HOUSING
[p. 221] HOUSING
2 Corinthians 5:1 - 5; John 14:1 - 3; Ephesians 2:19 - 22
I wish to speak about housing; first, housing of our persons; that is, the persons of believers, and for this I have read in 2 Corinthians 5, because it speaks of “our earthly tabernacle house” and also “our house which is from heaven”, both alluding to our bodies. Our bodies in this sense are houses. God has provided for us in this way. We need our bodies in the ordinary sense for protecting us; to protect the other two parts of our tripartite beings. We need the three parts. Most believers have already lost the third, having departed to be with Christ; that means being disembodied. There is provision for that, so that we need not be discouraged; but still, it is important to bear it in mind that the most are disembodied; at the same time the persons remain; disembodiment does not destroy the thought of the persons. The apostle says, in view of this, that “departure and being with Christ”, “is very much better”, Philippians 1:23, so that there is no loss.
There are those, and perhaps specially the young, who naturally cling to their bodies, and God respects that. Even the Lord, in His holy desires as a Man here, said to Jehovah, “take me not away in the midst of my days”. Psalm 102:24. It was not granted to Him, for He came to die. He obtained a body for that purpose, and He died, so really that He said to another, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”. Luke 23:43. The Lord Himself recognised the fact of disembodiment. It is very touching that He should be without a body, for however short a time. It was short, for very early in the morning on the third day the Father was at the grave. He was there in His power; but He was also there in His glory, to raise [p. 222] Christ from the dead. So the Lord has gone through the whole course. It touches every heart here, I am sure, that He did. As to His spirit, He was in paradise, and the thief was in paradise too, but the Lord went first. Even the thief did not go with Him. The Lord went alone to paradise. In all things He must have the pre-eminence, even as to going to paradise.
These remarks will help in regard to what is in my mind. As to our bodies, the elder ones here think more soberly of them than the younger. The younger are considered for in the first commandment with promise. That promise is not that they should go to be with the Lord; it is, that they should live long on the earth, showing how thoughtful God is as to us in our youth. The Lord Jesus, the Messiah, was cut off and had nothing. How really He died, and how real were His feelings! So He has gone through the whole course; birth, infancy, boyhood and manhood, but He died. He died by the will of God, but it was His own thought too, for He took the body to lay it down. Yet the whole matter was the will of God, and that is a point, dear brethren, now, specially for the young here, as to the will of God; because the tenure of life is short, and yet God is not ignoring it, not even ignoring your desire to have long life. The first commandment is with the promise, not that we should have long life; “that thy days may be prolonged in the land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee”. Exodus 20:12. That was the word. Faith speaks of the habitable world to come, and while the promise to the young is that their days should be long, yet I would warn them as to undue or extravagant purposes, or expectations. The better thing is reserved for us, and that better thing is not long life on the earth. God has “foreseen some better thing for us, that they should not be made perfect without us”, Hebrews 11:40. That is to say, the saints of old from the beginning are waiting for us. They are waiting for the living, “we, the living, who remain to the coming of the Lord” 1 Thessalonians 4:15,
— [p. 223] because that is our hope; but those that are asleep go before us, which is very suggestive too.
Now on the first day of the week, very early indeed in the morning, we are told, the Father was there in His glory, not simply in His power with which He made the universe, although the glory of God enters into that in some degree, but the Father was there in His glory to raise Christ. Very early in the morning He raised Him, and inaugurated the first day of the week in its spiritual significance. It was the Father’s doing. What a moment, dear brethren, it must have been for the Father and the Son, as They met there, the loved One coming out of the grave. I am not ignoring what I have already said as to Paradise, but the point was His coming out of the grave, for He is not seen as going into heaven until after He rose. It was a question of the inauguration of things, and the necessity for the resurrection, and for this, the Lord resuming His body; taking it in its new condition, for it was not the same condition as that in which He died. He was “crucified in weakness”; 2 Corinthians 13:4; He was raised in power. So it is a new state of things, a state of things inaugurated in power, the Father’s power, the Father’s glory, and the Son’s power too, for the Son raised Himself — a very important thing. “Destroy this temple”, He said, “and in three days I will raise it up”, “But he spoke of the temple of his body”. John 2:19,21. So He had to do with the raising up, and inaugurating, as I said, of the first day of the week, the glorious day that we enter on in view of the service of God. We cannot serve God without our bodies. Our bodies are essential to the service of God, and hence we stay here, some of us for a short time, others for a longer time, but whether short or long, it is a question of the will of God and the service of God, and we need our bodies for this. When we depart to be with Christ, it will not be to carry on the service of God there. God has given us bodies, and they are called bodies of [p. 224] humiliation. We may as well accept that. The Authorised Version says “vile body”, which is hardly correct according to our present use of the word, but there is humiliation attached to our bodies, and we cannot improve or alter that, by dress or by the fashions. The humiliation will stay until we die, or until we are changed by the power of the Lord; no natural adornment can erase it. We may as well accept that. Hence it is as clothed with the will of God that we are beautiful, that heaven can look down upon us, the service of God going on in us, in these bodies.
