SPIRITUAL DIGNITY
[p. 84] SPIRITUAL DIGNITY
Matthew 26: 6 - 13 Mark 14:3 - 9; Luke 7:36 - 38 John 12:3; 1 Corinthians 12:12, 13
I have it before me on this occasion to speak about spiritual dignity, the dignity which God intends to mark His people, both severally and collectively. With this in view, I hope to call attention to the anointing, particularly of that vessel spoken of in the passage in 1 Corinthians as “the Christ”. “So also”, it says, “is the Christ” — referring to the saints as baptised in the power of one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, and as having all been given to drink of one Spirit. That is what I have in view. The idea of this dignity is not what you might call new. It is not one of the things that a scribe discipled in the kingdom of the heavens would bring forth as new; but it is one of the things that, although old, retains its freshness, and is applicable now as when it was first mentioned.
You will all remember how Jacob had the idea as God appeared to him in that remarkable dream of his, in which he saw a ladder reaching up into heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it; when he awoke he said, “Surely God is in this place, and I knew it not”. Genesis 28:16. He got a conception of the character that belonged to that place where God was; and so he takes the stone and sets it up for a pillar, and pours oil upon it, as if to express the initial conception he had of the dignity of that place — God’s house. God did not forget that, nor would He have Jacob forget it. It was the beginning, as one might say, of his spiritual history in the house of God. A very small beginning indeed, and yet morally a very great beginning. How he got the idea of anointing I am not prepared to say, but he was the [p. 85] offspring of an anointed family. We are told in the Psalms that God protected the patriarchs, saying, “Touch not mine anointed ones and do my prophets no harm”. Psalm 105:15. The idea was evidently connected with his family education, and if it had application to the patriarchs it certainly had application to the house of the God of the patriarchs. And so Jacob anoints the pillar. It is well to make a beginning like that, dear brethren. God takes account of it, and He sees to it that Jacob remembers it, for twenty years later He says, “I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar”. Genesis 31:13 God took account of Jacob’s conception of the dignity, the honour that belonged to the house of God. And God had respect to that, and He was with Jacob until he returned to that spot, where he not only anoints the pillar, but pours a drink offering upon it. His regard for the house of God has grown, has developed into a state of soul that is now pleasing to God.
And so, beloved brethren, I wish to show from these four anointings in the gospels, that we have an expansion of Jacob’s act. I desire to show that these women represent a fourfold conception of Christ as here in this world on behalf of God. He was the Anointed of God in a fourfold way; and the blending of these four conceptions, I hope to show, is that which, as in the assembly, qualifies it to be anointed; for God will not now anoint a vessel like Saul, where the moral conditions are not in agreement with the anointing. In his case, David respected the oil, but deplored and suffered from the sad disparity between the vessel and the oil upon it. God will never again anoint a vessel out of keeping with His holy oil. He needs not, beloved friends, for in His beloved Son undertaking to do His will, emptying Himself, as we are told, taking a servant’s form, becoming flesh, He has got One wholly according to His own thought. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. Matthew 3:17 He has found it. He is no longer obliged, as one may say, to take up man in the flesh, nor will He. He has got in Christ One wholly according to His own thoughts. In the long thirty years of His private life, there was constant delight for God in that Man. He is now, so to speak, wholly independent of man in the flesh. Even although one may be head and shoulders above one’s brethren, or like Eliab, have the right of the firstborn, God is not obliged to commit Himself to you in any way, nor will He; He has got His Man. And so we have presented here in the four gospels that which, as received into the souls of God’s people on the principle of appreciation and adoration, and blended, becomes a vessel which God can anoint.
