JULY 3RD, 1933

JULY 3RD, 1933

MY DEAR BROTHER, — ... Your exercise as to the body and the bride is a very interesting one. I do not know that I can contribute much, but I am glad to send a few lines. So far as I see, your thought as to not connecting the idea of union with the family or children of God is right. There is community of nature, and they become, as the Lord said, “one in us”, but the idea of union does not come in in this connection. Of course it is a little difficult to speak of the scriptural force of a term which is not actually found in Scripture, and which appears to be used by Christians in rather different ways. But it has been generally used amongst brethren, and particularly by J.B.S., as indicating the assembly as brought to Christ in the place where He is and united to Him there. That is, it is not quite the thought of Eve being taken from Man, but of her being brought to Him. She was first of Adam as deriving from him, and then she was brought to him in marriage union. If this is the scriptural thought of union, as it appears to be, John would touch it in speaking of the marriage of the Lamb being come. And this is anticipated by the saints of the assembly being brought by the Spirit’s power to Christ where He is, so that as thus brought to union the assembly is looked at in Ephesians 5 as being already in the place of the wife. As thus in union the heart of her Husband doth safely trust in her, and all her interests are merged in His. The assembly is “his own flesh” in the sense that all that she is morally is derived from Christ, and she is thus suited to be united to Him.

^[p. 219] The thought conveyed in the body would seem to be rather of an organic unity into which we are baptised by one Spirit — the living organism here in which Christ is set forth for the pleasure of God, and which is His fulness. The saints are “one body” marking their unity, and they are Christ’s body as called to set Him forth morally. Christ being Head of the body, the assembly would be one marked feature of His glorious pre-eminence, but in Ephesians He is “Head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”. This is the place God has given Him of widest headship, and as having it He is Head to the assembly — all supplies and direction flow from Him to the assembly as having relation to Him as His body. No other company of saints will ever have the place of being His body; this is peculiar to the assembly. It is altogether of Himself in the most intimate way, and as being so there is no disparity, so that union can take place. The man and his wife of Ephesians 5: 31 are two entities, but the man becomes united to his wife so that they become one flesh by union. And in speaking of this Paul tells us that he has Christ and the assembly in view. So that union seems to be associated with the idea of marriage rather than with the organic constitution of the body. But the two thoughts run so closely together, and almost into one another in Ephesians 5, that it is by no means easy to draw the line between them.

I think that John’s presentation of the assembly as “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”, has relation to the suffering path in which everything has been maintained for God even unto death by that blessed One. All will have its answer in displayed glory on the line that Peter presents, and the assembly as having had part in the sufferings will have its peculiar place in the display. She has been taken out of suffering conditions brought about by the maintenance of righteousness, and so is manifestly suitable for public union with the Lamb. She has been one with Him in suffering here, and this qualifies her for manifested union in the day of His glory here. Her union with Him in this sense is not consummated until the marriage of the Lamb shall come.

In relation to the body I do not know whether it would be quite right to say that there is no individuality, but I thought that one’s individuality was merged in a unity to which each one part contributes so that the whole increases to its self-building ^[p. 220] up in love. The truth of this applies itself very definitely to us in our individuality, and unless it is worked out in some way practically, and in our local relations with the brethren, there is not much bringing the truth of the body into evidence.

With love in the Lord,

Yours affectionately in Him,