I read those verses in 2 Corinthians to remark on the “house which is from heaven”. In one sense the bodies in which we die actually come up again out of the grave, though in a new condition, and those of the living that are changed are the same bodies, but changed at the coming of the Lord; so that we retain our bodies, but then there is this additional idea of a “house which is from heaven”. We have “a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”. 2 Corinthians 5:1. What a thought! How uplifting it is! That is our prospect.
In John 14, the Lord was about to die. John says much more than others about what the Lord said, what we could call His dying words. His dying commandments, for they were that. Moses and Elias met Him on the mount and they spoke about His departure, “his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem”. Luke 9:31 In truth it was a question of His dying; He came down from the mount to die. He went up to be transfigured, but when the transfiguration was over He was just seen as He was; “Jesus alone with themselves”, Mark 9:8, the apostles and Himself He came down from the mount to die. That was what Moses and Elias were speaking of. They spoke of Him, they spoke to Him; showing how honoured they were, for He was coming down to die, and, dear brethren, that is what we think of at the Lord’s supper. “This is my body, which is for you”, 1 Corinthians 11:24, not His body in glory, but [p. 225] His body in which He died. His death is in mind, when He says, “which is for you”. It is the communion of it, the portion we have together in the Lord as having died. Then He goes on to speak about being remembered, called to mind; that is not in His death, it is in His present state above; that is to say, He is not to be forgotten. The Lord’s supper, the memorial side of it, is to keep us from forgetting the Lord, for we are apt to do that. He says, ‘This do for the calling of me to mind;’ the departed One, the absent One, the glorious One, but nevertheless the One that so many have forgotten, whom so many do not care about. Thus it was of old. “for this Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has happened to him”. Acts 7:40. It was a small matter to them, but I hope it is not a small matter to anybody here. Do we miss the Lord? He is coming back, of course. He has been away for hundreds of years. What has He been doing? What is He now doing? Israel is not being saved, nor the nations being gathered. There is indeed the gathering together of the children of God; that is what is going on, dear brethren.
We are here today and heaven is delighted with us. We have not lost sight of the Lord Jesus. He is our Lord. We worship Him. We think of Him. We are thinking of His rights, and we hold our bodies in view of all that. He has taken His body of glory, and the Spirit of God has told us through Paul that that body of glory is the standard of ours, His own body of glory. Very wonderful! These bodies of humiliation are to be made like His own body of glory, the one He has now; the Spirit of God calls it “his body of glory”, Philippians 3:21, as if there is something in the fact that He is in glory, and we are going to be there too. Glory is the great consummation of all these things, but in these bodies of humiliation we are to remember the Lord, to serve the Lord, to use these bodies for the Lord, whatever they be, old or young, they are to be used for the Lord. Our bodies are the Lord’s; He has a right to them, not simply that they are His, as a mere abstract thought, but they are His as usable.
I emphasise that, dear brethren, and for young people especially, that whatever your bodies are, they are to be usable for the Lord. He has established a right to our bodies, even as they are; He is not despising them, He has gone through the conditions we are in; He knows conditions such as ours, sin apart, of course, for He was holy, harmless, and undefiled, and He has led the way for us as to our bodies. From the very outset, as a child of one having faith in God is baptised, he is committed to the Lord. The Spirit later comes in and takes charge, but all for the Lord, so that the body as it remains here is for the Lord. “The body is”, “for the Lord, and the Lord for the body”, 1 Corinthians 6:13, a very precious word! The Holy Spirit coming into our bodies makes them usable, makes them glorious, for the coming of the Spirit into our bodies makes them valuable beyond what they used to be. They are now morally glorified. I am speaking what I understand, and what I know to be so, that the incoming of the Spirit involves the glorification of our bodies in the moral sense, so that the Lord’s service and the service of God is taken up and carried through by glorious persons, “whom he justified, these also he has glorified”, Romans 8:30. If we are justified through the death of Christ, we are glorified for the service of God here below.
