HOW LIFE IS SUSTAINED COLLECTIVELY
J. A. Brown
Acts 1: 1–4; 3: 1–11; Colossians 2: 12, 13; Ephesians 2: 4–6
I would like to speak about how life is sustained. We must start with life being sustained individually but as that happens it inevitably leads to what is collective, and that is what I want to speak about in this meeting. We were speaking about how life is maintained in you and me as individual believers by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit of God. If you do not have that experience in your life, then when you come into a circle like this, you will see others enjoying something that you are not enjoying. That of course stimulates exercise. Where there are those who gather together in the good of the quickening power of the Spirit, then there will be the expression of life in the meeting which is not available anywhere else. Now that is not a claim, that is a consequence. Equally, even if we come together on right ground and holding the truth in terms, but there is no real life in anyone who is there, then the meeting may go on with right things being said, but it will be dead. We have known that too; some of us have known an effervescence and apparent abundance of life where everyone seemed to be greatly enjoying themselves (I am talking of a time forty years ago) but it was dead. It seemed to be alive but largely it was dead. Not completely, thank God; there were those who were in exercise and who were maintained in real life in their own experience. But normally, when those who are in the current enjoyment of spiritual life come together, there would be something experienced that cannot be counterfeited. Men would love to imitate it. There are many august gatherings in the world, and I have had to attend some of them in the course of my duties. Then, perhaps the next night, I have come to the local meeting and I have experienced something that was incomparably better, incomparably different because it was living with the life that is according to God. These experiences are real. Quickening is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of living reality. It is not something that can be imitated, it is something that can be taken account of, and it is very attractive because it has its origin in Christ.
We see at the beginning of Acts these dear persons being drawn round the Lord Jesus. He had not ascended and the Spirit had not yet come, so the fulness of what would yet be known in the assembly was awaited. But it says of Him, “being assembled with them”. That is a very fine thought, that the Lord Jesus, out of death, in all the power and freshness of resurrection, presented Himself living. I think that in measure we have that experience in our times together, the Lord Jesus presenting Himself living; at the Lord’s supper, but at other times too, the Lord Jesus making Himself known in all the power of His risen life. It can happen in a meeting like this, indeed I trust it happens in every one of our meetings, that the Lord Jesus presents Himself living. This was after He had suffered. We were speaking about His death and all that it entailed, the sufferings of that blessed One. He was “seen by them during forty days, and speaking of the things which concern the kingdom of God”. I had an impression, dear brethren, of the Lord Jesus gathering these persons around Him. The Spirit had not yet come, but as we have been taught, these disciples were the nucleus of the assembly, and the Lord Jesus was among them as living; He presented Himself living. He was among them as “the last Adam a quickening spirit” (1 Corinthians 15: 45), and then so much took place at that time. What an experience it must have been for these persons as He was going in and out among them. At one point He appeared to five hundred brethren at once; all would be left with impressions of Christ. Another time, we know from Paul’s writings, He appeared to one man, to James (1 Corinthians 15: 7). Think of the impressions that James would get from the Lord appearing to Him.
I had an impression of this being like the bundle of the living. Abigail’s words in 1 Samuel 25 are very attractive and convey powerfully what we are speaking about. She says, “the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with Jehovah thy God”, 1 Samuel 25: 29. So as one person is living and another is living, there is this bringing together, as it were, into the bundle of the living, a very attractive thought. We see it demonstrated in a room like this. There are many here, perhaps one hundred and fifty brethren, but we see it wherever believers gather who are in the good of spiritual life. Most of our dear brethren nowadays do not have the privilege of gather in the numbers that we enjoy in this area, but the bundle of the living is known wherever there is life. It is a very precious thing and my desire, dear brethren, is that we should all be exercised to maintain it, to consciously desire to maintain this collective expression of what is living here on earth and soon to be caught up.
Now this man in Acts 3 is a very good example of what we are speaking about. Peter and John come up to the temple. The temple still had, to an extent, an influence. This was the temple that Herod had built for his own self-aggrandisement. It was to be razed to the ground some forty or so years after this by the Romans; there was nothing really for God in this temple. But here were two men who had been there when the Lord Jesus presented Himself living and now they were going together into the temple, “at the hour of prayer”. This man, who did not have what they had, was lying there, and he asked to receive alms. “And Peter, looking stedfastly upon him with John, said, Look on us”. Just two of them but both of these dear apostles of the Lord Jesus were imbued with life, the Spirit having come now, the Lord Jesus having ascended. So both of them in the good of that life could say, “Look on us”. Then “Peter said, Silver and gold I have not”, but each of them had something, “what l have, this give I to thee”. Dear young brother, dear young sister, you are sitting here among the brethren but can you say, “what I have”? That is a question that I would like to ask you. You can draw something from being in a gathering of believers like the one we are privileged to be part of this afternoon, but I would encourage you to get through to being able to say, “what I have”.
