THE WORD OF GOD
[p. 121] THE WORD OF GOD
Hebrews 4: 12; 1 Peter 1: 23; Luke 8: 19
In considering what might be particularly helpful at this time the subject of the word of God came forcibly into my mind. It is, of course, much wider in its bearing than can be treated of in one short address, for we are told that it was in action as the worlds were formed. It is said that “By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God” (Hebrews 11: 3). According to another scripture, “He spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33: 9). That speaking would convey all the wisdom needed for the framing or building of this great universe which is before our eyes. What God spoke at that time conveyed the wisdom needed, not yet indeed “the all-various wisdom”, but nevertheless the wisdom that was needed. And the more we look at the worlds as they appear to us the more marvellous they become as the outcome of that wisdom, of that “knowledge, too wonderful” for us, by which they were brought into their present being.
It is said indeed in Proverbs that wisdom itself was there. No doubt this looked on to Christ, for it is said, By whom also He made the worlds. Indeed they were made by Christ, as it is further said, By Him all things were made and not one thing that was made was made without Him; John 1: 3. So that the word of God was then active; as I said, He spoke and it was done. I do not suppose there was any opposition, but He spoke and it was done, and then what was done by the speaking was held fast by the commandment. He commanded and it stood fast. So that all that we see, beloved friends, the marvellous phenomena before our eyes, is the outcome of the divine word and the divine fiat by which it is held, and by which it continues for the will of God.
[p. 122] Every part of it is for the will of God and is to express in so far as it may, what He is; for, it is said, that the invisible things of Him are clearly seen in the things that are made, even His eternal power and divinity. Thus the testimony of the eternal power and divinity of God stood before men’s eyes from the outset. And not only that, but He never left Himself, it says, without a witness, so that His goodness appeared in that part of the universe which was man’s immediate environment, for He gave in that environment rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling men’s hearts with food and gladness. The word of God enters into all that. It is indeed presently operative in that very connection, for it is said that He upholds all things by the word of His power, and that is how matters stand. People speak of nature, and what nature accomplishes. There is such a thing as nature, of course, but man substitutes the word ‘nature’ for God, which God resents. What we see, beloved friends, before our eyes is God. The creation was not, as it were, something thrown out to work itself out. God is behind it in every detail. Even in the growth of the blade of corn, of the seed put in the ground, it says, “God gives it a body;” God is in everything. As the apostle Paul says, He is not far from everyone of us, for in Him we all live and move and have our being. How real it is, beloved friends, even this physical system with which we have to do, how real it is that it is God’s, that it is upheld by God, and that the energy of life in it is directed from God! So that we have, as I said, our hearts filled with food and gladness.
But then, I want to speak on the word as it applies to us. It is one thing to have it applicable to inanimate things, and another to have it operative in animate things or persons, and not only animate but intelligent, for God made man thus. As the apostle says again, speaking of the Athenians,
“[p. 123] As also some of the poets amongst you have said, For we are also his offspring ... we ought not to think that which is divine to be like gold or silver or stone, the graven form of man’s art and imagination” (Acts 17: 28, 29). The wonderful fact comes out that man, as he is, was made in the image and likeness of God, and although Satan has succeeded in belying God in men’s minds, and misrepresenting Him so that they have been turned away and have eliminated Him from their knowledge, God has not given them up. He has come in, beloved friends, in grace. Christ is designated the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1: 1). Let no man deny it. And then it says, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (verse 14) The Word! He came in here amongst us. He dwelt amongst us. So that God came in in One who could convey his mind to men. Even as to those who shall be on the earth in a later day — the millennial days — He will write his laws in their hearts and in their minds, so that no one shall say, Know the Lord, for all shall know Him from the least to the greatest. He intends to be known.
And so the Word, beloved friends, became flesh. That is to say, we have a divine Person incarnate here and dwelling among men, as it says, He “dwelt among us”. Marvellous fact to take into account. It is said that He dwelt literally in Capernaum. Were you to live next door to that blessed One and you met Him casually what would He say to you? He would bring in God, beloved friends. He would speak about God. Alas, a deaf ear was turned to Him, for He says, “No one receives our witness”, nevertheless, He spoke that He knew and testified to what He had seen. “If I have said the earthly things to you, and ye believe not, how, if I say the heavenly things to you, will ye believe? And no one has gone up into heaven, save he who came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven” (John 3: 12, 13).
[p. 124] He was perfectly competent as here amongst men to speak of God. As He says, We speak that we do know, and we testify what we have seen. He came in here as the Word.
I want now to show, a little from the passage in Hebrews the character of the word of God. The passage runs on from one that is very solemn, where it is said that we should not do as the Israelites did, many of them falling in the wilderness from “not hearkening to the word”. We have had the word presented to us and God holds us accountable for what we have heard. And so He urges the danger of a heart hardened by unbelief. And what is the nature of the unbelief? Not hearkening to the word. It is a most serious thing, beloved friends, to have the word of God brought to us and we have not hearkened to it. What God looks for is “an honest and good heart”. If I find people sceptical and questioning and without intelligence in the things of God I know the secret of that. I know there is a want of honesty; you may rely on it. They may appear to be sincere, ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. An honest and a good heart. What marks that here? It hears the word of God. It understands the word of God, and it brings forth fruit, as the Lord says in Mark, thirty, sixty and an hundredfold. That is what it does.
