THE CHURCH
THE CHURCH
“Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.” — Ephesians 1: 9,10.
All the fulness of God is well pleased to dwell and manifest itself in Christ the Son. Such was the counsel, the blessed counsel of the Holy One. The manner in which this is manifested to us, and in which we are associated with it, is to us infinitely interesting. After all, but a small, and, as it were, external part is treated of in the following pages; still a part deeply interesting. The manner of its accomplishment is, on God’s part, designedly external, and so by truths; but by these truths the child of God enters into communion with Him who is the power of them; and, moreover, is guarded by them (poor feeble creatures that we are!) from substituting his own imaginations in place of the holy manifestation of God.
The subject spoken of here is that contained in the prayer of the apostle at the close of Ephesians 1. There is a deeper matter whence it flows, at the close of Ephesians 3, to which I have alluded above; nor can the subject of Ephesians 1 be really enjoyed without, in some measure, the power of Ephesians 3; but I respond feebly to the desire of some in communicating this, trusting that God will supply the rest.
There are two great subjects which occupy the sphere of millennial prophecy and testimony: the church and its glory in Christ; and the Jews and their glory as a redeemed nation in Christ: the heavenly people and the earthly people; the habitation and scene of the glory of the one being the heavens; of the other, the earth. Christ shall display His glory in the one according to that which is celestial; in the other, according to that which is terrestrial — Himself the Son, the image and glory of God, the centre and sun of them both. And though the scene and habitation of the glory shall be the heavens, wherein He hath set a tabernacle for the sun, the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it. It shall be manifested suitably on earth, and earth shall enjoy its blessing. When all this is accomplished, God shall be all in all; and the tabernacle of God shall be with men, not descending, so to speak, but descended out of heaven. The principles and the manner of the accomplishment of this are fully detailed in the Scriptures. Though the church and Israel be, in connection with Christ, the centres respectively of the heavenly and the earthly glory, mutually enhancing the blessing and joy of each other, yet each has its respective sphere, all things in the heavens being subordinate and the scene of the glory — angels, principalities, and powers in the one; the nations of the earth in the other.
[p. 123] But to confine myself now to the history and condition of the church on the one hand, and to that of Israel on the other. “In the beginning,” I read in the Old Testament, “God created”; “In the beginning,” I read in the New, “the Word was” — the latter the foundation of a higher and an abiding glory, on which the former, ruined in man’s weakness and man’s sin, should rest and be restored. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” All were made and fashioned very good: sin entered, and they were defiled. (Compare Colossians 1: 20; Ephesians 1: 10.) God, for a moment, as it were, rested in them; and His rest passed away. Of the defilement of the heavens little is said; we know only that the angels fell. But on earth, and by man, the great scene of divine working and redemption was to be manifested; and of this a full account is given. The sabbath of God in creation was short. The sabbath of man with God was not so to pass. That which passed away in the first Adam in weakness, was to be restored in infinitely fuller blessing in the last Adam (sustained and displayed in His strength), God gathering together in one (as we have seen in Ephesians 1) all things in heaven and in earth, in Him. On this re-heading of all things, as the scripture expresses it, in Christ, hangs the constitution and substance of the church’s hope, until “God be all in all.” “Christ manifested” is spoken of in this respect as the Heir of all this, the church as co-heirs with Him. It is, so to speak, the formal character which He receives as to all things, that we may understand our place with Him.
Thus, in Hebrews 1: 2, “Whom he hath appointed heir of all things”; Ephesians 1: 11, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance”; and Romans 8: 17, “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” The source of this great title is yet in greater glory. “He is the first-born of every creature; for by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth”; “all things were created for him and by him.” Then we have seen the church, the children, are co-heirs with Him. The manner of this we have to develop. Christ takes this title as Man. He takes it as the risen Man; being previously the fellow-sufferer in respect of the evil; afterwards the Head and chief, and source of the blessing.
First, we have in the “image of him that is to come,” the type and picture of this; and it is used as such in Ephesians 5. That is Adam, Adam hidden in sleep, as it were; and Eve, the church, taken out of his side, and presented to him by God as the help-meet for him, as the co-partner with him in the dominion over and inheritance of all things which God had given him in paradise. So the church, taken as it were out of Christ, He (being God as well as man) presents to Himself, awoke up in His glory, partner with Him in the glory and dominion which was already His in title, and in the gift of God. “The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them.” And Adam and Eve together are called Adam, as one, though Eve was in a sense inferior to Adam, and subsequent; and so with the church and Christ — one mystic Person. This type, familiar to the readers of Scripture, presents very simply all the force of the truth, save that the last Adam, being Lord from heaven, is Head and Lord of the heavenly things also.
