had proved them.
In Corinthians Sosthenes was a local brother. Paul associated him with himself in writing the first epistle in order to soften the message. The message was apostolic, and the apostle would modify it by the fact that the brother was there. The brotherly spirit was identified in that way with the apostolic authority. Probably Sosthenes was a local brother, if he was the same one mentioned in Acts 18. I think the thought is that the message being apostolic, therefore authoritative, it was blended with the sympathies of a brother. The brotherly spirit should take the precedence. Timothy is the great example for a Levite now; he “worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do”, the apostle said of him. Paul expected Timothy to come to him with the brethren; the brethren did not come with him; if so, he would have been the leader of a company, but he came with them, as one of them; Timothy always retained the marks of the brother, “our brother Timothy is set at liberty”. The relation in which we stand to one another is greater than any gift we may have and fellowship in the Spirit is greater than gift. The local condition ought to add to the Levite. If we get hold of the principle that the Lord as Man [p. 55] grew up from His own place it will help us. The temple of the Lord is here, the saint is in his own place, and local exercise is recognised, and we all come together in the light of the temple. Everything there is effectuated in faith and through exercise, and in that way it is light. “Ye are temple of God”, what a blessed thing that is! That is what God said of them. If that be God’s thought of us, we may well ask ourselves what effect has that on us; we should come together in the light of the temple to our reading meetings. Sisters have the same place; though they are not allowed to speak, they can have faith, and exercise, and can pray, and so they are contributory to the whole. The temple in Corinthians is not quite the same thought as in Ephesians. Corinthians is the character of the thing locally; holiness marks the temple; the idea of the temple was well understood, “the temple of God is holy”. It was a great thing for them to recognise that they were the temple of God and the character of it. Ephesians is not local, it is the whole thing growing to a holy temple; we shall see that in its fulness in the heavenly city. The position locally was “ye are temple of God”, the light of God was there; they were also “body of Christ”. The Corinthian saints needed to be corrected in regard of both. They were trusting to man’s mind, to human education. The thought of the temple is that the Spirit of God dwells in us. The temple is largely connected with the mind, the renewed mind. “That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah” refers to his place in love, “and to inquire in his temple”, that is more the mind.
The Father is the One by whom every family is named. The Father is “Lord of the heaven and of the earth”, but He is occupied with families, those whom He loves. He names them according to the measure in which they are in Christ. For the assembly it is that they may know the love of Christ and be [p. 56] filled to all the fulness of God. The assembly has the first place among the families, no other family will have such measure. The love of Christ is that which will bring about being filled to all the fulness of God. The present portion of the assembly is the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge: what a thing to know! The apostle recognised how little the saints appreciated that love, so he bows his knee; it refers to the intense exercise he had. J.N.D. translates it, “the love of the Christ”, not limiting it to the personal thought. The Christ is the One in whom God has and will effect everything; it is the love of that One. Then there is the fulness of God, which I suppose would be equivalent to God being all in all, an eternal thought.
The difference between the prayers in Ephesians 1 and 3 is, that in chapter 1 it is more connected with the mediatorial system, where everything is headed up in Christ; while in chapter 3 it is more eternity.