CONTRIBUTORS TO THE DIVINE SYSTEM
G. C. McKay
Isaiah 55: 1, 2; Romans 12: 1–8; John 3: 35, 36; 4: 23–30; Acts 18: 24–28; Luke 5: 27–29
What was in mind, dear brethren, in reading these sections was the thought that we might become contributors to the divine system. The word is used where we read in Acts as to the service of Apollos that he contributed much; he was a notable contributor to what was among the saints and to what was going on publicly in the testimony. The reason I began to read in Isaiah 55 was to make it clear that there are certain things that we make no contribution to.
The word of Jehovah through Isaiah is “come ye, buy, and eat—yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price!”. That is the first great matter, I think, in the glad tidings. God never gives up the thought of man’s responsibility, but in the glad tidings God is willing to give us everything. He looks of course for repentance from us and yet scripture refers to God granting repentance, and the hymn writer also points out that faith in Christ is required and yet that is the gift of God too. So what we need we receive in the glad tidings freely, without money and without price. We had no money anyway; we had nothing to pay, like the two debtors (Luke 7: 42).
We had no contribution to make, but the gospel has come and we have been richly endowed and provided for through the glad tidings. For those of us who have believed on the Lord Jesus, the guilt of our sins, that terrible guilt that is marked on us because we are sinners and have committed sins, the blood of Jesus can cover that. Our terrible guilty state too God has provided for in the death of the Lord Jesus. So the forgiveness of our sins is available and justification, a very wonderful matter. It is unknown in the world yet God provides it.
He can make persons just, persons who have been sinners, through the death of the Lord Jesus, through His resurrection, through His wonderful work. We contributed nothing to that, save our sins. We came as sinners, and it was even God’s grace that made us come. It was God’s mercy and goodness that worked in us, that we might even be willing to receive the glad tidings. Really in the glad tidings everything is regarded as coming to us through God’s work. Through His grace He operates in us, otherwise we would never have listened. He grants repentance and as we look to Jesus He gives us faith. These things are available for everyone here. Salvation is available, free; there is no price to be paid. There is nothing you could pay; there is nothing you could do to remove a single sin or to redeem yourself.
I read this scripture to bring out what was in my mind, that when God thus blesses us in the gospel, fills our hearts with His love and gives us the Holy Spirit, a wonderful gift spoken of as an unspeakable gift, cleanses us, and sets us up with a sense of His own goodness and blessing. He then has this thought for us that we might become ourselves contributors to God’s pleasure. God has come out to man in wonderful blessing but that is not the end of the story; in the end everything that has come out from God is going to return to God. All the light and blessing in which God has come out towards men is going to bring a return to Him from hearts that appreciate the blessing. In the end all glory is going to belong to God. The hymn speaks of that;
‘O Mind divine, so must it be
That glory all belongs to God!’ (Hymn 88)
But then the hymn writer adds the wonderful fact that
‘We should be part, through Jesus’ blood’.
Also scripture refers to, “glory to God by us”, 2 Corinthians 1: 20.
The epistle to the Romans has this in mind. It outlines in careful detail and in divine wisdom the terms of God’s glad tidings, how He proceeds to bless us completely, to liberate us from all burden of sin and guilt, and from the power of sin too; God would do that, for a full salvation is what our God has in mind. He brings it out and shows it in the epistle to the Romans. It is very gracious of Him to do that; the blessings are there but God outlines them and explains them to us; that is a very great help. If you are proceeding in spiritual exercise, and may be in some spiritual doubt, then the things are laid out for you in the epistle to the Romans. We know that many believers of old spent years in a cloud as to their salvation, and the reason was that they did not have the light of the Scriptures, but God gives us light. He makes clear how His love has acted; He establishes without doubt His righteousness in forgiving us our sins; He shows what He has done in justifying us in a risen Christ; and all these things are brought out in the epistle to the Romans.
Then in the beginning of Romans 12 there is a suggestion that we might yield something to Him. It is not the first suggestion of that kind in Romans, because earlier on you have the thought that we might begin to yield our members to God, but the thing becomes very definite in chapter 12. God looks for us to yield something to Him that every one of us has, and that is our bodies. Think of that; God looking to believers who are under the influence of His wonderful love, and all that He has done for them in the glad tidings, and suggesting and appealing that they might yield their bodies in a definite way to Him. It is pictured here as a definite matter, not just spasmodic or casual or temporary. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God”, that includes all His love and His mercy, “to present your bodies a living sacrifice”. Unbelievers could not do that, they would never have the thought, nor uncleansed persons, unforgiven persons; but persons cleansed by the blood of Jesus, persons in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, have bodies which can be presented holy and acceptable to God. If you consider what God has done to you, then you would say rightly and with intelligence that this is a thing you ought to do, you ought to devote your body to serve God.
