SUBJECTION TO CHRIST
[p. 192] SUBJECTION TO CHRIST
I have it before me to speak about subjection, having in view that we may see how that in subjection to Christ we may adorn the house of God. In the epistles which speak of the house of God we find references to adornment. In 1 Timothy, in Titus, and in 1 Peter from which I have read, the Holy Spirit refers to adornment, and the references show that it should appear in those who are subject. In 1 Timothy women are to learn in silence in all subjection, and their adornment is not to be that which the world employs, but that which becomes those making profession of the fear of God — good works. Special consideration is paid by the Spirit to those who, as in the government of God, are in the place of subjection. I do not refer to the subject for the sisters alone, but rather to bring out the thought that adornment in the house of God is dependent on subjection to Christ.
Now God has great regard for adornment. The heavens are said to be adorned, or garnished by the Spirit (see Job 26:13); the earth, too, is wonderfully adorned; indeed, our persons are divinely adorned physically. I do not suppose there is a creature that is without adornment in some sense from the divine point of view, and so we may readily understand that God is greatly concerned about His house, that it should be adorned, and what we learn is that the adornment is within the range of all. According to the letter to Titus, a slave — one occupying the most menial position in the lowest grade of society — is regarded as adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour; Titus 2:10. Think of the dignity attached to such an one! that in his unqualified subjection he adorns [p. 193] the doctrine of God our Saviour — doctrine being authoritative as enforcing the mind of God. Mark you, it is not “the word”, or “the commandment”, but “the doctrine”, that by which the mind of God is enforced in this world, as Paul taught in the school of Tyrannus; Acts 19:9.
So the doctrine of God, that which conveys His mind in regard of salvation in an authoritative way — a way calculated to impress the minds of men — is to be adorned by one in the very lowest grade of society. Such is the opportunity within the reach of the most obscure of the people of God in this world. And so a sister in her duties or domestic affairs, as in subjection, may be marked by the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Let us not suppose for a moment that it is God’s thought that this should be found simply in women, for no right-minded believer would wish to be without that which in the sight of God is of great price when he could have it. It is not exclusive, and so I read this verse in Job because God Himself in questioning Job inquires as to the ordinances of the heavens, “Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens?” To know the ordinances, the laws, the statutes of any country requires a life’s study and then it were difficult to find two students of law to agree; indeed, there is no regularity in human laws; whereas if we consider the ordinances of the heavens we shall find the most perfect regularity, and we shall not find any enactments overlapping. They come out in a divinely concise form in the first book of the Bible.
One would particularly commend to the attention of all the first chapter of the book of Genesis, where we find God Himself, unsolicited, moving to bring about an order of things which He pronounces in detail to be “very good” — an order of things which we may call the world, wonderfully regulated and ordered, marvellously ornamented, and replete with [p. 194] living intelligence, and all from the hand of God In that chapter we have the ordinances of the heavens ordinances which, in so far as may be, men of every age have profited by. I need not refer to those who profit by the ordinances of the heavens, but they are ordinances which have never had to be revised nor added to, but which stand out in undimmed perfection and lustre throughout all the centuries of the ages of the life of men upon the earth Every mariner knows what they are to him — knows these wonderful ordinances of the fourth day when God set great lights in the heavens, the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night, and when “He made the stars also”. Genesis 1:16. God doubtless had in view, among other things, which I hope to refer to, the need of the race in traversing the ocean, for God thought of man. I believe that the mercy of God as a faithful Creator extended all down the way and foreseeing the needs of the race as it multiplied had so ordered the heavens that the treasures of the sea might be available to the race. “He made the stars also”. Genesis 1:16. God did that. Men little think of God’s wonderful forethought, holding in reserve unknown lands and continents, in His mercy. Without the stars it were difficult to conceive how they could have been discovered, and so experienced faith says “the sun to rule by day ... the moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth for ever”, Psalm 136:8,9. It is the mercy of God. But one is not concerned in this address about navigation or the discovery of continents, and yet one is encouraged to refer to them as not to be despised in a material way, for “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”, James 1:17. The ordinances are fixed, and Job is questioned here by God Himself as to what he knew about them and about their relation with the earth: “Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?”
