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THE BELIEVER’S BODY

Each believer has that which can be presented to God as a living sacrifice. Each believer, as having a body, has that in which the will of God can be done, and that is of great moral value in a world where men do their own will. We read of the Lord Jesus saying, as coming into the world, “Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire; ears hast thou prepared me. Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not demanded; Then said I, Behold, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me—To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight, and thy law is within my heart”, (Ps 40: 6-8), and with that in mind a body was furnished to Him. You can understand what pleasure God would have as He took account of the movements down here of the Lord Jesus, movements in His body, as He contrasted them with movements of men all around, who were doing their own will and seeking their own glory. Now God has in mind that what He had in perfection here in Christ should be continued in us His saints. And each of us, therefore, is to learn to regard his or her body as something of priceless value, which can be, and is to be, used for the pleasure of God. It greatly dignifies our bodies to regard them in that light, and our lives become sanctified and valuable to God as they are filled out in the light of the possibilities there are of ministering to the pleasure of God in our bodies. If we think of that it makes things practical. We are exhorted in the sixth chapter of this epistle to the Romans to yield ourselves to God as those who are alive from among the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness to God. So that it is not to be a theory with us. It is not to be an abstract idea which does not work out in what is practical, our members are to be held as instruments of righteousness to God, that is to say; our hands, what we do; our feet, where we go; our minds, what we think of; our eyes, what we look at. All these things are practical and our members are all intended to be held at the disposal of our God.

This exhortation that we have in the twelfth chapter of the epistle to the Romans is the result of the teaching that has gone before in the epistle. The epistle to the Romans is a most important epistle, a fundamental epistle. We are not to regard it as elementary, as something we can dispense with as having got past it, we are to regard it as essentially fundamental and therefore most important; because you know that if you are going to build, the higher you want to go in your building the deeper you must go in your foundations, and therefore the more we want to progress in the things of God, the more we must look to see that we are established in the truth of Romans. That is a very important matter. Take on by all means the truth of the epistle of the Ephesians, God enable us to do it more and more, but the more we do so let us also see that we are paying attention to the epistle to the Romans, because that is fundamental and, as I have said, the higher you would build, the deeper you must go in your foundations. Now the epistle to the Romans takes account of the fact that we all need the gospel, it is instruction for believers as to the gospel of God. It is a good thing to recognise that we all have need of the gospel, and that means that we have all needed to be redeemed, and redeemed at infinite cost. And we are never to lose the sense that we have been redeemed, and that involves that God Himself and the Lord Jesus have absolute rights over us, rights that cannot possibly be denied and yet we may deny them practically. Redemption means that God has established rights over us, and our happiness and blessing, as well as what is morally right, lie in our recognising that unreservedly.