Now, there is a moral thought connected with this; it is, that our bodies are suitable, usable, every moment of our lives as devoted to the Lord, and that is what I have in mind in reading this wonderful passage: “For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed”, 2 Corinthians 5:1, meaning if we die, “we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this we groan”, 2 Corinthians 1:2, in this, remember, in the very body in which we serve the Lord, “we groan”.
[p. 227] Who does not know it? As old age comes on it is well to accept it. “In this we groan, ardently desiring to have put on our house which is from heaven”. 2 Corinthians 5:2. What a relief, dear brethren! As to those that have gone, the millions that have fallen asleep through Jesus, the matter is not finished; they are in an unfinished state, a disembodied condition, awaiting the glorious finish! What it was to the Lord! The Father’s glory raised Him, and may we not say that His glory will raise us? “The Lord himself” we are told, “with archangel’s voice and with trump of God shall descend”. 1 Thessalonians 4:16. What thoughts are conveyed in these words! “And the dead in Christ shall rise first”. 1 Thessalonians 4:16. So that our bodies come in, “sown in weakness”, “raised in power”, “sown a natural body”, “raised a spiritual body”, 1 Corinthians 15:43,44 and so on. A great prospect lies before us. Then again, we who “are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep”, 1 Thessalonians 4:15, but we shall all be changed and caught up together to be with the Lord, to meet the Lord in the air. He comes down to meet us; we go up part of the way and He comes down. It is His own way, but we go up in power. I would say, that the Spirit makes us ready, as we see in Romans 8:11, He “shall quicken your mortal bodies also on account of his Spirit which dwells in you”; so that we are all ready for the Lord to meet us in the air. I am speaking now of our bodies; we shall be ready to go up, and “thus we shall be always with the Lord”. 1 Thessalonians 4:17. It is “with the Lord”, because it is a question of His authority; the body is the Lord’s. Another beautiful word is that “he is Saviour of the body”, Ephesians 5:23, not only the Preserver of it, but the Saviour of it.
I go on to John 14, where we get the extended communications of the love of Christ. Matthew, Mark and Luke give briefer communications by the Lord on the eve of His death, but John extends them. He is the beloved disciple; so he seized the opportunity to make much of the Lord, in what He was saying before He died.
[p. 228] How much he tells us! How he touches our hearts! John extends the communications of the Lord on the eve of His death, just before He suffered. The Lord says, “I will see you again”. There is no idea of a long time elapsing. “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one takes from you” John 16:22. What assuring words! He said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world”. John 18:36. Pilate may have thought that He was aspiring to be a king. Indeed he wrote His superscription, “The King of the Jews”, but the Lord says, “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, my servants had fought”. John 18:36. It is the prolonged time of love’s waiting; a kingdom in which there is no fighting, no military combat. The Lord is saying that He has the right hand in matters, whatever Pilate might say, or Herod might do, or the Romans, or the wicked Jews; the Lord is having the right of way. That is what is really meant in the long discourses recorded by John. This kingdom is not the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, the one He has deliberately chosen in going to die. He would have a kingdom protracted, and without military combat. His servants are not to fight, and we are learning this, dear brethren. Young men are learning it; they are being made by it; I have no doubt about that. Morally they are being made by this thing. These centuries of protraction, the protraction of love, during which the Lord Jesus is waiting, though having a right to all; He will yet have everything that belongs to Him. How much there is involved in that! Nothing is left; all will be gathered up and retained above. It is all up-gathering, a housing above, and it is no less than the Father’s house. Now, He says, I have been saying many things to you, but “In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you”. John 14:2. As much as to say, You ought to know, and you do know. “I go to prepare you a place”. These are the communications of love to [p. 229] the disciples, and amongst these is this remarkable verse, “I go to prepare you a place; And if I go”, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself; that where I am, ye also may be”; John 14:2,3 it is one of the greatest communications. “In my Father’s house there are many abodes” but “I go to prepare you a place”. John 14:2. Who are the “you”? Our very selves. Let us take it in. We are the continuation of the persons He was speaking to. It was a question of His love for them, that the very best would be theirs. The time of waiting would be a long matter, according to what He said to Pilate, that He would have a kingdom and there would be no fighting in it. It would be a time of suffering, and hence we say a non-combatant occupation; that is what is needed to be for the Lord, but you want to be adorned in some sense as belonging to that kingdom in which there is no combat. The brethren are all constantly gaining by the exercise; it is a love matter. The Lord is saying, ‘You are being adorned for Me in your service’. And so firstly there is the house of humiliation, but then the Father’s house, not even what is alluded to in Luke 15. We have a house there, too, but what I am speaking of here is a house above. “In my Father’s house there are many abodes”; “I go to prepare you a place”. John 14:2 That is to say, the best is for us, dear brethren, and what bodies we shall have, bodies of glory! Inwardly we are sons of God; not simply children; that refers to us down here, children down here are sons up there. We are adorned there with all that belongs to sonship, in our Father’s house.