This is going to involve various changes to your mind and life, not being conformed to this world and all the tide of things around. Do not underestimate how that affects each one of us, this tremendous tide of activity that proceeds in the world, some of it very wicked and corrupt, some of it comparatively innocent. These things all influence us so that we become conformed to them, but the believer is transformed by the renewing of his mind. What he has in mind is the will of God, to prove “what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. I would like to ask myself and us all, Has the will of God become established in our souls and in our lives? This is God’s thought in the glad tidings, that His will might become established experimentally in my soul, in my life, indeed in my house; that my mind might be affected in such a way that I would embrace the will of God wholeheartedly. What blessing lies in it! Because if God thus looks for us to be contributors to what is for His pleasure, it is for our blessing that we become that.
Up to this point in Romans, generally the individual believer has been addressed, but then there is something else, and that is you have to take your place alongside other believers and consider where you stand in regard to them. One of the first things Paul says is you are not to have high thoughts, to think that you are superior to everyone else, but to think wisely. We consider one another, how God has dealt to each a measure of faith. That is something that God has given in view of a return, in view of activity on our part. Not only has He given us faith in Christ, but in this section He has given us a measure of faith; that involves a certain light and power in our souls that we might become contributors in the divine system. In one body there are many members, Paul says, and this fact comes to light that there is such a thing as one body, that believers as redeemed and possessed of the Holy Spirit and linked with Christ become unified and are one body in Christ. It is an early elementary thought as to the body, for it does not say it is the body of Christ, but one body in Christ. Thus we are linked up in the most intimate way.
Then what emerges from this, and from a measure of faith being given to each, is that we become contributors. That would be a test to us, brother and sister alike. What are we contributing? Is what I am contributing according to the measure of faith that God has given me? You might say you do not have much; well it says here that God has dealt to each a measure of faith, so you have that. Not only has He given you blessing in the glad tidings, but He has given you a measure of faith to be active in the one body in Christ, and to be active rightly according to what God has given you. And so it says, “having different gifts”. You might feel you do not know whether you have this one or that one. The brethren used to speak about finding your place in the body, and this is how you do it. You look to God and say, How do I relate to the other brethren? You recognise what their activity is, and that God has given them faith, and you say, What has God given me to do?
You look for that and you seek to occupy yourself with it; “whether it be prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith”. It will not be exactly the same gift for everyone. If for service, “let us occupy ourselves in service”, says Paul. Then, “he that teaches, in teaching”; if you have a gift for teaching you do that, if you have a gift for exhortation you do that. Then what begins to emerge is that there is a quality in what persons do, “he that gives, in simplicity”. It suggests that someone has that touch, he is a giver and he does it with a simplicity that is pleasing to God. If someone has to lead here, he does it with diligence; and if someone shows mercy he is the kind of person that can show mercy. He does it cheerfully, he does not make it a burden to the person to whom he shows mercy,
So I think you can see from this, God’s thought is that we should put our bodies on the altar, and that we might find our happy portion in being contributors to what is for God’s pleasure here.
I have read the other scriptures that they might serve as examples of persons who became contributors. I think the most wonderful of all is the woman in John 4. Although she is a poor and guilty woman, thirsty and coming to the well, having had five husbands and now with a man who is not her husband, what surrounds this whole section is the great matter that the Father loves the Son. That is that there is affection between the Father and the Son, and there is administration too. I would like to speak about that, an economy or administration proceeding. John’s gospel and other scriptures bring this out, and this administration which is touched on very wonderfully in John involves love; “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”, that is, everything is in the Son’s administration. I do not know what other administration you could find anywhere that has that kind of character. Man has the thought of economy or administration, but I do not know of any other suggestion that has ever arisen in the world that that administration should be based on love, except the divine economy. The divine administration involves love, not only love towards us but love between divine Persons. Now this poor woman is going to be caught up in this matter. You say she is the most unlikely person, and so are you and so am I, but we are caught up in this great matter as God is proceeding with His thoughts. Transactions are taking place between the Father and the Son; everything has been given into the hand of the Son as the One whom the Father loves, and you can understand how love is operating.