Now in the third chapter of Romans we are told that God sets forth Christ as a mercy-seat through faith in His blood. Think of God calling our attention to Christ, setting Him forth as a mercy-seat through faith in His blood. He is directing our attention to Christ in His glory, Christ in the presence of God, and presents Him to us as a mercy-seat; that is to say, the place from which God speaks to men in mercy. It is through faith in His blood. It means that in the blood of Christ God has established a basis on which He can come out to us in mercy without surrendering anything that is right. That blood of Christ, how wonderful it is. The blood of Christ involves that the life of Jesus, so infinitely precious, moment by moment, to the heart of God, was laid down in death. The blood witnesses to that, that God surrendered that precious life in all that it meant to Him, never to have it again in that character. He has it again in another character, but the Lord never resumed flesh and blood condition after He had died. That life was given up, which had yielded unfailing pleasure to God, moment by moment, throughout thirty-three and one half years, save for that period of three hours when He was abandoned of God, when instead of the unfailing favour of God being His portion, He knew the depths of woe as sustaining in His Person all that God is against sin in wrath and judgment. Not for one moment, not for one hour, but for three hours. How much was concentrated into that! How much the personal glory of Christ shines in His ability to stand in that moment—forsaken of God. No creature could stand in that position, nor could any creature in any way enter into the judgment of God and emerge from it. But our Lord Jesus has entered into that position, forsaken of God, enduring the wrath and the judgment of God and exhausting it too, so that all that God is against sin, which otherwise would be against us, might be meted out to Christ and sustained and exhausted by Him, that we might be freed, and that God might be set free in righteousness to come out in mercy to whosoever will. Wonderful glory, the glory of the mercy-seat! The mercy-seat was the point from which God spoke to men, and that is the present position, that God is addressing Himself to men, and we are among them, in mercy that cannot be impugned, which cannot be challenged, because it has as its basis this precious death of Christ. And so it says, “whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood, for the shewing forth of his righteousness, in respect of the passing by the sins that had taken place before, through the forbearance of God”. How were Adam’s sins forgiven? How were Abel’s sins forgiven? How were David’s sins forgiven? How were the sins of all the Old Testament saints forgiven? What was the basis of it? The basis of it was the precious death of Christ, which God knew would be effected in due time. “For the shewing forth of his righteousness, in respect of the passing by the sins that had taken place before through the forbearance of God, and then it says: “for the shewing forth of his righteousness in the present time, so that he should be just, and justify him that is of the faith of Jesus”. That is the position in the gospel and God loves to set it out before us. The intention is not simply that we should be brought into peace before God, the intention in it is that we should get a great view of God and His blessedness and His glory, in not surrendering, as I say, anything that is right, and yet establishing a means, through the blood of Christ, by which He can come out in all the glory of mercy and forgiveness and justification from every charge. Wonderful thing! Now that is part of the teaching of the gospel. And then in the fourth chapter of the epistle to the Romans we have to learn that the principle on which we are blessed is the principle of faith, and that makes everything of God. Not of works lest any should boast, it says. We have faith. Faith, itself, is the gift of God, but then it goes on to say that righteousness was imputed to Abraham on the principle of faith and will be imputed to us on that same principle, if we believe on Him, that is on God, who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences and raised for our justification. Think of God delivering Jesus for our offences, think of Him raising Him for our justification. What a God we have to do with! You can understand how in the light of all this, the apostle begins to beseech us by the compassions of God. Where should we be but for the compassions of God? And they are compassions that have come out to us in this remarkable way, so that we are not only justified, but we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and there He is at the right hand of God in His position of lordship to administer all the blessings that He has secured through His death.

And so in the fifth chapter of Romans it says, “Therefore having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. The Lord is administering the blessings, just like Joseph in Egypt. You remember in the days of Elijah there was the long drought, and then when God was vindicated in the offering by Elijah on mount Carmel, Elijah said, there is a sound of abundance of rain, and he sent his young man to look, and after a time the young man saw a cloud like a man’s hand appearing—a man’s hand! That is administration of blessing now in the hands of a Man! And that is exactly what we have in the epistle to the Romans in chapter 5 and onwards. It was not very long before that man’s hand became a cloud from which there was a great pour of rain. That was not judgment, it was grace, it was what they needed. And that is what the fifth chapter of Romans gives us, a great outpouring of divine grace, through the administration of our Lord Jesus Christ—a man’s hand has appeared, so to speak. So it says, “by whom” (again it is through our Lord Jesus Christ) “we have also access by faith into this favour in which we stand”. Has everybody here got access into the favour of God? It is not simply that He is not against us, but He is positively favourable, “access by faith into this favour in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God”. Are we rejoicing in hope of the glory of God? It is going to appear shortly—the glory of God. And saints may know it in their own souls now and rejoice in it—the glory of God. What a God He is—delighting in mercy, yet surrendering nothing that is right, establishing through Christ His right to bring in mercy, and then coming in in His power and raising up Christ from among the dead, and setting Him in the place of the administration of blessing. What a God we have!

And then we go on in the epistle to the Romans and we have to learn not only how God has dealt with our sins, our guilt, but then we have to learn what sin in the flesh is and how terrible it is, how incurable it is. It says, “the mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, for neither indeed can it be; and they that are in flesh cannot please God”. We might say: what an impossible situation! It is impossible to everyone but God, but not impossible to God. Redemption having come in, God is free to give the Holy Spirit, and He does give the Holy Spirit to those who obey Christ. Do we appreciate that gift? The Spirit we have received is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It is the Spirit of life in another Man, the heavenly Man. Having been set apart by death from all that we were as in the flesh, we are set up in the power of life in Christ Jesus, life in the heavenly Man, that is the riches of God’s grace. I am speaking of these fundamental things, because we want to come into the joy and power of the glad tidings. We can never serve God acceptably if we are not in the liberty and power of the glad tidings. And we can never take on the most glorious features of the truth, if we are not well grounded in the glad tidings. And so, as I say, we want to read the epistle to the Romans over and over again, and get to God about it, so that we understand it. And let me say to the younger ones here: Do not read the Scriptures in isolated verses, read them consecutively, remember that the epistles are intended to be understood. They are not intended to be mysterious to us. We have received the Holy Spirit and the Lord is able to give us understanding if we seek Him in relation to it. Read the epistle to the Romans over and over again. Read two or three chapters at a time. Do not pick out selected verses from the Scriptures and read them. You will never get very far that way, but read the Scriptures consecutively, understanding that they have been written so that they should be understood, and the Lord will give us understanding, by the Holy Spirit, so that we grow up into the truth and prove its power.

