THE SANCTIFIED COMPANY
[p. 39] THE SANCTIFIED COMPANY
Jude 14,15; Hebrews 2:11,12; Hebrews 3:1; Hebrews 3:6-8; Hebrews 10:9,10; Hebrews 10:14-22
It is on my mind to address you this evening in regard of the sanctified company. God had before Him from the time that sin entered into the world to take out of the world in sanctification a company for Himself, and what comes to light is that this is worked out on the principle of exercise, Enoch being the first to speak of it. “Behold the Lord has come amidst his holy myriads to execute judgment against all”. Jude refers to Enoch in this connection; he refers to him as “the seventh from Adam”, the Holy Spirit by the expression ‘seventh’ evidently alluding to an exercise. There are exercises in a bad sense in this world; Cain and his posterity in chapter 4 of Genesis may be regarded in that light, and the result there is lust and violence: as James says, “When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death”. James 1:15. There is much of that, for the world is made up of many desires and ambitions, but parallel with all this there is what God promotes and supports, and carries through to its results — its results being for Himself. So we have Enoch, one who in the midst of corruption acquired the desire for holiness obviously, so that he speaks prophetically of “holy myriads”. It does not appear that he had any holy companions in his day; he walked with God. He seems to have had no human companion to walk with — he apparently had no companionship in holiness among his fellows, among men. One has pondered upon the possible population of the antediluvian world. It must have been large; but what Scripture notices is the increase of sin. Men had evidently acquired great efficiency in the practice of [p. 40] lawlessness, of unholiness, of corruption, and the holy soul of Enoch must have felt these things; and in company with God he acquired light from God — prophetic light — in which he looked on to myriads of holy beings. Holy myriads and the Lord coming with them are seen in the vision of the prophet.
Now I want to show how these holy myriads are being produced. Whatever be the light that Enoch had as to them we know that these myriads, in the midst of which the Lord will come will include ourselves — will include the saints. I want to show also, by the Lord’s help, how these are being called out and formed now so as to be fit to accompany the Lord as he comes out according to Jude. The passage emphasises the minuteness of the judgment. If you look at it, you will observe the frequency of the word ‘all’. The Lord will “come” it says, “to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against them”. You will see the minuteness of the judgment, as I have said, how that all are included, all the ungodly, and all their ungodly dealings, and all their hard speeches. No doubt Enoch had some knowledge of the population of his day, and he had some estimate of the sinfulness of the men and women around him, and he had knowledge of what was particularly hard, what he calls “hard speeches”.
The correspondence of our times with all this is very striking — the great efficiency which men have acquired to be lawless, the brazenry with which divine rights are disregarded and trampled underfoot, and then the immense number of huge cities which have developed; the enormous concentrations of populations add their quota to the lawlessness and intensify it. And then the hard speeches that are prevalent! Men get up and lecture even in the very [p. 41] pulpits against the Bible, against God, and against His truth. Men write books to disprove if possible the written word of God. These things, and many such like things, mark the present time. They are the men who speak “froward things”, Acts 20:30 hard things against God, and against. Christ, and against the people of God, and against the word of God. All these things are noted down. “Their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him”. Not one of these will be omitted in the judgment.