In Matthew we have the divine thought in government presented in Christ; in Mark we have set forth in Him the divine thought in prophetic service; in Luke in Christ as anointed, it is the vessel for the presentation of grace to man; and in John the Son is presented — One great enough in His own Person, being the Son, to reveal God, and to make the love of God known in this world. Now all these facts were known to God in anointing Christ at His baptism, but these women (as I may speak of them, although in three of the gospels it may be only one, but I speak of them as three, inasmuch as there are no names given except in John) these women came to conceive of these divine thoughts as presented in the ministry of Christ. What God knew divinely, they learnt to discover in their measure by experience, by coming into the benefit and under the influence of the ministry of Christ; so that the woman who anointed the Lord in Matthew virtually says, He is the One to govern.
No one can be in his place in the house of God, according to God, without a right conception of government, and that conception can only be seen [p. 87] in Christ; we have to learn it in Him. And as we learn it in Matthew, all other claimants to the place of rule are dismissed from our minds; not that we do not observe the indirect government of God at the present time in this world, we are thankful for those in authority, and we pray for them as we are enjoined; but they do not correspond with our ideal. As having come under the influence of Christ, having become, as Paul says, “legitimately subject to Christ”, 1 Corinthians 9:21 we say in effect, There is no other ruler; the government is on His shoulder, He alone is fit to exercise it, and we anoint Him. Our ideal is there; we are in agreement with God — He has anointed the King, and we have come under His rule. He has taught us to judge ourselves, to rule our own spirits, and no one can rule in the house of God who cannot rule his own spirit. The one who rules his own spirit is greater than he, it says, who takes a city; and no one can do that who has not come under the rule of Christ, who has not taken His yoke upon him and learned from Him. As thus taught, we have our conception of rule, and we express it as this woman did; she anointed Him on the head. With divine intelligence she recognised His official glory — God’s King.
And so with Mark — you will understand that I do not at all purpose to make comparisons of these records, interesting as that is — Mark records what is almost identical with Matthew; he says of the woman, however, “she hath done what she could”. What a suggestion there is in that! You may say, I am not called to serve; you may have in your mind that the service of God rests with a few who are specially gifted; but the statement that the Lord makes of this woman should come home to everyone, old and young. “She has done what she could”. How about that, dear brethren? How many things there are that we can do, and we leave them undone!
[p. 88] It is a question of what you can do, for God is not an “austere man”, Luke 19:21. He does not expect nor exact beyond our ability; as He says elsewhere, “What thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might”. Ecclesiastes 9:10. And I need not remind you of how much there is to be done. But what this woman did had direct reference to Christ, and it expressed her appreciation of the divine Servant; it expressed her conception of the service of God rightly rendered; as recorded in the earlier part of Mark, “He hath done all things well”. Mark 7:37 That was her conception.
Now in Luke, the woman that was a sinner of the city is a fit person, as forgiven by Christ, to anoint Him. She knew, we are told, that He was in Simon the Pharisee’s house — an uncongenial place, a house as cold and frigid spiritually as the polar regions; and yet she went in there, for she knew He was there. She had a conception in her soul of what He presented. Those beautiful feet had brought to her the grace of God. We cannot, beloved brethren, be in the house of God rightly, unless we have a sense of that grace in our souls — the grace of God rightly presented to us. The Lord says, “Seest thou this woman?” He calls attention to her. He deigns to do so, even to the cold Pharisee. He says, You did not anoint my head, you gave me no water to wash my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and has anointed them with myrrh. She represents, as I said, that element in the house of God which indeed is to give character to the dispensation, and that is, the grace of God. It is a wonderful thing, dear brethren, to be imbued in our souls with the sense of the grace of God, as come to us in that precious Man whose feet had carried Him to her; whose feet had carried the grace to her and to us. Paul says, in writing to Titus, even in regard to slaves, to “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour”, for it says, “the grace of God,
[p. 89] which carries with it salvation for all men hath appeared”. Titus 2:10,11 Even a slave, as I remarked, is regarded as in a position to adorn that by his behaviour. But how could he do it, save as having a conception of it in his soul as presented in Christ?