This leads me to that well known gospel which presents to us the rule of the heavens upon the earth — the gospel of Matthew. It treats of the ordinances of the heavens in a spiritual way. It is not simply “heaven”, the word is “heavens”, the ordinances of the heavens. The wise men of the east to whom Matthew refers in the early part of his gospel, had been accustomed to look up into the heavens, and they had some understanding beyond the ordinary prognosticator of the east, or the ordinary mariner of the west, for neither in his natural ability could divine what this star meant “We have seen his star in the east”, they say, “and are come to worship him”, Matthew 2:2. They had light in their souls, and in that way represent those who can understand something about the ordinances of the heavens. They were moved by what they saw. It was not an ordinary star; new things were about to be disclosed and the magi represent those who are prepared for new movements in the heavens Hence the Lord in chapter 5 ascends the mountain. They had followed the star and they had found the Lord in the house with His mother. The disclosure of all that is new comes out, not in the manger, but in the house; Matthew 2:11. All the precious ordinances which were about to be unfolded lay embodied in that precious Babe in the arms of His mother in the house. Well might they bring forth their precious things as with divine instinct they discern the divine movements of the star. God had made that star. We can well understand that God had reserved it to indicate the wonderful event of the incoming of His Son out of the heavens. He had come in; He had come to earth, and God had surely especially designed that star. To understand Matthew we have got to be prepared for something new; “New things do I declare”, God says in the prophet; Isaiah 42:9. The world lay asleep as to it, but these wise men of the east were awake. They were ready for the movements of heaven, they move with them, and they found Him who, as they said, was born “King of the Jews”, but not in Jerusalem, for Matthew will always slight Jerusalem. The star led not there, nor to any earthly centre. The point of it is that divine rule is in the heavens and not upon earth. They found the King in the house, and it is befitting that it should be so.
I need not go over the well-known history of the early chapters of Matthew as the Lord began to move out, but we read in chapter 5: “Seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain”, Matthew 5:1 and He sits on the mountain. I trust, beloved, that you may follow what I am saying, so that you may come more definitely under the rule of Christ, under the rule of the heavens. You may say, How could it be the rule of the heavens when Christ was upon earth? Why not? The Father was in the heavens. The Father is the Source of all rule; the Son has taken it up mediatorially. He was a Man under authority here; He has taken it up to “put down all rule and all authority and power” (1 Corinthians 15:24), as the apostle says, too, “casting down imagination and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”, 2 Corinthians 10:5. But when the Lord has put down all rule and all authority He will deliver back the kingdom to God, even the Father; 1 Corinthians 15:24. As God He has got rights in government, but He is pleased to take them up as Father. Think of the rule of the Father! Hence the Lord would disclose the ordinances of the heavens as He ascends the mountain and sits down; He would unfold these wonderful ordinances that the Father had formulated, He who “maketh his sun to [p. 197] rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” Matthew 5:45. They are His ordinances — the ordinances of the Father. The rights of government belong to God, as it says, “power belongeth unto God” Psalm 62:11, but He is pleased to exercise His rights of government as the Father. One would urge the young especially to ascend that mount and to listen to the law of His mouth — “better unto me”, as one said, “than thousands of gold and silver”, Psalm 119:72.
The Lord “opened his mouth” and the first word He spoke is ‘Blessed’. I think you will find it nine times over as He begins to unfold the ordinances of the heavens, so that it should be determined, as it says here, how they affect the earth. “I say unto you”, He says. One says, I will do this or I will do that; another says, I will emigrate and make money and I will take my family afterwards; yet another may say, I will emigrate and make money and come back and spend it. And there are a thousand other suggestions of our wills; but the Lord says, “I say unto you” — what about that? What does He say? As James says, “If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that”, James 4:15. You say, I do not know the Lord’s mind. Then you had better look at this verse, “Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?” The great principle in understanding the rule of the heavens is subjection. “Dost thou determine their rule over the earth?” — of these ordinances on the earth? Can you understand how the ordinances of heaven apply on the earth? The first thing, as I said, is the principle of subjection and the next thing is, “I say unto you”. How can you have a house beautified and adorned according to God unless there be the full, unqualified acknowledgment of the rights of the Lord Jesus into whose hands the government of God is delivered? It is impossible. There must be unqualified subjection [p. 198] to the Lord. Hence the Lord says, “I say unto thee”.
And then see what you are let into in this subjection. We have the unfolding, the interpretation, and the application of the ordinances of heaven — the law of His mouth — to your position, and to my position here upon earth; see what you are led into in entire submission to Christ, in sitting down at His feet and hearing the law of His mouth! The heart is touched with the sense of the blessedness of what is unfolded at the very outset “Blessed”, “Blessed”, “Blessed”, nine times over.