This life will carry you through anything. So Peter says, “what I have, this give I to thee—In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaraean rise up and walk”. These rivers of living water were flowing through Peter. They did not have their source in Peter; they had their source in the risen One, the One who had ascended up on high, but they were flowing through Peter. “And having taken hold of him by the right hand he raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones were made strong”.
What a most attractive scene it is. “And leaping up he stood and walked, and entered with them into the temple”. There were occasions in the gospels when the Lord Jesus healed people and they went off on their own, but this man did not. He saw something in Peter and John together that he wanted to be part of. If you ever have the desire to be part of what you see in others, then follow it up. This man had been lame from his mother’s womb, he was lying there and this had happened to him, but he did not rush back home, he did not rush out into Jerusalem, he went with them, he “entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God”. That is God’s objective in giving us this gift of life and maintaining it, that there might be praise to Him. And then I was affected by verse 11, “And as he held Peter and John”. Do you think he held on to them because his ankles had got weak again? I do not think so. He did not hold on to them for support; I think he held on to them in affection. I think as he held on to Peter and John there was an expression there of the bundle of the living. The temple had no life in it; it was going on with outward ritual, but here were three men in its gate, three men who were part of the bundle of the living and were expressing it as this man held Peter and John. There was testimony in that, “all the people ran together to them in the portico which is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering”. People do wonder at us, you know, coming to meetings three times on a Lord’s day and several times during the week. They wonder, What is it that attracts them on a Monday night and a Tuesday night and a Wednesday night, what is it that these people have? Well I trust that each one of us can answer that question. To be part of the bundle of the living is a wonderful experience.
I would like to speak briefly of Paul’s ministry about quickening. We spoke earlier of the words of the Lord Jesus, “It is the Spirit which quickens”, but Paul’s ministry is the words of the Lord Jesus. Paul did not make up his ministry, it came from Christ. It was the ministry of Christ through His apostle. We were reminded recently in a word in our ministry meeting of the need to hold on to Paul’s ministry. We need to see that the ministry of Paul about quickening is entirely in line with what the Lord Jesus said in John 6, “It is the Spirit which quickens”. We read in Colossians, “buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God”. First of all, “buried with him in baptism”—what is that? It is “the flesh profits nothing”. That is what you learn as you apply the truth of baptism to yourself. I trust that everyone here understands the truth of baptism. Let me address my dear young brethren again. In many gatherings of believers, if you were exercised about conversion or about remembering the Lord Jesus, the first thing you would have to do would be to ask to be baptised. But you have been baptised already by the faith of your parents, because household baptism is what the New Testament shows us happened in the early days of Christianity. So you have been baptised, but you cannot remember it. Most of us here were baptised as small children, according to the faith of our parents. But that does not substitute for the need for you and me to understand the truth of our baptism, “buried with him in baptism”, that is, “the flesh profits nothing”. We have to learn that all that we are according to human nature is obnoxious to God. It is encapsulated by these words of the Lord Jesus, “the flesh profits nothing”.
So we can see that everything that Paul ministered had its kernel in the words of the Lord Jesus. Then we are “raised with him through faith of the working of God”. There is a footnote to “working” meaning ‘Energeia—active internal power’. I am sure we all feel the need of this active internal power, the working of God in faith. We spoke in the reading of how it all begins with faith, although quickening is not just a matter of faith, it is real, something that you can see happening in a believer. It is a wonderful thing when you can see it happening, perhaps in a young person with real exercise. You can take account of spiritual life developing and expressing itself in the exercise to remember the Lord Jesus. Then Paul goes on to say, “And you, being dead in offences and in the uncircumcision of your flesh”; again that is just an extension of “the flesh profits nothing”, and “he has quickened together with him, having forgiven us all the offences”. This is a wonderful experience. Colossians does not exactly take us off the earth. Ephesians does, but this is being quickened together. Now I understand from what I have read that if there was a comma to be put in that phrase it would be after the ‘together’ because ‘quickening together’ is one word in Greek. It says, “he has quickened together with him”, so that Christ retains His distinctiveness as “the last Adam a quickening spirit” (1 Corinthians 15: 45), but then there is this to be known by us, “quickened together”.
