RECONCILIATION

^[p. 14] RECONCILIATION

Romans 11:15; 2 Corinthians 5:18 - 21; Colossians 1:20 - 22; Ephesians 2:16

These scriptures, as you will observe, speak of reconciliation, and that will be the subject of my remarks. It is a word that, as it appears in Scripture, requires careful consideration to be understood. We cannot always rely on ordinary meanings of words employed in our English translations. We are dependent on the Spirit to give us understanding of words, as well as of phrases, sentences and books, for the Spirit of God employs language from His own point of view, bearing in mind, of course, our intelligences, so that what He says should be intelligible to us. But still it is in words which the Holy Spirit employs, and we have to get His point of view, comparing spiritual with spiritual. And so the word used in the passage in Romans 11 has to be understood contextually, for it does not mean that the world and all the persons that are in it as a system are reconciled. It means that God graciously regards it in that way for provisional reasons, as He regarded Jerusalem and the Jews in the early part of Acts as inadvertent manslayers. They were regarded as doing things in ignorance, God graciously so regarding them until they showed themselves afresh to be still unaltered, sending a message after the Lord Jesus by Stephen. “We will not have this man to reign over us”. That altered the position. Stephen’s address showed that the position was altered, that they had always resisted the Holy Spirit and were still doing so, although they had every opportunity to clear themselves, if they really did not mean what they had done in crucifying Christ. They were held in grace as ignorant of what they did, and no doubt ^[p. 15] they were, for the Lord on the cross says to the Father, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23:34. But still it came out that the more the import of what they did was brought home to them, the more they accepted it and convicted themselves as murderers of Christ, judged to be murderers by Stephen as pursuing the history of the nation from the outset. “Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers, ye also”, Acts 7:51.

So that a change took place, and the apostle Paul says, “... wrath has come upon them to the uttermost”, 1 Thessalonians 2:16, and so it is now with the world. John in his gospel regards the world as under the Lord’s ministry as judged, anticipating what I have been saying. “Now is the judgment of this world”, John 12:31, meaning the world as it stood in relation to the Jews. That world came to an end and has not been revived since. It is under wrath. “Wrath has come upon them to the uttermost”, says the apostle. The world in Romans 11:15 is the world from the Gentile point of view, the world taken up in the form it is in Daniel, and in relation to that world God sent Christ, and was in Him “reconciling the world unto himself”, 2 Corinthians 5:19? This indeed, as I was saying, included the Jewish world at the outset, but now that is altered. The word in this passage applies to the Gentile world. But God, in order to make a way for the gospel and to allay all prejudice, recognises it as, in a certain sense, under His ordering, for indeed it was He who ordered the Gentile monarchies. Their very existence is in view of the gospel. God has had the gospel in mind that it should be preached to the nations, and with a view to this, He ordered the world as it has been since the time of Nebuchadnezzar, presenting Christ to it, both in His Person and in the gospel, and the apostle goes so far as to say that the casting away of the Jews has meant the reconciling of the world; that is, it has come into the favour of God in a provisional ^[p. 16] sense. He, in grace, is not imputing trespasses. Not that His government does not enter into it, not that wrath is not in view as a background for the gospel, but, although regarding the world as in His favour in a sense. He has removed what would interfere with the proclamation and results of the gospel. He would remove every possible hindrance, in so far as it could be, notwithstanding what the world is and what men in it are.

The present moment has an extraordinary significance, for God is reviving in it the dispensation as He started it. Whatever the outward results of the testimony of the saints who have been restored may be, God is looking for “a testimony to them”, Matthew 10:18, as the Lord Jesus says. Whatever the results, God has a great regard for “a testimony to them” and He has restored the truth and many of His people to it, to the knowledge of Christ in heaven as Head, and He looks for it to be maintained, not only in a theoretic but in a very concrete way in our smaller measure. So it is that He has brought us back to these things, to the recognition of the powers that be, that they are ordained of God and that they are to be prayed for, that, in fact, we are to pray for kings and all that are in authority and give thanks for them and make intercession for them, for they are God’s ministers. Not that He would have any pleasure in continuing the world as it is on account of itself, not that He has any pleasure in the thing as it is, but rather to make a way for what He has before Him in the dispensation, that is, the dispensation of grace Whatever persons rule the world, it is the time of the Kingdom of God in which grace reigns “through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord”, Romans 5:21. That is a most important thing, dear brethren, at the present time, because God would bring us clearly round to His own thought in the dispensation. Whatever changes are taking place in this world, God ^[p. 17] is saying that has nothing to do with it. He has not altered His position one iota. The throne of grace remains as firmly as ever, and the gospel goes out on that ground as clearly and freely as ever, so that in smaller measure the dispensation is maintained. That is a great point and God would lay it upon us. To illustrate this point in Romans 11, dear brethren, from the Old Testament, I would refer to Abraham because we nearly always get illustrations, or rather types, of the truth in the New Testament, in the Old; and usually in a way that makes the truth very practical to us.