And so when we read on in the epistle to the Romans we are introduced to the thought of God’s purpose, because what underlies the glad tidings which is so blessedly opened up to us in the epistle to the Romans, is the purpose of God. It speaks of whom He did foreknow. I ask the young brethren here whether each one of them has taken it to heart, that you were known by God personally before the foundation of the world? You were in God’s heart and mind before the foundation of the world. What for? Well, read on and you will see what for. It says: “Because whom he has foreknown, he has also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son”. That is what God has in mind for you and me, “to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brethren”, Rom 8: 29. That is to say, God has in mind to have a great expansion of Christ before His eyes and heart. Christ is there the joy of His heart, and now God wants that expanded in many sons conformed to His image, Christ Himself the firstborn amongst many of His own order. God has foreknown us before the foundation of the world with that in view, and having foreknown us and predestinated us, He called us by the gospel. When God called you by the gospel it was not simply that you might never come into eternal perdition, that is certainly a result of your receiving the glad tidings, but what God had in mind when He reached you by the gospel was this purpose of His that you should be conformed to the image of God’s Son that He might be firstborn among many brethren. Well now let the greatness of this and the dignity of it, the exalted character of it, sink into our minds and hearts, dear brethren. And so it says, “But whom he has predestinated, these also he has called; and whom he has called, these also he has justified”—the matter of our sins had to be dealt with, and God has justified us on the principle of faith and on the ground of the death and resurrection of Christ, “but whom he has justified, these also he has glorified”—that refers, I do not doubt, to the gift of the Spirit. What a glory it is to have received the Holy Spirit. Do you know it makes you greater than the greatest man in the world, than the greatest mind among men, than the greatest personality among men? It all fades into insignificance compared with someone who has the Holy Spirit of God. You can see it in the book of Genesis. Look at the history of Jacob who is a pattern of one who is a subject of the calling and work of God; how does he finish his days? He goes into the presence of Pharaoh, the greatest potentate of that day, and Jacob blesses him. Just a simple pilgrim, he blesses Pharaoh. And, as Scripture says, “Beyond all gain-saying, the inferior is blessed by the better”, Heb 7: 7. That is to say, Jacob was greater than Pharaoh. He goes into the presence of Pharaoh and he blesses him. He represents God in blessing that man, Pharaoh. And he repeats it, he blesses him a second time and then he goes out from his presence. It does not say that Pharaoh says, Now you can go. The whole matter is in Jacob’s hands. He is greater than Pharaoh and he moves in dignity as representing God and conveys the Spirit of God, in blessing, to that man. And then he blesses his sons faithfully telling them the truth in regard of themselves, yet blessing because he knew God. And he blesses Joseph, and he blesses Joseph’s sons. Jacob is a great blesser! And that is what we are to be. “Bless and curse not”, Rom 12: 14. We have been called to it, the question of representing God in our spirit and attitude toward men. What could be greater than to be representatives of God? And that is what we are here for as having received the Holy Spirit of God. I mention those few details in connection with the epistle to the Romans, so that our interest in the epistle to the Romans might be quickened, and that we might follow it up in our consideration of the Scriptures and our meditations upon it, so that we may become more and more established in the true grace of our God.