I intended to say a little about the assembly as an abode for us collectively, another thought that I wish to leave with all the brethren. This collective abode, where we are so wonderfully housed, and furnished with companionship. Our companionship is in accord with what I have been saying; companions above, companions of the Lord Jesus; companions down here in the assembly.
[p. 230] The Lord Jesus spoke of our having “part with me”; surely that is enough to assure us of His thoughts for us. ‘My circumstances are to be yours’, He would say, ‘now and for ever’. So I was thinking of the assembly as a provisional condition in which we are housed together here, while we are in our present bodies. The service of God in the assembly requires that we should be thus housed collectively. We are going up collectively; we are even now raised up together and made to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2:6. Such are the persons who are housed in a collective provisional sense down here. While we are in the body we need companionship; we are to have part in the service of God, but with the companionship of the saints, the excellent of the earth. The Lord says, “in them is all my delight”. Psalm 16:3. How much delight have we in the brethren? They are our companions now in suffering, but companions in service, companions in love one for another; every one of us having love. “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine”, said the Lord, “if ye have love amongst yourselves”, John 13:35. The real test now is the possession of love; love in the Spirit. All who have it are thus qualified to have part in the service of God, and at the same time to have part in companionship with Christ, because His circumstances are ours. We are really losing nothing. The promise of the Holy Spirit supplies everything for us in the meantime. So, as I was saying, the assembly is a home, and it is the thought of God that we should have a living active part in it. God so cares for us, that He gives us a house, but then the house that we get is the Father’s house, the Son’s house, the Spirit’s house, God’s house, and that is a wonderful thing, that the assembly, in the passage I read in Ephesians, is a “habitation of God”. So that we are no longer “strangers and foreigners” but “fellow-citizens of the saints and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
[p. 231] Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone”, Ephesians 2:19,20. It is no less a house than God’s house, that is to say, a provisional house for God in the meantime. As the tabernacle in the wilderness, so now the assembly is a habitation for God, and then it is a habitation for us too. What a habitation! We are called into the fellowship of God’s Son. There is the fellowship, and companionship, and then that Christ’s circumstances are ours, and God’s circumstances as in His house are ours. We are brought into them. Now these are great things, dear brethren; I am endeavouring to stress them, hoping that all will take in what I am saying, so that we may see that we are housed according to God, whatever may happen; in the public circumstances of the testimony of God we are housed, all is well. In the beginning of christianity those who saw the Lord go up into heaven, from the mount of Olives came back into Jerusalem, and they went to the upper room; they did not go to the temple. What I am speaking of is the upper room in this sense; it is a provisional state, and all the apostles were housed there, and the Lord’s mother was housed there, and His brethren were housed there, and others besides, and so it is open to us, to be housed by the Lord in a provisional sense here. That is my understanding of that. The upper room suggests circumstances for those of the assembly, such as are suitable for the moment. What is morally suitable to God and to Christ, and to the Spirit, and to the saints. It is due to one another as of the assembly that we should go to the upper room, and find the society that is there. The authority of Christ and the love of Christ are there, the mother of Jesus was there, His brethren are there, so that we have companions there, and all are taken care of, according to God.