And so in John 12 we have again anointing on the feet. It is not now appreciation of Him in government, or in service, or even in grace, although one cannot eliminate these, but the point is that He loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. It is a question, dear brethren, of love. “Hereby we have known love”. 1 John 3:16 Mary had come to know love. It is not said of her, as was said of the woman in Luke, that she loved much; it is rather that Christ loved her. Divine love had come to her in the Son of God. He was on the way to give a full expression of it to God, and to man, and indeed to the whole universe. He was on the way; there were six days yet ahead of Him. But she expressed her conception of what was there; a murderous condition existed outside, but she had the box. Through His frequent visits to Bethany, He had proved to her the depths of the love that was in His heart, for God Himself had come down. With John it is “God so loved”; it is the revelation of Himself, and that by One who as we are told is in the bosom of the Father. Think of being visited, dear brethren, and that frequently, and in the most intimate way, by One who is in the bosom of the Father. Think of the infinite springs of affection that were present on the occasions of these visits. We are not told, as I said, as to her love earlier, but we are told that Jesus loved her; He loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. He had been at the tomb, where Lazarus lay in death; He had groaned at that tomb; He had wept at that tomb; He had called Lazarus by name out of it, and now He is in that circle, what we may call a circle of glory, for it is the circle where the light of the glory of the [p. 90] Son of God has shone — the love of God come near. The power of God had come near in raising Lazarus, and now the One in whom all this is resident is in the house, and Mary is equal to the occasion; she knows love. It is a wonderful thing, beloved brethren, to know love. “Hereby”, says John, “we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us, and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”. 1 John 3:16 It is the crowning feature, as I may say, in the whole blend of the assembly.
Now when the apostle wrote to the Corinthians they were very undignified, for they were allowing man in the flesh. They were allowing their Sauls, whom God had rejected; men of parts, maybe men of means, men of local Corinthian importance were obtaining recognition amongst them on account of these things. They were correspondingly undignified; they were out of accord with this wonderful blend of which I have spoken. And so the apostle brings in, not what existed amongst them, but what existed elsewhere. He refers to the human body, and he says by way of comparison, even as it has many members, so also is the Christ. He does, I admit, say later on that “Ye are Christ’s body”, 1 Corinthians 12:27 but it was characteristic and not absolute. Here we have “the Christ” — the most dignified body of persons ever known on the earth. The patriarchs had been anointed, as I said; Aaron had been anointed as priest, David as king, and Elisha as prophet; but there never had been a body of persons linked up, from all nations, Jews and Gentiles, as he says, into one body. For “in the power of one Spirit”, he says, “we have all been baptised (not ye all, but we all) into one body”. It is really an Ephesian company of brethren that he is referring to, not a Corinthian company. It is a company such as the epistle to the Ephesians contemplates — Jews and Greeks, who had all been baptised in the power of one Spirit into one [p. 91] body. I understand by that that there has been a merging; our wills being gone and replaced by the will of God by the Spirit, we are merged, as in the appreciation, as I said, of Christ presented in the gospels. Our several relative importances disappear.
In the power of one Spirit we are merged in the baptism into one body. A wonderful achievement of God; He has done it by the Spirit. He has reconciled both, we are told, in one body to God by the cross. The cross and the world are always contrary. The Corinthian company needed the ministry of the cross, hence he could not speak of them as “the Christ”. Therefore it is, as I said, an Ephesian company that is in view. They had been reconciled to God by the cross in one body, and had access jointly by one Spirit to the Father; they had been baptised in the power of one Spirit; their nationality, their several national proclivities had disappeared. We are “fitted together”, Ephesians 4:16 as we read in Ephesians, and through the ministry of the gifts, the edifying of the body of Christ goes on, “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ; in order that we may be no longer babes, tossed and carried about by every wind of that teaching ... ..but holding the truth in love”. Ephesians 4:13,14. The joints and bands working, the body edifies itself. Think of the wonderful achievement of God through the death of Christ, bringing in a company merged in this way, in the power of one Spirit!