The writer of this epistle points out that the Hebrew Christians had a wonderful ministry — they had the ministry of the twelve and others, but they were drawing back — they were in danger of falling in the wilderness like their forefathers because of unbelief, and that unbelief lay in not hearkening to the word of God. And so he proceeds to tell us what the word of God is. He says it “is living and operative”. It is a living word. Hebrews is one of the passages marked by the use of this word — living. We have the living God, and the living word, the [p. 125] living way, etc. All is living and operative. The word operates. It is not quiescent. And then he goes on to say, It penetrates to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.
It is well, beloved friends, that we should face this matter. If we examine our exercises and thoughts we shall find it extremely difficult to discern which is from the soul and which is from the spirit. The word of God determines for you what actuates you. Actions lie before us, and as those who have heard the word of God we are bound to face it in regard to what is before us, and we want to be sure whence the motives proceed when they actuate us in what we are to do. Am I governed by my soul, or am I governed by my spirit? If I am governed by my soul merely in what I am doing I am sure to go wrong, and hence the great importance of determining as before God, whence the motives spring that are actuating me. Do they spring from my soul, the seat of my lower affections, or from my spirit? If I consult my spirit I have a higher intelligence. I am on a higher level. My spirit is that which connects me directly with God, for God gave me that. Every one of us has received his spirit from God. It is not a mere matter of nature. It is a matter from God. God has given it to us. God is the Father of spirits. He has given us that whereby we are in direct relation with Himself, and the word of God enables me to determine whence my motives spring. It penetrates to the dividing asunder between soul and spirit. And then it says, “both of joints and marrow”. Here I come to the body. If I think of my joints it is a question of my movements. If I think of the marrow it is that which inwardly is the source of power. The word of God thus enables us to distinguish and be perfectly intelligent in what we are doing.
Then the passage goes on to say, “And there is not a creature unapparent before him”. Now we come to God Himself, for the word of God is no less than Himself. We are having to do with God in it. So it goes on to say, “But all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes, with whom we have to do”. We may as well face things now, as later, beloved friends; face them we shall have to. It is a question of God, and He has given us this wonderful weapon so that we may use it and be perfectly sure in His presence as to what we are doing, and as to where we are going. And as we are thus manifest consciously before Him by the word, the judgment seat is already anticipated, for this is no less than that we are having to do with God and every motive is laid bare. The judgment seat of God before which we all have to stand is thus anticipated.
I want to go on to Peter to show you how this affects us. I mean the result. Peter speaks of being born, not exactly of God, although, of course, it is of God; not exactly by the Spirit as in John 3, but by the word of God. I want to dwell for a moment just on that. I want to lead on to the family. Peter speaks of the believer as being born again not of corruptible seed but of the incorruptible seed of the living and abiding word of God. I want you beloved brethren, to take this in. I want to convey to you if I can, how that our new birth involves intelligence, not simply by way of education but as that which is inherent in our nature. I take it that in John 3, born anew by the Spirit implies instincts. A child newly born has instincts, not yet intelligence exactly. The instincts are there as the result of the initial operation of God in us. Nicodemus, the enquiring man, said to the Lord, How can these things be? And the Lord says, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3: 3). And then again, he says, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except any one be born of water [p. 127] and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (verse 5).
These terms are there initially, and they involve instinct. But when I come to Peter I find birth by the word of God. What a wonderful race God intends to have before Him! What a family he intends to have before Him! So we are born by the word of God. Inherently I have an order of intelligence that is according to God, the intelligence that is the outcome of the operative word of God in me. I am not in the least criticising my brethren. I include myself in what I am saying. There is a great dearth of spiritual intelligence amongst the people of God, and I believe it is largely because of the want of apprehension of the nature of our birth and the development that ensues. Peter makes much of intelligence, and he therefore reminds those to whom he wrote that they were born again by the incorruptible seed of the living and abiding word of God. The believer thus has a nature marked by an intelligence conveyed by the word of God.
But while this is true there is a necessity for laying aside certain things which interfere with one’s growth in this holy intelligence in the mind of God. Therefore he says, “Laying aside therefore all malice, and all guile and hypocrisies and envyings” (1 Peter 2: 1). There is a list of things that we do well to take notice of, for they are not only evil but they choke the growth of believers, and they are ever present with us unless we apply the pruning knife constantly. Malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speaking, — these are all incongruous in persons who are born by the living and abiding word of God.
Then he says, “as newborn babes”. That does not mean that they were just babes. He is referring to the taste that should be ever present with us as Christians. A taste and relish for the “mental milk” of the word of God.