I come now to the point to seek to show you how the sanctified ones are being formed to be intelligently with the Lord as He comes out. The present time is the ingoing. You will understand me. Presently it will be the outcoming, but for the moment it is the ingoing, and this is the point of view in the epistle to the Hebrews. Those who understand and enter into the truth unfolded in Hebrews are content to be out of sight. They do not wish to figure amongst the ungodly sinners speaking these hard things against God. They are occupied with the ingoing. We cannot understand the outcoming until we understand the ingoing. Enoch says nothing about the ingoing. He did not know nor understand about the book of Exodus nor the book of Leviticus, but what he said included those books, as also the epistle to the Hebrews. And so I wish to show you, beloved, how God leads us in. But first I shall dwell on the Lord’s words quoted in the second chapter of Hebrews — “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the assembly will I sing praise unto thee”. I want you to note how the thought of the family underlies the idea of the holy myriads; indeed God works everything out morally on the basis of the family, and for one reason, among others, that it is a primary thought. It is a thought emanating from His own nature, from His own affections, for there must be the establishment of the utmost confidence [p. 42] before we can have what is official built up before we can have that in which divine service and testimony are to be rendered. And so in the book of Genesis, after the call of Abraham, the idea of the family is developed. It is true that Enoch had a son and evidently He was concerned about his son, in that he walked with God after he was born, but there is nothing developed in Enoch’s immediate family for God; but we find in Noah a family and affections so that he prepared an ark for the saving of his house. But Noah was not the great father, nor was Enoch — Abraham was the great father; hence Abraham is the first person, as Scripture records, to whom God appeared. I wish you to take notice of that because in appearing there was involved, that there was a showing of Himself in some feature to Abraham which should be the germ of what would be worked out in Abraham. It was the God of glory who appeared to Abraham. He had before him the unfolding of family relationships and affections. Take this away and what have you left? Only a shell! But, therein is the substance, the kernel, of what God had in His mind, and so you find in chapter after chapter in Genesis the great family feature developed, and in chapter 49 the family is blessed, and the gifts and calling of God are without repentance; as Isaac said, “Yea, and he shall be blessed”. Genesis 27:33. There is no revoking of the divine blessing and the divine blessing is in the family. So the tribes — the sons of Israel — are called to hearken to Israel their father and he blesses every one of them. And the family thus blessed passes over into Egypt, and we find in Exodus 1 they are again enumerated — the names of the sons of Israel. Then in chapter 4 God formally takes over these tribes as His; “Let my son go that he may serve me”. Exodus 4:23. “Israel is my son, my first-born”. Exodus 4:22. You can understand what the God of glory signifies when you hear Him speak thus. He has a son and that son [p. 43] is to serve Him. But how serve Him? We have a son designated, and that son is to serve in the priestly office. So that while the family thought underlies the priestly service, the priestly family reminds us that God is to be served by those who learn holiness. Hence Aaron is referred to in Scripture as the “saint of the Lord”, Psalm 106:16. So in Exodus 6 the Holy Spirit gives us a list of the tribes again. This subject is of the utmost importance. In reading Scripture you may wonder at the constant recurrence of the family thought, but from what I am saying you can see the meaning of it. I think thus the Holy Spirit gives us the list, and as He arrives at Levi He stops — no more names are given. Having arrived, at Levi he traces the sons of Levi until we arrive at Aaron and Moses, first Aaron and Moses, then Moses and Aaron — see verses 20 and 27. The Holy Spirit makes no errors and when He places Aaron first He means it. He is thinking of holiness, He is thinking; of priesthood, of that state in which we have to say to Him, and in which alone we can have to say to Him. So He says, “This is that Aaron and Moses”, Exodus 6:26.
Well now, you see how the matter stands in Exodus. The Holy Spirit having arrived at the saintly family, the sanctified family, you have no other names, God as it were notifying that that is what He has in His mind. If He has brought us into the relation of brethren, of sons, He has in His mind that we should be priests, that we should be sanctified, and so “This is that Aaron and Moses”. Exodus 6:26. We have arrived at the High Priest and we have arrived at the apostle: And now, as you see in Hebrews 3, we have to learn everything from Christ from these two points of View — the apostle and High Priest of our confession.
So having arrived at Hebrews, I want to dwell a little on the idea of brethren, referring back to the passage already quoted, “I will declare, thy name unto my brethren”. In chapter 2 we have the great [p. 44] divine thought. It is a citation from the Psalms; it is brought in to show that the Lord Jesus was a real man, and that He had brethren, and it is, as I may say, the great text, from this point of view, of the whole epistle. If He has brethren, He intends to sing in their midst, as an assembly. The family is one thought, but the assembly is another.