So you get in Abraham, in the book of Genesis, the great idea of the attitude of God towards the world. He called Abraham out of it. There was a moral reason for that because, as it says in Romans 1:28, “... they did not like to retain God in their knowledge”. He called Abraham out of it, but not to take him up to heaven at once — not to take him, as it were, away out of the world, that is the world as the creation. We have to distinguish between the world as representative of the creation, and the world as a moral system. It is said of the Lord Jesus that He came into the world and the world was made by Him. That is not the moral system, it is the world as ornamented in creation. God did not propose to take Abraham out of that. As soon as Abraham came out of the moral system, God says to him, ‘Every nation on earth is to be blessed through you’, Genesis 18:18. That is the idea of reconciliation. You can understand, dear brethren, how Abraham would think of the world from that point onwards. In Romans 4:13 we are told that Abraham is the heir of the world. Now, if I am an heir to an estate or a throne or a business the thing takes a very different aspect in my mind from what it would otherwise. I am coming into it. And so Abraham would look at the nations. How many there were! Whatever their names, he would look at ^[p. 18] the nations in that light. He would say, ‘They are all mine in principle; it is only a matter of time’. Well, so it is, dear brethren, that we are heirs to the world. All that heirship, of course, belongs to Christ. Christ is the heir. As was said in the parable, “This is the heir”, Matthew 21:38. He is the true Abraham, the heir of the world, and we are joint heirs with Him. And so in Abraham’s case you see how he would look at the world henceforth. God says to a leading ruler at that time, Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, as regards this man Abraham, “He is a prophet”, Genesis 20:7. God would have the rulers of the world understand that the saints are not against them, and so He says to Abimelech, “He shall pray for thee”, Genesis 20:7. That was a great advantage to Abimelech, to have a man in his realm who was praying for him, whom God Himself designated as a prophet and said he would pray for Him. He was a priest as well.

You see, dear brethren, how that applies today. The Lord is in heaven. He is heir of the world and head of the nations, as indeed Simeon says, “A light for the revelation of the Gentiles”, Luke 2:32. He is brought into view, not for cursing but for blessing, that the blessing of Abraham might arrive at the nations. You see how the Lord Jesus thinks of them as He looks down from heaven. They are all His. He is heir of the world, and His solicitude Godward is in regard of the nations. We are to reflect that, dear brethren. That very great office or function is accorded to us, to pray in this attitude, not only that Christ is heir of the world but that we are joint heirs. I have no doubt that the continuance of the dispensations stands in relation to that, and that the revival of the truth in its varied parts stands in that relation, and that God would enlarge the brethren to see how the matter stands internationally. God would have us with Himself as His friends, as Abraham was His friend, so that He might communicate His mind to ^[p. 19] us in regard of these matters and that we might know how to pray, not with any national feeling, but as a heavenly people, as those who are waiting, but in the meantime would have the dispensation continued, for it is delightful to God to continue in this way to express His patience, for patience is a great attribute of God. “... the long suffering of our Lord is salvation”, 2 Peter 3:15. God is not willing that any should perish, 2 Peter 3:9. This gives the saints a wonderful place in the eyes of heaven and, although men do not admit it, it is on their behalf, too. The continuance of things as they are is largely dependent on this great intercession of the Lord Jesus in heaven and ours upon earth. It is a wonderful platform, dear brethren, when we see this. It delivers us from all national feeling — which is really nothing. To us it is a question of laying hold of the heavenly ground we are on as priests of God and heirs of the world and joint heirs with Christ, and of being solicitous on behalf of the world. What is so interesting to us is that the gospel, in however small a measure or with whatever small results, should continue as a testimony.