And now the apostle, at the end of chapter 11, bursts out in a doxology. There are four doxologies in the epistle to the Romans. A doxology is a spontaneous outburst of ascribing glory to God, or to Christ as in chapter 9. In going over the teaching, the apostle’s heart becomes filled with the sense of how blessed God is, and how blessed Christ is, and so he bursts out in four doxologies in the course of the epistle. And he has just burst out in one of these at the end of chapter 11, ending up with this: “For of him, and through him, and for him are all things; to him be glory for ever. Amen”. And now he says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God which is your intelligent service”. What an appeal it is! We may say, How can I serve God? Well, you have a body. All sorts of things are available to you, there is much can be done in the way of visiting. A young brother or sister might well visit, for there are plenty that could do with being visited now and then. You might say, I do not know that I can bring much. Never mind, maybe you could read the Scriptures to them, or a little bit of ministry, or tell them a little of what you had in the meeting when they have not been able to be there. Why not be practical in these things? We have bodies for that very purpose. Jesus went about doing good, and we are to go about doing good, using our bodies in a way that is acceptable to God. You can ask the Lord what He would have you do. Paul, the greatest of all the apostles, when he was converted, said: “What shall I do, Lord?” He had to learn first of all to appreciate his local brethren and to be prepared to receive guidance from them. But at the same time the Lord has His rights over each one of us and we can say, What shall I do, Lord? It is an important thing to see that not one of us is idle and certainly to see that we are not pursuing our own will. We have been redeemed. Egypt is a type, in Scripture, of the world—not in its worst forms, as men would say. It is not Sodom, nor is it Babylon, but it is just Egypt. And Egypt is a type of the world that lives in independence of God and does its own will. That is the character of the world as typified in Egypt, and God has redeemed us out of it. He redeemed His people out of it. That means that we are to be completely delivered from the principle of living to ourselves and to hold our bodies, which God has given us, as available to Him, it is our intelligent service. It is the beginning of what is priestly. The epistle to the Romans leads up to what is priestly, and this is the beginning of it, “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service”. “And be not conformed to this world”. It is quite definite, dear brethren, be not conformed to it. Be afraid of anything that is taken on outstandingly by the world. You do not want to be marked by the world. You are not of it. The Lord has said, “they are not of the world, as I am not of the world”, John 17: 16. Remember that! What a standard! The Lord says that, speaking to His Father: They are not of the world, as I am not of the world. And if the scripture speaks in this way of the world as something we are not to be conformed to, let us see that we are not. It is not a question of legality, it is a question simply of obedience, and affection for Christ. “They are not of the world, as I am not of the world”. And so let us take these things to heart, dear brethren, and the more we do, the more we shall be conscious of the pleasure of God, of the approval of God. “And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”.

I read the passage in Corinthians because that brings out in a remarkable way what the value of the believer’s body is. The apostle refers to certain terrible things. I suppose it is probable that none of us has been marked by the particular things that he refers to in verses 9 and 10 of that chapter and he says, “These things were some of you”. But then he says, “But ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified, but ye have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God”, 1 Cor 6 : 11. That is true of all of us. In the mercy of God we may not have been marked by the dreadful things in verses 9 and 10, but it is certainly true of us all that we have needed to be washed, we have needed to be sanctified, we have needed to be justified, and we have been washed, sanctified and justified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus. That refers to the renown connected with His work, the value of His precious death, we have been set apart by it to God. We have been washed from all that marked us; we have been sanctified, set apart to God; we have been justified; in the Name of the Lord Jesus, but then it also adds, “and by the Spirit of our God”. That brings in what is practical. The Name of the Lord Jesus—we are washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus—that brings in what is objective. But then it also says, “and by the Spirit of our God”, and that brings in what is subjective. That is, as we are brought practically by the Spirit under the control of Christ, we are practically washed, and we are practically sanctified, and we are practically justified. That is to say, our course justifies the position we are in before God, we are justified in the Spirit.

