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... Consequent upon the rejection of Christ by those who were “the sons of the prophets and of the covenant”, an entirely new order of things has come about. Heaven has received Jesus Christ, and the saints of the assembly are blessed in Him as the heavenly One. They were chosen in Christ before the world’s foundation, according to God’s eternal purpose, to be blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. They are said in Ephesians 2 to have been quickened with the Christ, and to have been raised up together and made to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Their place in the Father’s house is a heavenly place with the Son who has gone to prepare it for them. When He comes again He will receive them to Himself in that place; they will be with Him where He is. This is the assembly’s own heavenly place and portion — to be where the Son is in the Father’s house. Hence, so long as we are actually here, we are to seek the things which are above, where the Christ is, and we are to have our mind on the things above; our life is hid with the Christ in God. Now all this was entirely unknown in Old Testament times; it was never spoken of even prophetically. But these are the things which are, by divine grace, the present portion and joy of the saints. I advise you to seek the companionship of those who are after them, and who long to have the joy of them in the power of the Holy Spirit.
[p. 395] I think it would help you if you had before you the present heavenly place of the saints as associated with the Son of God before His Father and God. You would then think first of the rapture as placing the heavenly saints actually where they are now spiritually. It will put the saints actually in their own proper heavenly position for the delight of God in having the many sons before Him conformed to the image of His Son. This is greater, and more for the divine pleasure, than anything that will be brought to pass on earth in the kingdom. The latter, however blessed, will pass away; the former abides for eternity as the outcome and fruition of eternal purpose. The saints will be with Christ in their own proper heavenly place before they come forth with Him into the scene of God’s ways on earth — the scene of the fulfilment of promise where nothing can be put right save by God taking His great power and reigning.
The saints will come forth with Christ to reign over the earth, for it is written that “God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 14. It is also said that “when the Christ is manifested who is our life then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory”, Colossians 3: 4. But it is evident that catching up to meet the Lord in the air cannot be simultaneous with being brought with Him. There must be an interval, however short, between going to Him and coming with Him. His own joy and the Father’s joy are bound up with the former; the kingdom is connected with the latter.
The Spirit has in view in Revelation 11: 15 - 18 the completion of the mystery of God, referring evidently to the earth, and to all that the holy prophets have spoken since time began. So that the sounding of the trumpet of the seventh angel is a “woe”. It speaks of the setting aside of everything that has destroyed the earth by the introduction of God’s world kingdom. It is the last of a series of trumpets which all have to do with earth. It has nothing whatever to do with how the heavenly company get their place in heaven. It is not possible to furnish any scriptural proof that saints of the assembly will go through the great tribulation. It is a comfort to me that all saints, in-dwelt by the Spirit, will be caught up at the rapture, whatever wrong ideas they have been led into about it. What a happy surprise it will be to many!
[p. 396] The present day is the day of a mystery “as to which silence has been kept in the times of the ages, but which has now been made manifest”. It is the day of a mystery “which in other generations has not been made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the power of the Spirit, that they who are of the nations should be joint heirs, and a joint body, and joint partakers of his promise in Christ Jesus by the glad tidings”. Paul speaks of it further as “the mystery hidden throughout the ages in God, who has created all things, in order that now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God, according to the purpose of the ages, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord”. He speaks further in Colossians of “the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but has now been made manifest to his saints”.
In the wisdom of God the truth of the assembly was committed to Paul. With the exception of the two references in the Lord’s words in Matthew 16 and 18, which clearly had no application until the assembly was built, Paul is the only one who speaks of the assembly. He was “minister” of it. Saints in Old Testament times were not the assembly, the body of Christ; that assembly had no existence, save in the mind and purpose of God. God tells me repeatedly that it was “hidden”. Can you furnish me with even one Old Testament scripture that speaks of Jew and Gentile being one body, and that the body of Christ as a glorified Man in heaven? I affirm, without hesitation, that it is impossible to produce such a scripture.
The prophets spoke much of “the sufferings which belonged to Christ;” they also spoke much of the glories of the coming kingdom; and in both these subjects the saints of the assembly are intensely interested. But the assembly, the body of Christ, is here on earth in a period which comes between the sufferings of Christ and the glories after these. Of this assembly the prophets kept silence, as nothing of it was made known to them.
The great tribulation is “the time of Jacob’s trouble”, Jeremiah 30: 7. It is a time when Daniel’s people shall be delivered. In Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 it is undoubtedly [p. 397] seen in Jewish connection; Jerusalem and Judaea are in the scene, and a people keeping the sabbath. It may extend, no doubt it will, but the centre of it is Judaea, and the salvation looked for is an earthly deliverance. There is no thought suggested of being caught up to have a place in heaven. The warnings given are quite inconsistent with the hope the assembly has of being caught up to meet the Lord. It is impossible to think of assembly saints, who know that they will be caught up when the Lord’s assembling shout is heard, being warned not to listen to people who said that Christ was here or there. The rapture is not in these scriptures at all.
The saints of the assembly, having a heavenly portion in Christ, look to be translated at the rapture so that they may come forth with Him when He appears. The saints of the Jewish remnant, taken up by God in His grace after the translation of the assembly saints, will look for the coming of Christ to deal with all their enemies, and bring about the fulfilment of all the promises given to Israel in connection with the earth. To mix up these two things brings utter confusion into the mind. The one company, so long as it is here, prays for its enemies and persecutors. The other company prays for judgment on its persecutors, knowing that the earthly blessings for which it looks can only be brought in by the destruction of those under whom they suffer. This is fully developed in the Psalms and other parts of the prophetic word.
I cannot conceive any one who has light as to the assembly, the body of Christ, being caught by a system of teaching which mixes the heavenly hopes of the assembly with the earthly hopes of Israel, and makes both come to fruition at the same moment. For this implies two distinct companies of saints being on earth at the same time, each of them giving a universal testimony, but the two testimonies producing entirely different results in spiritual formation. This system of teaching throws the whole prophetic truth of Scripture into confusion; but, what is even more serious for saints of the assembly, it blinds the mind to what is distinctive of the assembly, and obscures the manifold wisdom of God which comes out in the distinctive place which the assembly occupies according to His eternal purpose.