So with Isaac and Jacob, but especially with Jacob. You see how he acted towards Pharaoh. You see how Joseph was installed as the head of Pharaoh’s kingdom. All that brings out what was promised to Abraham. All these were “heirs with him of the same promise”. They all carried on this great principle, and especially Jacob. That is, he had not only the principle, but he had the power to convey the principle when he stood before Pharaoh. ‘How old are you?’ Genesis 47:8, says Pharaoh. Jacob, an old man, had already blessed the monarch, and had not asked his leave to do it, nor had the monarch forbade him to do it. He asked him about his age, and Jacob told him, but he was able to bless. You see what a place, dear brethren, the saints of God have in relation to this world, and how we may alter things that may be ^[p. 20] contrary to the testimony in this way. And so with Joseph, for it was no accident that he became lord of all Egypt. It was a divinely appointed matter. All these men carry out this great idea of the reconciliation of the world — in relation to Abraham, a figure of Christ as head of it. And so in Egypt God was not severe even with Pharaoh. God sent him a message and gave him an opportunity to let His people go. “Let my people go, that they may serve me”, Exodus 7:16. It was only when resistance to the revealed mind of God took place formally that God struck. So it is in our own times, and it may not be far distant, for things take place so quickly in this world. We do not know how long the thing will continue. Our business is to see to it that it does continue; that is, from the standpoint of joint heirs with Christ and priesthood to God, our prayers should continue. You see the magnitude of the position. Presently the whole position will be changed. When the saints leave, things will happen very quickly. In what is called a crisis, the whole world will veer round and Christianity will be overthrown, not only in principle but formally, officially, as it is in some nations today. Then it is that the divine attitude changes, and that this verse which I have read to you is no longer in force. In the meantime, our business is to continue on in the light of the dispensation in which we are as priests unto God.

The next thing I want to speak about is the ministerial side of this in 2 Corinthians 5. The apostle, as you will all know, in these epistles greatly stresses his ministerial authority. What corresponds in the Old Testament is the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and also Deuteronomy, but particularly Exodus. These are the ministerial books. What that means, dear brethren, is the idea of Romans 11:15; not only that it is in force, but that it is explained it is made intelligible by ministerial services. Ministerial ^[p. 21] services mean qualified, cultured, trained or taught persons to represent God in this world, That is what the apostle represents. As the apostle Paul says, “... all things are of the God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ” — alluding to himself particularly, to those that represent God — “and given to us the ministry of that reconciliation”, 2 Corinthians 5:18. He has given it to us. That is a very great thing. That is to say, to a trained ministry, fitted of God to represent Him and to make the thing plain and effective. “How that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their offences”, 2 Corinthians 5:19. Now he is bringing it round to effectiveness, and he says, “We are ambassadors therefore for Christ, God as it were beseeching by us, we entreat for Christ, Be reconciled to God”, 2 Corinthians 5:20. Be reconciled. It was not exactly saying that the Corinthians were not, although they were refractory. In practice they were not, yet in principle they were, as believers in the gospel. At the same time, their condition required that he should bring this to bear upon them. “Be reconciled to God”. Then he goes on to give the basis of it. “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us that we might become God’s righteousness in him”, 2 Corinthians 5:21. What a basis! How well the apostle knew how to bring out the full bearing of that wonderful atoning sacrifice of Jesus, that it was not only a question of our sins but that we might be made the righteousness of God. Think of the greatness of that thought. Be made it. Not only that we should have it to appear before God, but that we should be the very expression of it. It will be so by and by. The Lord will point to us as the expression of His righteousness by and by, but surely it has a bearing today — that God can point to some people in this world as representative of His righteousness. Not only that they are made righteous, but that they are made “the righteousness of God in him”. Think of that! What a bearing it ^[p. 22] should have upon us in our practical ways and walk, that God, as it were, can point to us.

Perhaps it hardly enters into some of our hearts that God talks about us daily, and points to us, too. Satan is coming up constantly as he did in the days of Job. God said to Satan, “Hast thou considered my servant Job?” Job 1:8. Is he the only saint that God brings forward in that way? No! It is to remind us that we are the subject of conversation in heaven, and that God thinks of us here in the place where He has set us and would call attention to us as He would to Abraham. We are told in the Psalms that “he reproved kings for their sakes; saying, Touch not mine anointed”, Psalm 105:14. He speaks to kings about us. How beautiful and great it is if God could call attention to me tonight in heaven, could call the attention of the devil and say, ‘See that man (or any of us here). See what he is. Have you considered him?’ You may be sure that Satan has considered him all his life and God calls attention to the beautiful traits of His own work in His people. He says, ‘Look at them. They are My righteousness’. See how He challenged Balaam. ‘Look at those people. You cannot curse those people’. “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth”, Romans 8:33. Satan did, but God says they are justified. “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel”, Numbers 23:21. God says, ‘Look at these people. They are made My righteousness’. What a testimony that is! How attractive that is, that one should be such as the Lord could call attention to in that way.