And now the apostle goes on. He speaks of meats, he says, “Meats for the belly and the belly for meats; but God will bring to nothing both it and them”. That is, we are not to be too much occupied with meats. We are not to think too much about what we eat, or be too much concerned about it. We eat only to keep the body alive, in order that we may do God’s will. We do not want to eat for the sake of eating or make a great business of what we eat. “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God will bring to nothing both it and them”. The scripture says, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatever ye do, do all things to God’s glory”, 1 Cor 10: 31. If I eat or drink, my object in eating or drinking is just to satisfy my hunger or my thirst in order that I may continue to serve God in this body. That is all that is in it and we do not want to make any more of it than that. If we do, we are in danger of idolatry; the reason why we eat or drink is that our body may be maintained in vitality so that we may do God’s will. So whether eating or drinking we glorify God. Then the Spirit goes on to say, “but the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body”. The body is for the Lord, how it dignifies the body that it is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. The Lord is for it. All the authority and grace of the Lord are available so that we may be encouraged, and enabled, to view our body as for the Lord. The body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. What a great thing it is! I think you can see, dear brethren, as we begin to think of these things, how morally exalted the body of the believer is. It is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body. Later on in this epistle it says he that is called being a bondman, that is a slave, is the Lord’s freed man, but he that is called being free, which would apply to all of us now, because none of us are slaves now, is the bondman of Christ. It is remarkable how Scripture puts things. A slave who is called becomes the Lord’s freed man. The Lord frees him so that he takes up his position in relation to the Lord and not in relation to his master. But he that is called being free becomes the bondman of Christ, and that applies to each of us—the bondman of Christ. That is to say, He has absolute rights over us. And so the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body.

And then it goes on to say, “Do ye not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” That is another thing. How dignified they are, how watchful we should be as to what we do with our bodies if we remember that they are members of Christ. That is to say, I take Christ anywhere I go. If I go somewhere, I take Christ there, because my body is a member of Christ. I not only take the brethren there. Later on, the epistle shows us that I take the brethren there. But this is something even more exercising, that I take Christ there. Your bodies are members of Christ. Well, that greatly elevates the thought as to our bodies and at the same time greatly exercises us as to how we use our bodies; that we are to present them a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, and that they are members of Christ.

Finally, “Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you?” That is, God Himself has taken possession of the body of each one of us by virtue of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and our body becomes His temple. It is a dignified view of it, the temple of the Holy Spirit. That is a most touching thing! One has often thought of it as one gets older and you see saints getting older and losing their faculties, it may be, and even their mental powers, it may be. You see them getting very frail and yet the Holy Spirit never leaves them. What a comforting thing it is, dear brethren! And our bodies are temple of the Holy Spirit. Think of the Holy Spirit being content to dwell in such conditions as our bodies afford. And yet the very fact of His dwelling in those conditions exalts the body into this glorious view of it. It is a temple, not a tabernacle, but a temple, a dignified dwelling place for God Himself. That is what the body of each believer is. “Do ye not know”, the apostle says, as though he is surprised that they do not know it. “Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own? for ye have been bought with a price”. He comes back to that, this great basic matter of redemption, “ye are not your own for ye have been bought with a price”. After bringing out this most wonderful thought as to the body of the believer being temple of the Holy Spirit, he adds, ye are not your own, ye have been bought with a price; and, therefore, the only logical conclusion, if I may put it that way, is “glorify now then God in your body”. That is how the Spirit of God ends this paragraph—“Glorify now then God in your body”.

Well, could there be anything greater, dear brethren, than for us to recognise that the body we have is thus capable of being used to the glory of God. Day in and day out, that is what we are here for, to glorify God. And we can accept God’s ordering for us, the detail of what He orders for us in our circumstances in the spirit of obedience. That is what the Lord has led in. He has led in the spirit of obedience. It says of Him, “Who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form, taking his place in the likeness of men”—that was one wonderful step. He who was in Godhead form and who was and is God, taking a bondman’s form, that is, taking up human conditions. But even then, He went further. As having become Man, He did not take the greatest place among men, “and having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself, becoming obedient”—becoming obedient right down to death, and that the death of the cross. Now obedience has been glorified by the pathway of Jesus. Obedience is what is morally right in a man in relation to God, or a woman, too, of course. Christ has glorified the pathway of obedience by pursuing it, undeterred in all that it involved for Him, even to the death of the cross. And God has shown how morally excellent it is in His sight, in that He has raised Him from the dead and highly exalted Him and given Him a Name which is above every name. Now all that is intended to help us to see that there is a moral excellence attaching to obedience, and our bodies here are the vessels in which that which is so morally excellent should be worked out for the pleasure of God day by day, and as we do so we shall find that we ourselves are conscious of divine approval, and are sustained by the Spirit in the joy of eternal things.

May the Lord bless the word to us, and may each one of us have a sense as we have never had before of the value of our bodies.

WINNIPEG

14^th February 1959

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