This woman, though she did not know it, came into an area where love was operating, where love’s administration was proceeding. It is not without significance, that when the Lord Jesus comes through Samaria, “He comes therefore to a city of Samaria called Sychar; near to the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph”, John 4: 5. That is just another little hint, Jacob giving something to his son, of what is happening in this wonderful scripture, that the Father is giving something to His Son. This poor woman is becoming a gift, you might say, from the Father to the Son. The Lord Jesus attracts her, speaking to her of the living water springing up into eternal life. He deals with the moral question in her history by asking her to bring her husband, and all comes out in the open. Then, it is still astonishing to my heart, immediately the Lord begins to speak about worship and the possibility of worshipping. He speaks of the most exalted things to this poor woman, that “the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth”, and He speaks about God being a Spirit. Why should He speak about such things to this woman? Because she was to become a contributor, she was to become a worshipper indeed. This scripture does not display that developed fully in the woman, but it does show something immediately in the woman as she begins to speak about the Messias, and the Lord Jesus discloses to her that He is the Messias, “I who speak to thee am he”.
Then the woman left her water-pot. We often speak about that, how she understood that she was to be a vessel of the Holy Spirit. And she “went away into the city, and says to the men.
Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?” Thus she becomes a contributor; she becomes evangelical, she brings persons to Christ and it says many believed because of what she had said. Later it says, “It is no longer on account of thy saying that we believe, for we have heard him ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world” (John 4: 42). You could say the woman becomes part of this divine administration; something is going out through her that is bringing others into blessing. The reference to worship infers, I think, what was in the divine mind that poor sinners, poor thirsting sinners, not only have their own need satisfied but become worshippers of the Father, worshippers of God. The Lord Jesus says to her to begin with, “Give me to drink” (John 4: 7). That was His first proposal, and that is what would be secured from persons who become contributors in the divine system.
Having said so much about the woman I would like to speak about Apollos, perhaps more briefly, as one who contributed much in his service because of his gift. I want to point to him as an example of someone who came in and became useful. He was ready to do so, for he had prepared himself by way of exercise, and that is a thing we might do. He was an eloquent man; we cannot make ourselves eloquent but we can look for divine help to speak. He was mighty in the Scriptures which suggests a certain devotion in him, whatever ability he had he devoted it in a right direction, and like Timothy he was acquainted with the Scriptures. He was also fervent in his spirit. You can see the usability of a person like that, only there was a limitation with him in what he knew, for he knew only the baptism of John. But what is so beautiful about this is that he was adjusted and helped to make a contribution.
That is another principle or feature I would like to mention, that if we are to become contributors in the divine system we have to be ready to be adjusted. We may have certain potentiality and fervour and zeal, we may have certain knowledge, but we are going to have to learn to be adjusted. And so “Aquila and Priscilla, having heard him, took him to them and unfolded to him the way of God more exactly”. A brother and sister did that in the house, they made him more suitable. Then the brethren wrote to the disciples and told them to receive him with a welcome when he came to Achaia, and when he came he “contributed much to those who believed through grace. For he with great force convinced the Jews publicly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ”. So that this thought of becoming a contributor is seen in Apollos, and on the road he became a person who had been adjusted.
Then we read in Luke 5 about Levi, yet another example which I would finish with, who was found by Jesus at the receipt of taxes. The word of the Lord Jesus, “Follow me”, was met immediately by a response, “And having left all, rising up, he followed him”. Now what is notable here as to Levi is that immediately he is taken up by the Lord he made his house available; indeed he made a great entertainment for Him in his house, and you can see how usable he was; he chose the right guests for this entertainment. He was in keeping with what Jesus was doing; he caught on to what was necessary at the moment, and so when he made the great entertainment for Him in his house, he brought in a great crowd of tax-gatherers and other persons like himself. It says, “the Pharisees murmured at his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with tax-gatherers and sinners?” He promoted the gospel effort that was proceeding, the movement of divine grace was catered for, you might say, by Levi making a great entertainment for Him in his house. We often think of entertaining the saints, and that is a very great privilege, and it is a great joy when you are entertained. Levi’s thought was that he would entertain Jesus, provide for the One who had taken him up, and immediately he became usable. Well, dear brethren, may we all be exercised, whatever grace we have been given, whatever faith we have been given, to be so affected by what has come to us in the glad tidings that we find a way to become useful, and like Apollos, increasingly useful. There is assuredly a need in these days that everyone should become usable in the divine system.
May we all become that, for His name’s sake.
Address at Ormond Beach/Bunnell
1 June 2002