And then, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time”. Matthew 5:21. The world is full of contradictory tradition, so that the minds of men are perfectly bewildered today by the enactment and the repealment of laws, whereas we have in the Lord Jesus a definite unfolding of imperishable, unalterable laws, and withal laws of blessedness, laws of life, laws governing us in every possible relation in this world — the ordinances of the heavens come down to earth, unfolded and applied in the most tender, considerate and wise way by Him who came to earth. Is His presence on earth in any way the weakening of the rule of the heavens? No, beloved, it is the establishment of the rule of the heavens in an intelligible way on earth, hence that wonderful sermon on the mountain, beginning with the beatitudes from Matthew 5:1 to the end of chapter 7, after which, “when Jesus had ended these sayings”, He came down from the mount, and those who had heard “were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes”. Matthew 7:28,29. How hesitating the legislators, the lawmakers of this world often are, but here is a Lawgiver of whom it is said, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come”, Genesis 49:10. You see here the Law-giver, you hear the [p. 199] law of His mouth unfolded in the most considerate way, so that it says, “He taught them as having authority”. Matthew 7:29. That is what the soul requires, someone who can speak with divine authority, and yet while unfolding the law — the ordinances of the heavens, can apply them, rendering them intelligible to us in the most wonderful code that ever existed in human language.
When the Lord had come down from the mountain, He is ready to heal a leper, and the healed leper is to be governed by these laws. The believer, cleansed by the touch of Christ, is to be in this world the expression of the ordinances of the heavens. Hence the next man that comes in in Matthew after the leper is the centurion. He says, as it were, I see the point, you are a Man under authority; I am like that. The centurion discerned in the Lord One here under authority, One who was here on account of God; he says, “I also am a man under authority ... and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my bondman, Do this, and he does it”, Matthew 8:9. Now he says to the Lord, “Speak the word only and my servant shall be healed”; he had said too, “I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof”. And when Jesus heard it He said, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel”. It was to another outside of Israel that the Lord said, “O woman, great is thy faith”, Matthew 15:28. I refer to the Canaanitish woman in that chapter; she discerned the Lord, and accepted His designation of her, that she was but a dog relatively, one who had that place in the government of God in this world. But she ceased to be a dog spiritually, for a woman who has great faith is not a dog, she is material for the house of God. She is a cedar of Lebanon, as it were, about to be fitted in there to reflect the ordinances of the heavens, for the cherubim were carved upon the cedar in the house.
[p. 200] The house of God is to be the reflection of the ordinances of the heavens, so we ourselves, coming under the influence of the law of His mouth, will reflect them. The ordinances of the heavens are reflected in the assembly; all the gracious consideration of heaven, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit, to whom we are baptised, is found within the walls of the house of God. That is the divine effect of the ornamentation. Think of the magnitude of our position that we should become ornamental in the house of God! It could only be as in subjection. Hence, as we see in Peter’s epistle, the wife is taken up by the Spirit as in subjection; she is taken up to call attention to this wonderful adornment in the house of God, “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price”. That is what God looks for, that is what God is aiming at, that there is to be a testimony to the truth of the house of God which is “the pillar and base of the truth”. 1 Timothy 3:15.
The truth involves every feature of the revelation of God as presented to us in the four gospels. The house is intended to be great enough to sustain all. Think of the position, dear brethren, of the house of God, to maintain His rights in government, His rights in service, His rights in grace, His rights in love. These things in a brief way suggest to us the truth that came out perfectly in Jesus who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”. John 14:6. Truth is there in all its infinite perfection in Christ. It is now in the assembly; it could be there only as she is in subjection to Christ. The Holy Spirit is given to those who obey Him. No one who exercises his own will should speak about having the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is hampered and hindered where our wills are active, but as our souls are subdued under Christ, subject to Christ, the Holy Spirit is free and He works out these wonderful traits in us, foreshadowed in the [p. 201] tabernacle, and especially in the temple — the ornamental features of the house of God. He loves to work them out in the saints as He has a free hand by our subjection to Christ.
May God lead us to it, dear brethren! It is a wonderful moment we are in — the end of the period; the Lord is, as it were, finishing the work of the assembly, and as was said, He would beautify it. Ezra speaks about beautifying the house of God, that is, in the recovery he did not as a priest overlook the interior of the house of God. God put it into the heart of the king of Persia to beautify the house of God. And God will do that now by bringing about in His people entire subjection to Christ, and, indeed, we may say, in submitting to one another in the fear of Christ, so that there may be a free hand for the Spirit to weave out, to trace out these adorning features of the house of God, one of which is a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price.