And so in regard of this ministerial matter the types again help us. The book of Exodus, I believe, confirms and amplifies what I am saying. Moses is the great minister and represents the ministry, and much is made of him. There is more said of him, perhaps, than of any of the ministers of the Old Testament. What an interesting person he is! He ^[p. 23] was taken up from his infancy, and what a favour it was to Pharaoh’s court that God allowed that man to be in that court. Was that nothing? It was the way God looked at things. He provided a daughter in the house of Pharaoh and she was favourable. She represented in a certain way divine traits. She takes the babe and has compassion on the babe. Was that nothing? It was the work of God to take up that babe and place him in the house of Pharaoh for forty years. What a testimony! I do not say that Moses was very much, but he was Moses, and he was exceeding fair to God, we are told, before he wept. He was taken by a woman who had no antipathy towards him; she had compassion on the weeping child. She became his saviour for the moment and took him to the house of Pharaoh. There are many such today who, under the government of God, are in the world. What an advantage. But how many of them are acting like Moses? “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season”, Hebrews 11:25. “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king”, Hebrews 11:27. That is the minister. He is now away from Egypt. The wrath of the king has forced him out. The king is becoming more and more hardened against God, but it is the patience of God waiting upon him, and now from forty years up to eighty years of age Moses was in the desert under the eye of God in a preparatory school. He led the flock to the backside of the desert. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a thorn-bush, Exodus 3:2. That is, dear brethren, where we get the idea of the minister becoming reconciled. He came under the mind of God in a peculiar way. He turned aside to see why the bush burned and was not consumed. He turned aside to see it. It alludes to the humanity of Christ, to the incarnation. It alludes ^[p. 24] to what Israel had to go through in the desert, but there is Christ. God was in the bush — in the most lowly circumstances in the thorn-bush — and Moses stopped to look at that. He had been accustomed to great things in Pharaoh’s house, but now he is engaged with a lowly thing, a thorn-bush. But there is something present in that thorn-bush that the bush burned and was not consumed. It was a question of the humanity of Christ. “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and we have contemplated his glory”, John 1:14. It is in that way, dear brethren, that the minister comes in for reconciliation. I wonder if you understand what I am presenting. What was Moses under God’s eye as he turned aside? There never had been such a Moses before. It was a Moses occupied with Jesus, in type, I mean. Heaven saw it and heaven says, “Moses, Moses”, Exodus 3:4. Heaven is expressing itself in profound interest in this man. His name was never called out before the angel called it out. Jehovah did it. Moses is coming into reconciliation. He is identified in his mind with this great thing. He will come into it more and more. He will grow in it. But, as the apostle Paul says, he was being reconciled to God, not God to him. He was being reconciled to God. He was becoming delightful to God as never before. He is now in his mind taken up typically with Christ and so the process goes on. In Exodus 23 and 24 you see how Israel is come into reconciliation. First the minister and then those who are ministered to. The Lord would make this point to us. Do we understand this? Do we understand being brought into this attitude of reconciliation, that God looks upon us with the utmost complacency? It is because Christ has come into our minds. We are occupied with Christ as God has announced Him and has called attention to Him. ‘I am going on with this, and you are going on with this, and you are pleasing to Me. You are ^[p. 25] not going on with anything else. You have grasped My mind and I am delighted with you’. That is really what is meant. God says to Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel, “Come up”, Exodus 24:1. Would He have them come up to His place to grieve His heart? No, beloved brethren. It is reconciled people, a people He would have before Him for His pleasure. That is the idea. They went up, and, we are told, “they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were work of transparent sapphire”, Exodus 24:10. What a sight! It says they ate and drank and He did not lay His hand on the nobles. They were pleasing to Him. It is a question of Moses turning round first and occupying himself with what God presented to him. It is Christ in the bush, Christ incarnate, and Moses is occupied with it. God says, ‘That is a wonderful thing you are occupied with and I want you to be thoroughly adjusted to it’. “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet”, Exodus 3:5. Then there are wonderful unfoldings of God to him right through, and now he is invited up and others with him. Israel, in principle, are in reconciliation and are invited up into the presence of God and are perfectly free there.

Now I want to make some remarks about Colossians. Colossians 1:19, which precedes what I read, speaks about Christ being the dwelling place of all the fulness of the deity. The word ‘deity’ is not there. The word ‘fulness’ takes the place of the word ‘greatness’ in Hebrews, meaning that ‘Deity’ is referred to. All the fulness was there. It is not simply all the attributes, but God, the Deity, was there. It is not now the covenant God, it is the Deity — that is the Latin word. It means God in His absoluteness. We must get this word into our minds — I mean the idea of God in His infinite absoluteness. Paul has this always in mind. “Of him, and through him, and for him are all things”, Romans 11:36.