But I wish, for a moment, to revert to the gospels that you may see how the brethren are constituted. In the three synoptic gospels the idea is based on moral grounds. In Matthew the brethren of the Lord are said to be those who do the will of God. That, I need not say, is moral. They are marked off in this world as doing the will of God. The same applies to Mark, only that Mark adds that the Lord looked round in a circuit at those who were sitting around Him and said, “Behold my mother and my brethren; for whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother, and sister, and mother”. Mark 3:34 And then in Luke those who are His brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it; who do it. There is not only the will of God, but the word of God, the mind of God, and these features mark the brethren, and no one is entitled to the designation of brethren who is devoid of these features. But when I come to John I am on a different basis. You have the relationship in its most exalted character. It is not a mere question then of what is moral; it is a question, from his point of view, of divine counsel. We are brethren as the fruit of divine counsel. The Lord would have it so, and so the Lord, sends the message through Mary: “Go to my brethren” — not a word about anything moral — “and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. John 20:17. Need I say that this must underlie everything, for we cannot acquire the relationship of brethren, it must be a matter of calling, a matter of purpose emanating from God; and so the Lord has effected it,
[p. 45] and as risen from among the dead and ascending into heaven He addresses certain ones as His brethren. John gives you the relationship from the highest standpoint. From John 20 I may say we may go right into eternity; we are fit for it from the divine side for we are taken up for it. It is a wonderful thing! “My Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. John 20:17. There is no ‘if’. It emanates from Christ Himself, from the Father.
But then into these very ones He breathes, and in breathing said, “Receive [the] Holy Spirit”. John 20:22. Now He is going to build up something in a provisional way. They are to be in this world, but possessed of Holy Spirit. It is in virtue of the possession of such a Spirit from the breathing of Christ that God will take us up and fit us for the ingoing. We go in on the ground of relationship, but we must also go in on the ground of holiness. Let that never be forgotten. That is what thousands of brethren disregard. The family is one thing and the assembly is another; the assembly is built up on the idea of the family, but takes on in addition the thoughts of intelligence and holiness. So He says, “Receive [the] Holy Spirit”. John 20:22. It is in virtue of that that we develop into the service of God in priesthood.
Now, in Hebrews 3 the writer addresses them as “holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling”; in other words what we get in John 20, and now He proposes to develop from that point the great subject of approach to God, so that he says, “Consider the apostle and High Priest of our confession”. We have to learn from Him, particularly priesthood, for that is what is developed — it is not apostleship, but priesthood from this chapter onwards, and priesthood based on sonship. So it goes on to say that Christ is Son over His house. I have to see Him, to consider Him now in the house. Think of being called upon, being exhorted rather, to consider Him thus! He is over [p. 46] the house, but it is His own house; He has built it. It is God’s house but built by Christ, and that is the first thing to consider. He is Son over the house. If I consider Him thus, I begin to learn subjection to Him as Son in the house — the principle of rule — but rule in One who is the Son.
The next thing introduced is the Spirit. While the Son is over the house, the Holy Spirit is present there, and calls upon those who form the house not to be hard-hearted: “Even as says the Holy Spirit, To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts”. We are considering the Son over the house, and presently we are reminded by the Spirit — a present living voice — not to harden our hearts. Oh, I say, beloved, this is a voice surely! I believe the ministry of the Spirit in all phases of the assembly has this bearing, “Harden not your hearts”! “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies”. And one thing He always says, “Harden not your hearts”. A hardened heart is incapable of being affected by the covenant, for it is just what Israel’s heart was, a heart of stone. God will take it away yet and give them hearts of flesh upon which He can write, and unless we learn to judge our hard hearts there will be no writing upon them.
There is much more in the chapters which follow — the priesthood of Christ and the covenant, what He is above, and what the Holy Spirit does down here but first we are warned by the Holy Spirit as to hardening our hearts.