This really is the enjoyment of eternal life. Mr Raven’s ministry, which many of you will have read I am sure, helped to bring before the brethren the fact that eternal life is something to be enjoyed now; it is something to be enjoyed in the circle of the saints. It is not something that we will enjoy when we get to heaven; we will just enjoy life then. We will be in eternity and we will be in the enjoyment of something that we can only now glimpse. But there is something here that we do enjoy, eternal life, and we experience it when we are together.
Eternal life is not exactly experienced on our own although we can get pretty close to it I think, but eternal life is something that we should experience in our times together. It is a wonderful thing to be “quickened together with Him”. I have referred to a ministry meeting locally and there was life in that meeting. One of our oldest brothers spoke to us about the way in which things need to be done, and how Paul had done things, speaking in energy and setting it forth attractively; then a middle-aged brother spoke to us about living stones, “To whom coming, a living stone” (1 Peter 2: 4); and then a younger man giving us a further word. That meeting was full of life; it is a great privilege to enjoy eternal life, “quickened together with him”.
Dear brethren, these are not terribly profound thoughts, but I would seek to attract you into the realisation that they are to be experienced and enjoyed in reality, and contributed to. I do not think that the man in Acts 3 would just go away from the apostles after he was healed and forget about his blessing. I think that he would be one of those gathering in Jerusalem. It speaks about three thousand being converted and then five thousand. I have a strong impression that that man would be part of that work. So this is to be contributed to. Each one of us is to be concerned to contribute to this life that we enjoy together. It does not happen automatically; it does not depend on any one of us, that is for sure, but neither does it happen automatically. It depends on the Spirit, but then it happens because there is exercise that we might as gathering together enjoy this life, might enjoy what it is to be “quickened together with him, having forgiven us all the offences”. The Lord Jesus has done that, and then He brings us together into the enjoyment in our gatherings of what Mr Raven ministered about eternal life. If you have not read that ministry of Mr Raven’s then get it out when you go home. He has a lot of ministry about eternal life. In fact if you want to understand a bit more about what we were speaking about in the reading, go home and find Volume 5 of Mr Raven’s ministry. It is a series of readings in John’s gospel and you can follow it through. I think there are about five or six readings in chapter 6. I would recommend that volume to every one of you here. It is good solid food to get into you. Set yourself to read it and you will not regret it.
Well, although Colossians does not exactly take us off the earth, it gives us some wonderful impressions of being “quickened together with him”, but I think that Ephesians does take us off the earth. This is as it were the top note, in a sense it is anticipative. It says, “but God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith he loved us, (we too being dead in offences,) has quickened us with the Christ, (ye are saved by grace,) and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. The rationalist would say, Well
that has not happened, we are still here; but it is as good as done. I am quoting Mr Raven again; it is as good as done to faith. This has been accomplished by God in the raising of His beloved Son and because of His great love wherewith He loved us. I love this portion of Ephesians; it touches the very height of blessing and yet along with that it has the very simplest gospel statements. I trust there is not anyone here who would not respond to “God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith he loved us”. What a fine gospel text that is! But then “(we too being dead in offences)”—again that is “the flesh profits nothing”. And then “has quickened us with the Christ, (ye are saved by grace)”. I love the way that these exalted thoughts are interwoven with quite simple gospel expressions. It is part of the glory of Scripture, part of the attractiveness of the word of God. It says, “and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. Well, you say, this is future, this is abstract. Is it? Have you never experienced something like this on Lord’s day morning? Have you ever listened to the praise proceeding and the hymns, and felt your soul caught up? I think we do touch something of this. We often say we only glimpse it, that is because of what we are after nature, but dear brethren I think we do touch in our spirits what shall be our eternal portion, “has quickened us with the Christ ... has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. The expression of this life culminates in praise to God. It is “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”, Ephesians 3: 21. That is what it culminates in. The enjoyment together of this wonderful life is not an end in itself; it is all with a view that there might be a living and fuller response to the heart of God. Well may each one of us be attracted more and more to have our part in that response, for His name’s sake.
Address at Dundee
22 October 2005