The texts which speak very particularly of this dominion of man, the union of the church with Christ in it, and its not being yet accomplished, follow. They have their rise, as the apostle uses them, in Psalm 8, “Thou hast crowned him (man, the Son of man) with glory and honour; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.” This we learn in Hebrews 2, is not yet to be seen; but Jesus is crowned with glory and honour, the designation to the church of Him under whose feet, as Man, all things are to be put. Meanwhile, till His enemies (who unrighteously hold the power till God’s purposes be accomplished) be made His footstool, that He may hold all things in power of blessing, He sits (that is the present economy) on the right hand of the majesty on high, set down, as having overcome, on the Father’s throne, as He will give them who overcome to sit down on His throne when He takes it — takes His power and reigns. In Ephesians 1, at the close, we have the union of the church in all this, according to the exercise of the power in which Christ was raised from the dead. Read from the prayer of the apostle in chapter 1 to the end of verse 6 in chapter 2. The glorious cause, or reason, is in verse 7. In chapter 1: 22, we have Psalm 8 again quoted, “And hath put all things under his feet, and hath given him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Here the church is the body of Christ, the Head over all things which are put under His feet. He is Head over all things to the church as His body. This is as risen and ascended, as is there fully stated. This point is taken up specially in 1 Corinthians 15, where the same passage is referred to: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom [the kingdom held thus as the risen Man, which is the subject of this chapter] to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority. For he must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject (i.e., as the risen Man, the last Adam, in which character He is ever spoken of here) unto him that put all things under him, that God [not Christ in His mediatorial kingdom] may be all in all.” Here then we have this reign of Christ as Man in resurrection, in a kingdom which He delivers up, that “God may be all in all” — all administration and human dominion being given up, that the divine glory simply may be universal.
[p. 125] As to the manner in which this is accomplished, other passages instruct us. Christ, we have seen, was the heir in title, as Creator: “All things were created by him and for him,” the Son; and also by the counsels of God, in appointment; and so (God acting by way of promise) all promises centre in Him. To Abraham and to his seed were the promises made; not to seeds as of many, but as of one; “and to thy seed” — which is Christ. And 2 Corinthians 1, “All the promises of God in him are Yea, and in him Amen, to the glory of God by us.” Thus Christ was the heir, the Seed to whom the promise was made. As regards the earth, Israel, the seed after the flesh, were the best situated of all men to receive the Lord in a world that knew Him not; Israel, His own, whose were the law and the promises, and the covenants, and the oracles of God; and amongst whom, according to the flesh, He was to come; and who, amidst a ruined world, had, through their relationship with God the sabbath, the sign given to them of the hope of God’s rest. But though coming according to all which their own prophets had said, they received Him not. They said, and justly, “This is the heir”; but they hated Him, saying, “Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” Here the last hope of the rest of God on the earth was gone. After all that had passed, He had yet one Son. It was tried; but man was found in his best estate altogether vanity, wholly wanting when all was done. But it only made way for the revelation of a far deeper and more glorious economy. The earth and Israel were set aside for a time, though the gifts and calling of God were without repentance. The counsel, hidden from ages and generations, was now to be revealed, the counsel stated in Ephesians 1, the embodying in one the remnant of Jew and Gentile in Christ; to set them in heavenly places, the companion and spouse of Him who was rejected and risen, gathered while He sat at the right hand of God, and to appear with Him in the same glory when He shall appear. (Colossians 3: 4; 1 John 3: 2.)
[p. 126] Christ, as the seed of Abraham was the heir of the promises. Had He taken them alive here, He had taken them alone. Thus, after His vindication of His glory as Son of God, in the resurrection of Lazarus, and as King of the Jews, in His entry into Jerusalem, when the Greeks also came to seek Him, it was evident that the hour was come — though the Jews might have rejected the promised seed. The hour was come that the Son of man should be glorified; but, adds the Lord immediately, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Christ was to take the inheritance in resurrection with the church, born upon this plant from the tomb of death. The church is therefore perfectly justified; that is, Christ takes the promises, not as on earth, incarnate, but as risen. That is, after He has done all needful to redeem the church, and in the power of that life in which He associates them (quickened them into fellowship and association) by the Holy Ghost with Himself, when born of the Holy Ghost they are viewed as raised together with Him. In a word, He is heir as the risen Man, the ascended Head of the church. The confirmation of the promise to Christ, referred to by the Spirit in the Galatians, accords exactly with this. It is in Genesis 22, where we find the promise of blessing to the nations, made to Abraham in chapter 12, confirmed to the Seed consequent on his reception from the dead in a figure, as the apostle speaks in Hebrews 11: “Because thou hast done these things,” etc.; and, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Thus we have seen under various lights this blessed truth, how the church was redeemed into union with Jesus, that in taking the inheritance He might have a help meet for Him, entirely associated and made like to Himself glorified. For this it was necessary, not only that the church should be redeemed, but that He should go and prepare a place for it.
[p. 127] The resurrection was both the accomplishment of the redemption of the church, and also set Jesus in the place in which He could establish the sure mercies of David (Acts 13: 34); that is, establish in His Person all the promises to Israel; but He had yet to take the heavenlies, that the kingdom of heaven might be established, that He might fill all things, and associate the church in that new yet everlasting glory, prepared before the worlds yet hidden from preceding ages, for which the rejection of Messiah by His people, by the Jews, in the wisdom of God made the way. There were two things in this — the preparation of a place, a heavenly place of abode; and the gathering, out of all nations, those who were to be the joint heirs — to call the bride who was to inherit it.