The next thing I wish to speak of is the offering of Christ. The will of God is introduced in chapter 10. The will of God is not against us, it is for us, and if there is one thing we should delight in it is the will of God. Ephesians presents it to us in its highest relation, as the good pleasure of His will. His eternal counsels regarding us are according to the good pleasure of His will. And then there is the mystery [p. 47] of His will to head up all things in Christ, and the assembly is to be to the praise of His glory according to the counsel of His own will. There are no forces to interfere with the will of God. It goes through. That is the thought of Ephesians. And so in this chapter, Hebrews 10, we have it, and we have One undertaking it, to carry it into effect, and what is so wonderful about it is that that will — the will of God — is occupied in our sanctification. That which is so great, so irresistible, is occupied in our sanctification: “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”. Think of it entering into our sanctification! The offering, too, of the body of Jesus Christ entering into it! How much that body was for God! It was the vessel of His will. “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God”. The pleasure of God was involved in it, and then, too, the love of Christ. How it touches us — the body of Jesus Christ! So we are perfected by that one offering and there is no more offering for sin: “For by one offering he has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified”.
The next thought I dwell upon is the Holy Spirit as witness. The Holy Spirit is a witness now. “And the Holy Spirit also bears us witness of it”. In chapter 3 He speaks solemnly to us as to our hard hearts, but in chapter 10 He is a witness continually present with us to remind us that our sins and iniquities are remembered no more. How faithful a witness! He is here to remind us constantly of the love of God, because that is what is involved. His law is in our hearts and our sins are forgiven. These are the things the Holy Spirit is occupied with. He is the witness to us that our sins and iniquities will be remembered no more. I beg of you to take note of the Holy Spirit from this point of view — an ever-present witness to my heart of the love of God. How delightful that service is to the Spirit! He rebukes [p. 48] our hard hearts, but He also brings into our hearts the love of God, He sheds it abroad in our hearts. What a service! Divine Persons are occupied in bringing about this sanctified company, that there might be the ingoing, and also that there might be the outgoing of the holy myriads. So this is the service of the Spirit. Thus the will of God, the work of Christ, and the service of the Spirit — all the Persons in the Godhead — in this way are occupied in our sanctification. The apostle says to the Thessalonians, “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly”. 1 Thessalonians 5:23.
Thus you see how God the Father, as I may say, and the Son, and the Spirit, are presented to us in that chapter as occupied in our sanctification, and the most important side, I believe, applicable at the present time is the present service of the Spirit in maintaining us in liberty before God in good conscience, and in the sense of the love of God, shedding it abroad in our hearts.
Now, the result is to be for God. There is to be the ingoing, so he says, “Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say his flesh ... . Let us draw near”. It is going in, that is in view here, not coming out. It is as a sanctified company that we go into the presence of God, so he says, “with a true heart”, for God will have our hearts. The heart is that on which He operates, and so we are to draw near with true hearts and having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. The apostle Paul says to Timothy, “maintaining faith and a good conscience, which last, some, having put away, have made shipwreck as to faith”. 1 Timothy 1:19. I do urge the importance of maintaining a good conscience. David, who I may say is like Enoch the result of an exercise, asked Jehovah that His priests might be clothed with righteousness. One of the most important [p. 49] garments for a priest is the garb of righteousness — and that in every sphere — righteousness in his house, righteousness in his business, righteousness in his relations with his brethren. David prays, “Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness and let thy saints shout for joy”. Psalm 132:9. There can be no shouting for joy without that robe. God answers, “I will also clothe her priests with salvation” Psalm 132:16; He is ready to do it. So we are enjoined to “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” — the word of God.
Thus the epistle to the Hebrews develops the holy myriads, the saintly company, those who are wholly fit for His presence, so that they can go in. This is the “in-going time”, presently the “out-going time” will be when the Lord comes out with His holy myriads. In view of that, one would unite with the apostle and say, “The God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”. 1 Thessalonians 5:23.