And further the apostle says, “and have all been given to drink of one Spirit”. 1 Corinthians 12:13 May I not suggest, dear brethren, that these women, of whom we have spoken, had drunk into one spirit, not indeed the Holy Spirit, but into the wonderful spirit of the gospels. Let us learn to drink into that too. I do not say that is what is referred to here; this is the Holy Spirit. And then we have an explanation of “the Christ”, how it is that there is a company here marked off by the qualities of Christ in this fourfold way, as indwelt by the Spirit, which is dignified by the anointing of God to be the vessel of testimony in this world.
Now all that I have said, dear brethren, is that we might come into this. It is not intended to pretend to any public evidence, but to come into the light of the mind of God, how that He requires spiritual dignity. The house of God is no place for our wits; there is no dignity in human wit. What we need in this respect is the anointing, not that which is put upon us, but that which dwells in us; 1 John 2. It makes up for all that which the world relies on, even the religious world. The religious world of the day relies upon human wit, human ability. We are independent of these in the anointing that dwells in us. “Ye have not need”, it says, “that anyone should teach you”, 1 John 2:27 meaning a cultured man. To the man who has got the Spirit, worldly culture is of no value; it is of no value in the house of God; it is, to say the least, undignified; it is out of keeping with the anointing. Think of the power of the Spirit of God in a man! What impetus it gives to his renewed mind, what impetus to his affections, to his feelings, to his sentiments, and to his ministry!
We are independent, dear brethren, of cultivated flesh; let us beware of it — of relying partly on the Spirit and partly on the cultivation of flesh; the latter is a dangerous, insidious snare among the people of God. God would have us to recognise the anointing; it is a reality. He has not left us here without support. We have in the Spirit — the anointing — the means of knowing everything; it is a question of applying ourselves, in dependence on God, in the recognition of the Spirit, to get the mind of God. It is an immense thing to have the anointing. “Ye need not that any man should teach you”. 1 John 2:27 If [p. 93] we recognise man, we shall soon find the end of the Christ, “Christ shall profit you nothing”. Galatians 2:2 “Ye are deprived of all profit from the Christ”. Galatians 2:4 Hence the importance, beloved, of recognising the anointing, that heavenly power that is come down, by which we know all things. Someone would say, Then we do not need gift? Gift is included in that — the anointing includes the gifts. They are all come down from Christ in heaven — from Him who has ascended up — so as to render the assembly independent of man and of cultured flesh.
So dear brethren, what I had in mind in calling attention to all this is not to lead to any pretentious thing like a public anointed vessel now; but what I wish to have before us is the light as to the mind of God. You say, But things have changed; you cannot have the same dignity. God has not changed, He has not lowered His standard! When Elijah says to God at Horeb, I have come here to resign my commission, it is hopeless to continue service, “They have thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left”. 1 Kings 19:14. God says, “I have reserved to myself seven thousand”. 1 Kings 19:18. He says, Elijah, if you have given up, I have not; and moreover, I intend to carry on my service in the original dignity in which I began it; go and anoint Hazael king over Syria, and Jehu king over Israel, and anoint Elisha to be prophet in thy stead. Note the word ‘anoint’. It is God asserting His right to dignity. No lowering of the standard; a day of small things does not change God, He remains what He ever was. “The word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt and my Spirit”, He says, “remaineth among you”, Haggai 2:5. God asserts His dignity and what is due to Him, and so if we cannot serve with dignity it is better not to serve. And so in regard to rule; better not attempt it unless you can rule in a dignified way. But we [p. 94] learn by ruling ourselves, and then by ruling ourselves we are qualified to rule in the house of God. So with grace, and so with love, for it is not love in word, but in deed and in truth. As Paul says, “Yet show I unto you a way of more surpassing excellence”. 1 Corinthians 12:31. That is within our reach; all these things, dear brethren, are within our reach, and God would have them in us, in the dignity, in measure, in which they shone in Christ.