And so it says that “in him all the fulness ... was pleased to dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to itself”, (as it should read, for it is a question of the neuter) “having made peace by the blood of his cross”, Colossians 1:20. You have to understand that expression. The cross had no blood. It alludes to the blood that flowed, not from the nail-prints, for that would not mean death in itself. Death took place before the blood flowed. That was properly atoning blood. It is the actual state of death that is in mind. Only John gives us that side. How significant! Paul calls it here “the blood of his cross”. It flowed while He was on the cross. What a death! The forsaking had taken place before, but now He is dead, in the state of death. A most solemn thing to think of. It is by that blood that peace is made. God has done that, and on that ground He is free. Now there is peace. He has taken away the things that would harass Him in His work of reconciliation. There is no disturbing element in persons or things in the whole universe. What a marvellous thought! The apostle goes on to say “and you ... hath he reconciled”, that is the Gentiles, we might say ourselves, for Colossians has the Gentiles in view. “To present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight”, Colossians 1:22. In His sight or in its sight, as it should read. That is, in the sight of the Deity, of the Godhead. Think of our being taken up so as to be delightful to the Deity, to God in His absoluteness. See the place we have, dear brethren. God has done that.

There is an ‘if’ following. It shows how God had in His mind how very quickly this would be slipped away from. He has now revived it. It is His wish that we stand firmly in this great and glorious thought that He has reconciled us in the body of Christ’s flesh through death, to present us unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. In His sight. It is not now the reconciliation of the world, but what is in His ^[p. 27] sight, that is, what His eyes are resting upon, the saints viewed as holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. There is nothing at all to reprove. One saint spoke of the joy of an unrebuking gaze from God. Think of being able to stand in the presence of that! In His sight, as it says. It is before Him in this passage.

Then in Ephesians we have the collective thought where it is stated that He has reconciled both — both Jew and Gentile, that is, believers from both Jews and Gentiles — “in one body to God by the cross”, Ephesians 2:16. Peace indeed has been made by the blood of His cross, but here the reconciliation is by the cross. The enmity is slain by it, too. This is a word for us as to our practical relations with one another. What I have been applying to each of us individually is to apply to us as together. The enmity must be slain. God has done it. He looks at it as done in regard to the Ephesians and in regard to the saints at that time, but in its practical application you can see that there must be the slaying of the enmity. Enmity is a terrible thing to creep in amongst the people of God and the slaying of it is by the cross. It is an exalted way of dealing with it. What shame, what ignominy entered into the cross and the sacrificial work of Christ, and all to deal with this horrid thing called the flesh, in which enmity towards one another is so apt to wreck and spoil reconciliation. He hath reconciled “both in one body to God by the cross” — slaying the enmity. Dear brethren, this is a very practical word, especially in the light of Matthew, the Lord Himself alluding there to a brother offering a sacrifice. He touches on many things in those chapters in Matthew 5, Matthew 6 and Matthew 7, and amongst these things says “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee”,; one is pretty sure to remember there, for God is there. God is where sacrifice is being ^[p. 28] offered sincerely and if God be there He will search you through and through. How terrible a thing it is, dear brethren, to sit down together with enmity, with a sense that others have things against us. In the presence of God we are searched. Nowhere else are we searched in that way. “And there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way”. It makes everything of the gift. God is looking after it all the time you are away to see your brother. It is under His eye; it is your sacrifice. It has not lost its value because your brother has something against you, but He is testing you out as to what you are. There should be grace in us to overcome evil with good. That is victory to you and to Him. “Go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift”, Matthew 5:24. You alone can offer it, but be reconciled to thy brother. That verse enters into this verse in Ephesians. He has reconciled “both unto God in one body”, Ephesians 2:16. God can look upon a company of saints as pleasing to Him as a company — there is no enmity. The enmity is slain by the cross; that is, it will be eternally, and by and by in the millennium, too. Things will come under God’s eye for His pleasure and He looks for it now in a time of adversity and contrariety, so that the brethren are great enough morally, in the Spirit, and having the blood of Jesus to apply, and the water too, so that there should be no enmity, that there should be the practical expression of reconciliation in the saints viewed as together. It is a wonderful thing that God is working out — that is the assembly in its local setting, for there is only one assembly, but still there are subdivisions in local settings. God is working out a great matter in the wilderness, in a scene of contrariety, and what can be greater than to bring about reconciliation in persons who were hitherto alienated in mind, and alienated to one ^[p. 29] another, but are now reconciled in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity.

That is what I have in mind tonight, dear brethren, and I would commend that you take it home. One feels the power of it. What great things God has in His mind in these last days, that is, to bring about in the end what He began as a testimony.