Thus, in John 14, the Lord says, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” See John 17. “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”; and “Whom he foreknew, he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren”; and Colossians 1, “The head of the body the church, the firstborn from the dead.” But how is this? Not as “bearing the image of the earthy,” but, as we have borne that, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” This is in 1 Corinthians 15, where the subject is entirely the resurrection; and in Romans 8 it is pursued, not to sanctification here below, but to glory. “Whom he justified, them he also glorified”; “Who shall change (as we read in Philippians 3) our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.”
[p. 128] The time of this is clearly taught in Scripture. Christ now is hid in God; Colossians 3: 3. Our life is hid with Him there. It is a time of gathering, by the Holy Ghost, the members of His body, the co-heirs, while He sits on Jehovah’s right hand, till His foes be made His footstool. “Having,” says the apostle (Hebrews 10), “by one offering perfected for ever them which are sanctified,” He sat down, “from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.” He has finished all He had to do in redemption for us His friends; and while we are actually gathering by the power of the Holy Ghost sent down by Him, and revealing Him and the Father by Him, He sits there expecting, not taking the earth till this, the gathering of His bride, His co-heirs, be accomplished. Seated on the Father’s throne, there the church knows Him now. But while He waits, we, yea, the whole creation, wait for the manifestation of the sons of God; as to when and how the Scriptures are plain. If we are to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus, it is plain it must be by resurrection and glory, because He is risen and glorified. Accordingly it is said in Romans 8, “The whole creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God: and not only so, but we ourselves also, who have received the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” In Colossians 3, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we also shall appear with him in glory”; and in 1 John 3, “We know that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is”; as we have seen before the Lord saying, “I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” And the circumstances of this, the resurrection or change (” for we shall not all die, but we shall all be changed,” which is the church’s entrance into glory), are particularly told us (1 Thessalonians 4): “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
The description of this, of the “marriage of the Lamb,” and of the consequent judgment of the earth, or at least of the leaders of antichristian wickedness, may be found in Revelation 19. The judgment is described in yet wider terms in Jude, where “the Lord cometh with myriads of his saints to execute judgment”; or, as in Zechariah, “The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee”; when He shall have presented His spouse to Himself, a glorious church, “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,” in her own beauty and glory that is proper to herself, seeing in her Lord the beauty and glory of the Father, and with Him in His own glory, and in the power of that love in which He has loved her, and given Himself for her, that she might be perfectly purified and glorious with Him where He is; and then brought forth in glory with honours such as His, the participator in all His glory, the glory given Him of the Father (that the world may know that we have been loved as He was loved), to judge angels and the world; companions in all His glory, and the ministers and instruments of the light and blessing of His reign over a refreshed and solaced earth, renewed out of its miseries, where Satan is not. “For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.” “They that are counted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, die no more”; “on such the second death hath no power, but they ... shall reign with him [Christ] a thousand years.” Blessed are they! Risen already as regards their souls, they now, when Christ appears, are raised as regards their bodies, on account of His Spirit dwelling in them, to a resurrection, not of judgment, but of life (John 5: 29); a resurrection which belongs to the church by virtue of its union with Christ, through the Holy Ghost dwelling in them, and with which, therefore, the wicked can have nothing to do, though raised by the word of Christ in their own time for judgment,” but they that are Christ’s at his coming”; the rest, when (the kingdom being given up) as Son of God, He, on the great white throne, shall judge the dead, heaven and earth being fled from before His throne. So the word of God instructs us. The taking of this kingdom by Christ is described in Daniel; but as this would lead us into the second part, or the earthly glory, I do not yet enter on it, having only here sought to shew the place which the church holds in this scene, and the scriptural connection of It with all the most sweet and fundamental truths, which, in their true light, rejoice and fill the heart of the true believer.
There is one point of this scarcely touched on here but I should be too long, and depart too far from the subject, so as to distract the minds of others); that is, the place of the Father’s love in it. But this is very blessed also. It is the Father’s kingdom we pray for. In the Father’s kingdom we are to shine as the sun, that is, as Christ the Sun of righteousness; Matthew 13: 43.
In the Father’s glory Christ is to appear. And this is a sweet part of it; for it passes into deeper and yet calmer waters, where eternity unruffled is found — that wide and boundless ocean of infinite joy, the length, and depth, and height, and breadth, of which are, we know, unknown: I say, “passes into,” for it is learned there: we learn glory there; grace, perhaps, more deeply here. We witness it there. But the passages referred to may suffice to lead those who search much into this blessed and simple truth. They will soon learn that they have everything to find there — the fulness of Him, who, without beginning, began, and without end shall endlessly fulfil, all the joy which itself enables us increasingly to apprehend. There are great lessons to learn in glory with Him, the Lamb, in whom we have all the Father revealed. The life we have received makes it ours now. But this is individual. Here I have simply traced the place of the church, when Christ takes the glory and the power, and it is manifested as His consort and companion in the same glory and love, all things blessed through it as the medium and sphere of the display of His glory and blessing.