[p. 128] This should be as keen in the oldest brother or sister amongst us as it is in the youngest. How easily we become wearied of things as Israel did in the desert! They grew impatient of the manna. And so he urges on us, beloved, the importance of keenness of our appetite, of the relish of a child for its food, that keen relish for the mental milk of the word of God. I suppose there never was a time in the history of the world when more reading matter was available. The printing press is the leading feature in the world. Books! We read of men that speak froward things. Men today show that they lack and are utterly without restraint, and women flatter with their mouths. All this comes rolling out morning after morning through the press for hungry humanity.
Alas! the husks which the swine did eat! For our race so degenerate, having eliminated God who sent Christ, the God of Christianity, having eliminated Him from their minds are feeding on all these things. And so the great importance of believers drinking in the pure mental milk of the word of God. How much of it are we drinking in, beloved friends? Do we read the Scriptures regularly, prayerfully, meditatively? Do we read them in our families? They are what God provides for us so that our minds should develop spiritually, so that we should “grow up to salvation”.
Now I go on to Luke to show you how all this culminates in the brethren, and in naming that subject I am referring to the family of God.
The term ‘brethren’ has become degraded. It has lost in the minds of many Christians the meaning imparted to it by the Lord Jesus Christ. If there is one thing more than another insisted on in Scripture it is the idea of freshness, the idea of things being preserved in their original power and freshness. And so if I take the word ‘brethren’ as used in the blessed lips of our Lord Jesus Christ, what does it mean?
[p. 129] Does it mean a hackneyed term as covering a certain religious sect! Never! As thus used, beloved friends, it is degraded. It has lost its original power and freshness, and one desires that he should use it in that power and in that freshness. It should never be used to designate a mere sect of nominal Christians. I want just in a brief word to point out that in the four gospels the Lord indicates in His own words the marks of the brethren so that we may know them.
In the gospel of Matthew He indicates that the brethren are to be known as those who do the will of His Father who is in heaven. Let no one lay claim to the term, let no one assume to be of the brethren who is not doing the will of the Father. His mother and his brethren came to Him, and He stretches out His hand to His disciples, and He says, “Behold my mother and my brethren; for whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in the heavens, he is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12: 49, 50).
In Mark the same incident is recorded, but this time it says, the Lord “looking around in a circuit” — a word peculiar to Mark; underlies the idea of brethren; we speak of the circle of the saints. The Lord looked around in a circuit and said, “Behold my mother and my brethren”. Who are they? Those that were sitting around Him. They were listening to what He was saying. They had no ear for others. Those, who have itching ears go hither and thither to hear this one and that one. I am not un-Christianising any of you by these remarks: I am pointing out from the Lord’s words what marks the brethren. They were sitting around Christ, and He stretches his hands towards them and says, “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, 35). Can there be any question about it?
[p. 130] Before I come to Luke I will touch on John. In John we have the term on its very highest plane. It embraces in chapter 20, the features of which I have spoken. It embraces those who do the will of God, but it involves more. And so the Lord says to Mary Magdalene, “Go to my brethren”. It says nothing about their characteristics. These are already assumed. “And say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”.
We have the brethren now, beloved, not as doing the will of God, although embracing that, but as those who are associated with a heavenly Christ. Think of that! Can you think on your personal associations, your personal ideas, your personal conduct with the heavenly Christ? “Go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. He is speaking beloved friends, from the standpoint of eternal counsel, for it was in the eternal counsels of God that Christ should be “the first born among many brethren”. So that we have in John the very highest plane. We are linked up with Him as ascended into heaven — He is not “carried” up here as in Luke, but ascended — one who can ascend up in the right of His own Person into heaven. These are the four gospels. Luke is the last I touch upon because our association with Him is on the ground of what I have been presenting to you — the word of God. It says that the Lord characterises His brethren as “those who hear the word of God and do it”. That is the last feature.
You see what a link that operating word of God makes in us inwardly, so as to produce transparency and uprightness. It maintains us in His presence, enabling us to judge of all our motives, Whence they spring. And this operation leads to an end, the development of a thing in us that is intelligent in [p. 131] the mind of God. It is inherently intelligent in the mind of God. As a child grows up in the family and gradually lays hold of the parents’ thoughts, as it were, by inherent power, not only by education, so the believer is born again by the living and abiding word of God, and he lays hold of the thoughts of God. He is marked by them and in that way is in the family. So Luke takes up the thought and cites the Lord as saying that His mother and his brother are those who hear the word of God and do it. We are thus brought into public view. We are of the family of God. We are brethren, as those who listen to the word of God and do it. It is the doing of the thing; not only the hearing, that marks us off as of the brethren.
That is what I had to say. I hope the Lord will use it to lead us to greater reality, beloved brethren, as to what we are going on with, so that we should stand out as taking character from the word of God, and not simply doing His commandments, important as that is, but doing things with intelligence. As knowing the mind of God you do it.
You will find in John 14, he that has the commandments of Christ and keeps them loves Him. And when the inquiry is made as to love and how He manifests Himself to us and not to the world the Lord says, “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14: 21 - 23).
That is the idea of the tabernacle. The mind of God is disclosed in His word; those who love the Lord keep His words and so there a divine dwelling-place. The Father and the Son make their abode there. Is there anything more desirable? How wonderful that all this is within our reach, even in the day of small things, such as ours.